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VietNamNet Bridge – Many schools get puzzled when implementing the pilot English teaching programme for first graders. The problem is that the demand far exceeds the teaching ability.

The HCM City Education and Training Department has decided that students will not have to sit the exam to be able to enroll in intensive English classes. Those students, who want to study English, will only have to register their demand with the schools. However, the problem is that there are too many students who want to learn English, while the number of English teachers remains modest.

“160 first graders have registered to learn English. The students are now put in the same classes with the students who do not have the demand to study English. However, they will be put in separated classes from the second semester. What I am worried about is that the splitting cause a great chaos,” said a teacher of Bau Sen Primary School in District 5 in HCM City.

Nguyen Xuan Bao, Headmaster of Bau Sen Primary School, said that he still does not know what to do with the students who have registered to study English. The students must be divided into four classes, while in current conditions, the school can only arrange two classes. “Recruiting English teachers proves to be the biggest problem now, because it will not be easy to find teachers if we can only offer modest pay,” Bao said.

Under the current regulations, the teachers who teach English to first graders, under the pilot programme must obtain TKT certificate granted by Cambridge ESOL. In order to obtain the certificate, teachers must attend a training course in English teaching skills with foreign teachers. However, the problem is that teachers themselves would have to pay the tuition for the training course, estimated at six million dong.

“I agree that TKT certificate is a necessary document which shows teachers’ qualification. However, it is unreasonable to force teachers, who have modest income, to pay for the training course,” said a headmaster of a primary school in District 3 in HCM City.

She went on to say that the school really wants to pay the tuition for the teachers, but it cannot arrange the money. Meanwhile, students only have to pay 50,000 dong a month for English classes, which is not enough to pay the teachers.

Shortage of classrooms also causes headache to primary schools. The city’s Education and Training Department has decided that every class can only have a maximum of 35 students. Meanwhile, schools say they cannot arrange enough classrooms for so many students,

“We have no idle classrooms. All the rooms have been used to ensure that all the children in the district can go to school,” headmaster of a primary school in Tan Phu District said.

It seems that many schools are puzzled when implementing the pilot English teaching programme. At some schools, students, who who want to study English, are put in the same classes with those who don’t. At other schools, students who study English are put in special classes. Yet other schools still have not begun to accept registrations from students who want to attend English classes.

Headmaster of a school in District 3 complained that his school is still awaiting guildelines from the local education sub-department. “Our teachers are very worried. They fear that when the classes are re-arranged, this will affect the teaching quality,” he said. As first graders are small children who may not adjust well and find it difficult when put in other classes where they have to sit with new friends and study with new teachers.

Though the HCM City Education and Training Department has decided that first graders can also begin to study English, some educators still believe that it would be better to start teaching English in the second grade.

P. V

VietNamNet Bridge – Ton Than is the revered teacher of many well known and successful scientists, senior officials, educators and journalists. He used to teach af Trung Vuong Secondary School, and is now a senior researcher at the Vietnam Education Science Institute.

The teacher with respectfed personality

In the speech delivered at the ceremony celebrating the achievements of Vietnamese Professor Ngo Bao Chau after the professor received the Fields Medal in India three months ago, Professor Chau mentioned Teacher Ton Than as his respected teacher, who deserved credits for making Professor Chau who he is nowadays.

Ton Than is also the former teacher of many other famous people, including Professor of Mathematics Vu Ha Van, Professor Le Hong Van, Professor Vu Dinh Hoa, Professor Dang Vu Minh and Journalist Thu Uyen.

Ton Than’s house these days is full of flowers sent by his old students to congratulate him on the occasion of Vietnamese Teachers’ Day on November 20.

The teacher related that many years ago, he lived in a small 22-square-metre room in No 16 Hang Da Street and earned 53 dong a month. However, he never received any gifts from students.

At that time, under the subsidization system, when people suffered financial difficulties, it was very difficult to buy goods with the coupons provided by the State. The teacher then had a student, whose father was the Director of the city’s trade department, whom Ton Than as a teacher could ask for help to buy food from state-owned department stores. But he never did.

The teacher recalled a day, when a parent came to meet him and offered him the right to buy an electric pan, a very valuable product at that time. The parent had the right to buy the pan as the award for his big achievements in production. However, the teacher said he did not dare to receive the gift, because this was really an overly valuable gift.

The teacher related that he did not receive any gifts from students, though he and his wife, both teachers, earned only small sums of money. Their salaries were not enough to buy medicine for children when they got sick or tobuy milk for them.

“In those days, though I was poor, I never received gifts from students and their parents. If I had done this, students would have despised me and I would not have been able to teach them,” he said.

However, after many times of refusing the gifts, he had to accept one kind of present: books. The students and parents, who had the opportunities to travel abroad, gave him a lot mathematics books in different languages.

The teacher said that he has been using these books as valuable materials to teach his students and write textbooks for Vietnamese students.

Dang Hoang Trung, one of his students, who won the gold medal at the 16th International Mathematics Olympiad, sent his teacher a big 20-kilogramme batch of mathematics textbooks. The student asked his mother to give the books to his teacher prior to November 20, as a gift on the occasion of the Vietnamese Teachers’ Day.

The teacher of big scientists

During the 15 years of teaching mathematics at Trung Vuong Secondary School, Teacher Ton Than “produced” 215 excellent students in mathematics, who got 42 national prizes. In 1974, Vietnam sent its team to the International Mathematics Olympiad for the first time. The team included five members, and four of them were Ton Than’s students. They are Dang Le Minh, who then got the gold medal, Dang Hoang Trung, bronze medal, Vu Dinh Hoa, silver medal.

Professor Ngo Bao Chau also won two gold medals at the later Olympiads.

Though the teacher is very proud of the students, who have been successful in their fields, he never forgets the students, who have not been so successful.

There was a student who did not visit Ton Than for many years after he finished school. Not because he did not miss the teacher, but just because he hadn’t have any notable achievements. The student told himself that he would only visit the teacher when he became successful. However, Ton Than said that he loved all his students.

Professor Vu Dinh Hoa, a student of Teacher Ton Than, now a prestigious lecturer at the Hanoi University of Education, who led many Vietnamese teams to International Olympiads, said: “No good teaching method will be useful if teachers do not love their students. With Teacher Than, we could study through the most modern teaching methods. He ralways took care of us, and he did this with his whole heart, not because he wanted to gain achievements. We understoodd this well, because we were innocent, but very sensitive children”.

Tu Uyen

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