The Vietnamese experience

3.5.3 The Vietnamese experience

According to the executive manager of the project, the target is Vietnam is not one of the countries included in Byram and set to ind out how many teachers need government-funded language

Parmenter (2012b), and is accordingly dealt with here in its own training; but the teachers naturally fear that if they fail they will lose subsection, having been compiled from materials available on the their jobs. According to others described as “oficials”, teachers need internet. Vietnam is important because it is a fellow member of B2 in order to read academic papers to contribute to their professional ASEAN, and a suitable comparator country for Malaysia.

development. The current success rate is 18% in Hanoi, 61 out of 700 in Ben Tre province, and only 1 in 700 in a province that

Tien (2013, pp. 67-68) reports that the Ministry of Education and remains unnamed. The highest rate was achieved in Hue following Training has issued the Common Framework of Levels of Foreign screening by the British Council.

Language Proiciency based on the CEFR, and set the targets A1 for the end of primary school, A2 for lower secondary school, and B1

At this point we have to consider what the targets actually for general school leavers. The target seems to be still B1 for most

mean. The matching of primary school with A1, lower secondary university graduates, although those graduating from language colleges

with A2 and upper secondary with B1 is neat and intuitively are expected to get B2 or C1. Tien discusses a number of problems (p.

satisfying, but this is beside the point. The first question is whether

67) including an improved curriculum which is nevertheless “beyond the students can achieve the targets. Given the very low success the reach of the majority of students at general school”, poor teacher

rate of teachers reaching their target of B2, this seems unlikely. quality, the traditional “teaching of grammar rules … grammar

The second question is what percentage of students are exercises … and vocabulary”, insuficient classroom facilities, and

expected to reach the targets. In the real world it is impossible for testing that “focuses only on checking language knowledge rather than

100% of students to succeed, and if no percentage target is set, if just language skills”.

1% succeed, the target could be said to have been met. Targets are 1% succeed, the target could be said to have been met. Targets are

project. Thanh Nién News 8 suggests that Vietnam is trying to do in seven years something that took Singapore thirty years. An

A target set for university entrance could mean that students not article in the UK Guardian Weekly 9 suggests that a miracle will be

reaching the target would be denied university entrance, and language required. What seems to be missing is a plan commensurate with

graduates failing to reach B2 could be denied their degrees. But primary the size of the problem – or one might suggest a roadmap – to

school children failing to reach A1 would presumably not be denied

enable aspirations to become a reality.

entrance to secondary education. The fact that teachers appear not to know the consequence of not reaching their target does not give conidence that the consequences have been thought through. In

3.6 The CEFR in Malaysia

short, judging by the information available on the internet, it is not The purpose of this section is to draw attention to the clear what the targets are for, they would appear to be unrealistic, and consequences for Malaysia of adopting the CEFR, and to the there is no way of ascertaining whether they have been met or not.

advantages that will accrue as a result.

Huge amounts of money are budgeted to improve standards of