Teacher Nguyễn Thị Thu Huyền and her students. — Photo courtesy of Huyền

HẢI PHÒNG — Working at a school in an island commune with many shortages, Nguyễn Thị Thu Huyền has constantly strived to overcome all difficulties to bring her students colourful and lively lessons.

Huyền is a teacher of the Hoàng Châu Primary and Junior Secondary School in Hoàng Châu island commune, Cát Hải District in Hải Phòng northern port city.

Constantly innovating

Being born and growing up on the Hoàng Châu island commune, where wind, waves and sea surround the whole village, Huyền understands the difficulties, hardships and dangers facing many people here.

Therefore, right from her school days, she longed to become a teacher, then return to her hometown and sow the seeds of dreams and ambitions for the children.

But when that desire became a reality, officially becoming a literature teacher and in charge of the youth union activities of the Hoàng Châu Primary and Junior Secondary School, Huyền truly felt all the difficulties and challenges of a teacher on an island commune, especially a young one.

Hoàng Châu is a poor fishing commune, so after class, many students have to help their parents with housework, even go to sea.

Many of them feel inferior and self-conscious about their family circumstances and lack of harmony with friends and teachers.

Determined not to give up no matter how difficult or hard it was, Huyền tried to understand the students' circumstances to sympathise and share with them.

As a young teacher, both in age and in her career, she was not afraid to learn from the experiences of her colleagues inside and outside the school, constantly improving her professional knowledge.

She researches lectures and methods on the internet, registers for courses serving the work of the Youth Union – Young Pioneers at the same time as teaching literature.

She innovates teaching methods and improves training quality by applying software and applications in teaching such as the online learning management system Canvas, online learning tools through the game Kahoot!.

Integrating tools into teaching and applying new learning methods, her lectures are no longer monotonous, literature classes are no longer boring.

Students are extremely excited and interested, thereby systematically deepening knowledge.

Her students also know how to use tools to solve real-life problems with creative thinking products.

According to Huyền, in addition to innovating teaching methods, scientific research is also a way for young teachers to improve their professional qualifications, better fulfilling their task of spreading knowledge to students.

Over the years, she has had many innovative experiences and scientific research topics applied in practice. A life jacket and raft project made from plastic bottles was entered into the top five finalists of the contest 'Creative plastic waste for a trash-free ocean' organised by the UNESCO Việt Nam.

All for dear students

Not only fulfilling her role as a literature teacher, Huyền is also an excellent team leader.

Huyền shared that the work of the Youth Union – Young Pioneers always required a leader who knows clearly how to plan, design, organise moral education activities, lifestyle, and create a training environment for team members.

The Youth Union – Young Pioneers activities must be truly practical, appropriate, always innovative, give timely encouragement, praise and rewards for each individual and group that reaches new achievements to create excitement for the students.

“To develop the Youth Union campaign, first of all, we must attract a large number of students to participate, so I am always close to them, understand their psychology and wholeheartedly guide them like a sister or close friend,” said Huyền.

With that perspective, Huền proactively learned about the students, especially those with special circumstances, to propose appropriate and timely forms of help such as meeting, encouraging and supporting them with books, clothes and milk.

She has implemented many programmes and activities to encourage and attract students such as 'Helping students go to school', 'Small plans' and 'Reading and following the Young Pioneers newspaper'.

These activities have attracted a large number of students, giving them more motivation to try harder, be confident in studying and fully participate in collective activities.

Therefore, the Hoàng Châu School is the first one in Cát Hải District to have students in the top 10 excellent candidates in the National Young Pioneer Leaders Festival.

With her efforts, enthusiasm and creativity for her beloved students, Huyền has made many achievements and received many certificates of merit at all levels such as certificates of merit from the Ministry of Education and Training, from the Central Youth Union, from the Hải Phòng City People's Committee. For three consecutive years she received the 'Outstanding Young Teacher' award at the city level.

Huyền was also one of 60 teachers selected by the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee to be honoured as outstanding teachers in the programme 'Sharing with teachers' in 2024.

“With the spirit of doing everything for my beloved students, I will constantly strive, innovate, create and inspire generations of students, bringing joy, hope and nurturing dreams for students in Cát Hải island district,” said Huyền. — VNS