Minister of Education and Training Phùng Xuân Nhạ on Saturday instructed relevant agencies to pay more attention to how to improve the quality of teaching foreign languages, mostly English, at public schools after low scores of English in this year’s national high school graduation examination. — Photo baotintuc.vn

HCM CITY — Minister of Education and Training Phùng Xuân Nhạ on Saturday instructed relevant agencies to pay more attention to how to improve the quality of teaching foreign languages, mostly English, at public schools after low scores of English in this year’s national high school graduation examination.

At a workshop to review the efficiency of teaching foreign languages within the last five years, Nhạ said that many provinces and cities have not yet been aware of how to use the national project on teaching foreign languages at public schools.

Authorities at some localities offered targets exceeding their real conditions and were therefore difficult to reach, he added.

Nhạ admitted that investment in raising the qualifications for teachers to meet standards in foreign languages teaching is not adhered to, leading to low quality.

Curricula and textbooks for foreign language teaching still focus on theory instead of practical skills, he said, adding that they fail to meet European standards.

If teaching foreign languages is not standard, it is better to stop teaching, Nhạ said. He explained that because students learn the wrong pronunciation when they are young, it is difficult to change.

Teaching foreign languages currently still focuses on academic knowledge, he said.

Many students could not communicate with foreigners, he said, urging that changes need to be carried out to improve quality.

In this year, Nhạ required local educational authorities to check qualification of foreign language teachers and to retrain them in the case they fail to meet the standards.

Training of these teachers also should be reformed, he ordered.

With such low quality, the goal that English becomes the second language in the country will be difficult to reach, he said.

If reform in teaching English is not carried out right now, the goal will never be achieved, he added.

Nhạ said the country should learn from Singapore which took 38 years to turn English into the second foreign language.

Nguyễn Thị Mai Hữu, deputy head of the management board of the national project on teaching foreign languages at public schools, said that a new English teaching programme will be taught this year.

A programme for other languages is being assessed and will start to be taught in the future, she said.

The ministry encourages teachers or organisations to compile textbooks of foreign languages to base its training programme.

Moreover, it is setting up a bank of electronic documents for teachers and students, she added. —VNS