VietNamNet Bridge – Linguists and educators believe that it is necessary to create a local CEFR-V, that is, a Vietnamese version of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, a set of standards used in teaching of English in Vietnam.

CEFR guidelines describe the achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe. However, the framework has also been applied in many Asian countries, including Vietnam.

Dr. Nguyen Duc Hoat, former Dean of the English Faculty of the Hanoi Foreign Trade University, said it would be better for Vietnam to have a new approach, suitable to Vietnamese conditions.

Hoat suggested creating CEFR-V, a Vietnamese version, similar to CEFR-J, the Japanese version. The Vietnamese version would allow teaching of English under Vietnamese conditions in accordance with European standards.

The CEFR-J compilation started in 2008 and the version is expected to be applied at Japanese schools soon. Japan is also reportedly considering designing 12 levels of CEFR English, not six as in the original version.

Teaching and learning of English need to be designed in a way to fit the Vietnamese capability, conditions and the demand for English in different working environments.

According to Dr. Vu Thi Tu Anh, deputy head of the Management Board for the National Foreign Language Teaching Program by 2020, the Vietnamese six-level framework of reference for foreign languages was set up by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in January 2014.

Anh said that the framework is not compulsory for general schools or education establishments. It is only designed for reference for managers and educators to use to design English teaching curricula.

The framework will be adjusted and upgraded in the future to make it more suitable for Vietnamese who study foreign languages.

However, Anh warned that it will take a long time to fulfill the English teaching program. MOET now focuses on training teachers of English. It is expected that Vietnam would need 100,000 teachers of English to fulfill the program.

“It will take time to obtain 100,000 standard teachers,” Anh said. Hong Kong has only 57 percent of high school teachers who meet the fifth level and 37 percent of primary school teachers who meet the fourth level.

Italy, which implemented the standards 13 years before Vietnam, has less than 50 percent of teachers meeting standards.

Van Chung