Teaching English in Vietnam : improving the provisionin the private sector

Despite the growing need for communicative English skills suited to employment in the fast developing context of Vietnam and government policies stating the will to upgrade delivery of English language within the education system, traditional grammar translation teaching methods still prevail. Many educators are unclear about the concept of “communicative teaching” and its implementation within the Vietnamese context where overly large classes, poor equipment, out of date teaching materials, inadequately trained teachers, and written grammar-focused government examinations are the norm. As a result, young people are increasingly turning to private English language centres to help fill their communicative English gap in the hope of gaining employment in the newly developing sectors. However, as this study shows, despite the overwhelming desire of these students to learn in ways that assist them to practice spoken English, few of these private centres are able to satisfy their stated wishes due to teachers’ lack of knowledge and experience, and concern for the government grammar and vocabulary based examinations required for certification of English. In this context, this thesis aims to help fill the gap by designing an ideal model of an English language center suited to delivering world class communicative English language courses in the specific context of Vietnam.