On October 11^th, 2016, University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi (ULIS – VNU) cooperated with a prestigious educational organization, National Geographic Learning to hold the symposium: Classroom English proficiency improvement for English teachers at ULIS-Sunwah building.

Reporters at the symposium are ULIS’s president – Dr. Do Tuan Minh, Assoc. Prof. Donald Freeman, Assoc. Prof. Le Van Canh and Chau Van Thuy – Specialist of Secondary Education Divisions of Quang Nam Department of Education and Training. The symposium was attended by Madam Nguyen Thi Mai Huu, Deputy Head of Standing Board of National Foreign Language Project 2020 and guests from universities and Departments of Education and Training throughout the country as well as all interested parties.

In the symposium, 4 reporters presented in turn their reports and shared personal viewpoints on classroom English proficiency improvement for English teacher.

With the report “Developing classroom proficiency to teach English in English: Working in new ways”, Assoc. Prof. Donald Freeman of School of Education under University of Michigan shared that enormous resources had been invested in capacity development for English teachers in the world. Based on experience in the real terms, he presented some assumptions for approaches to classroom English proficiency improvement and put forward another approach for these challenges.

With the topic “Assessing learning opportunities through classroom interaction – Implications for teacher education programs”, Assoc. Prof. Le Van Canh of ULIS asserted that besides English, in-class teaching and interaction methods affected the education quality. Lending ground from collected assessment researches, he recommended priority to classroom English proficiency improvement for teachers so that they can address complex processes in foreign language study.

Mr. Chau Van Thuy presented the report “Classroom English proficiency improvement for English teachers of Quang Nam province”. He reported the teaching practice of English teachers and initial success when applying training program on English For Teaching (EFT) for teachers in Quang Nam province.

Notably, Dr. Minh, ULIS’s president presented the report “Changes in foreign language teacher training model: Recommendations from ULIS – VNU”. He stated that one of key tasks of National Foreign Language Project 2020 is to improve capacity for teachers. In 5 recent years, this task has gained many praiseworthy achievements.

However, to improve the efficiency of this task, Dr. Minh suggested building a new foreign language teacher training model. He then presented in detail fundamentals of such new foreign language teacher training model through 4 keywords: Regular, systematic, practical and effective.

For National Geographic Learning, Mr. Michael Cahill, Director in Asia shared “National Geographic Learning is very honored to work side by side with ULIS – VNU to build a creative, suitable and effective teacher training model to support teachers in different provinces”.

The reports gained much interest from participants. Afterwards, the symposium moved to discussion in an open and frank manner about issues related to pedagogical capacity improvement for English teachers

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The symposium closed with many positive results. Through reports and discussions, all participants agreed on the necessity of pedagogical capacity improvement for English teachers. In addition, new training model received positive feedback which will be premise for ULIS to deploy this model.

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