Thursday, April 28, 2011

Learning English in my country.

        My country is Vietnam, if you don’t know where Vietnam is, you can google it easily.

        I have been learning English for a long time, when I was in high school. But as almost English student in Vietnam, I cannot communication in English before I come here. Through many years I had learnt English, I’ve just learnt only one skill is grammar.

        English class in Vietnam is traditional class. We used text books written by Vietnamese teachers and in my opinion, they are not interesting. They just focus to grammar and almost there are no pronunciation practices, or just a little. All exams in high school is grammar, so teachers and students should focus to grammar. We don’t communicate in class as well as discussion. This is the reason why in Vietnam, students know so much about “tense, passive form, modal verb…”, but they can’t speak a whole sentence and can’t also communicate with foreigner.


        The better way to learn all 4 skills in English is go to a English center, but It’s certainly not cheap. Teachers come from everywhere over the world. Today I maybe learn American accent, but tomorrow, maybe is Singapore accent or India accent. We don’t have environment to speak English except we are in large city.

        Nowadays, there are so many English lessons available online. This is very convenient for Vietnamese students want to learn English. They can listen English online and practice pronunciation. With many Vietnamese students who are live in small town, speaking English fluently is almost impossible.

P/S: How about your country, I'd like to know how you had learnt English in your country.

By Hiep Luong

5 comments:

  1. I was surprised that there are only study English grammar in Vietnam.
    In Japan, Education of English is almost same as your country, Hiep... Especially in the high school, we had to study mainly grammar, reading, and listening. and a little bit of conversation. Usually, we just stayed own desks, and listen the teacher's lectures. We only can say something when teacher pointed of the student to answer the questions. Also, high school students had to study hard to enter the college. They only needed to study for the college, not to communicate in English. But, there are usually one of the native English speaker each public school. So, students can try to talk them. But, the native English teacher is usually busy, so students don't have enough chance to talk a lot.
    Recently, our country's education law changed. There were used be start studying English at middle school, but now we starts at elementary school.
    By the way, you are staying in the U.S. now. So you can improve your oral skill of English more and more!! by satoko

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  2. Hi Hiep, this is Turki
    It is really starnge thing that the Engish study in your country focusing only on the grammer since the grammer only one skill out of other many important skills. Good step from you that you came here trying to get the language from the native speakers, so you have to use this chance with every minute and try to learn as much as you can, who knows chances do not repeate and come twice.
    Good luck my friend

    Turki

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  3. Hi Hiep, this is Alya
    This is same as my country,. we just studied grammar, also, the teacher explain in Arabic , so strange
    When we got to uv , we can't speak English very well.
    But study of English in America is a good chance to learn all the skills
    Good luck Hiep

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  4. It’s good essay, because I have experienced same situation since in the middle school. When I studded English in my country, I was always learning about grammar and some kinds of the words. That’s it! When my English teacher ordered to me about reading book in high school, I really hated this one, because I did not like to read some English books. In fact, I’m really afraid to read English book and conversation with a foreigner recently. Also I always forget it which is the many kinds of English words. In my case, after high school grade, I had never studded English before I came here. It’s almost 5 years. But if I get a job in Korea, I will need to study English. So nowadays I try to study English again. End of this scrap, In Korea’s education system about English is too treble about my generation. But recently many kind of teaching English style is change to better than before, so many young students can speak English better than me. Sometimes, I’m jealous these guys. By:Jo

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  5. Hi Hiep. I read your writing well. While I read your article, I totally agree with you because how to learn English in school is same way as in Korea. I've learnt only Grammar and Reading in high school. So, when I came to U.S first time, listening and speaking were really hard! Actually, now is still difficult! I think Korea should change how to teach English to student. By Gabi

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