Vietnam Slams TOEIC
Why aren't Japanese and Korean students more proficient in speaking English? Some teachers in Vietnam are blaming TOEIC standardized testing, which focuses more on listening and reading skills. TOEIC mimics other English as a Second Language products, like ETS and the old TOEFL version (before 1995), which was almost boycotted in US universities in the 1990's, until it updated to its current version. Vietnam's education development strategy for 2008-2020 plans to implement English as a compulsory subject in primary schools. In accordance with this objective, the Ministry of Education has signed an MOU with the US ETS (Education Testing Services) to make TOEIC the standardized test to evaluate students' proficiency in English. Nevertheless, Vietnam had a disastrous experience with the A-B-C certificate-based English system many years ago and some fear exists that the recent adoption of TOEIC by the Ministry will simply repeat those sour lessons.
Many Vietnamese teachers are concerned that TOEIC is based not only on outdated linguistic theories, but also relies too heavily on memorization. Dr Vu Thi Phuong Anh, Director of the Centre for Testing and Examining Education Quality under HCM City National University, pointed to the disparity between the money South Korea and Japan each spend on English as a Second Language education and the ability of many of their students to fluently speak the language. When one looks at the success of ESL in Singapore and Malaysia one notices these countries use of products suited to the needs of their students. Furthermore, Dr Vu Thi Phuong Anh went on to say, "the fact that many universities still use TOEIC can be explained by two reasons 1. Ignorance, 2. Universities pretend to be deaf and dumb to benefit certain people".
For more information check out:
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/education/2008/03/775504/
By Sean McCall
The same problem occurs with academic preparation courses in virtually all schools in Vietnam. It is not that TOEIC, IELTS or TOEFL courses are not useful, but many students don't have the necessary English skills to enter such courses and comprehend the material. I don't believe there is anything inherently wrong with TOEIC if students are prepared. All learning needs to follow a sequence of inceasingly more demanding material - if students don't have a solid foundation in English before enrolling in such advanced courses they are wasting their time and money.
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Right!The reason many students do not have the skills in Vietnam to undertake academically based courses is that ESL providers are prepared to allow students to progress through a variety of levels without actually checking their progress.
It is common practice, and ESL teachers' chagrin, that students who are tested and fail miserably on their tests are given dispensation by their "colleges" to progress to the next level of (in)compepetence and handed worthless in-house certificates because if they are not allowed to do so, then the parents (who pay all education fees for their children even well into adulthood), may not re-enroll the child, and therefore the ESL provider will lose custom.
If the parents withdraw their dependent student from one ESL provider, he/she will find a willing alternative upon paying a fee elsewhere anyway.
Therefore in Vietnam, there are far too many ESL students sitting in class-rooms studying at upper levels when they have little or no real understanding of English at all. There is some sort of perception that its the certificate that provides the knowledge.
Compound this with the fact that society in Vietnam tolerates this kind of behaviour in education, and one can see why the industry in Vietnam is a disaster.
There are a few brave institutions, mostly foreign owned and operated, that actually DO turn away students who dont reach the benchmarks, and their strictness is paying off handsomly as parents recognize that attendance at such institutions will not be accompanied by the dishonest methods that go on in the majority, and it is becoming something of a status symbol for them to say "my child got a certificate from ......"
When more establishments like these get serious about actually failing poorly performing students, Vietnam's education sector will begin to have more credibility, and we wont have the common scene of Vietnamese students clutching their "in house" certificates indicating competent English ability arriving on foreign shores to begin University education when they dont have enough command of English to ask at the airport how to get to the bathroom.
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I don't think that this is case specific to Vietnam, but can be said of the TEFL world in general. As it is a business, it's obvious that the customer has to be happy (i.e passing to the next "level") Education and standards will always suffer as a result.
I always think of how frustrating and demotivating it must be to be a learner in classes that are way above their knowledge.
Schools do their share by not informing students that test prep courses will not improve their English, but simply maximize their chances at performing well on the exam so that their results really reflect their level of English.
Until this is addressed and clarified, we will continue to see frustrated learners and teachers.
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