in vietnam schools english mathematics

A well-established world-class day/boarding school in Milan is seeking to appoint several teachers for mathematics, science, Italian and English to start immediately or January 2023. ACADEMIC MATHS, SCIENCE, AND ENGLISH TEACHERS . 02 Aug 2022 High School English Teacher . 29 Jul 2022 . China; Full-time; China Global Connections; Teaching job at EMG Education_Vietnam . 28 Jul 2022 . Vietnam; Vietnam; Full-time; EMG EDUCATION; TEACHING JOB IN VIETNAM . 19 Jul 2022 . Vietnam; Full-time; Very large text size. At the foot of a towering pagoda in Springvale, 20 primary school students wave goodbye to their parents. They are at the Hoa Nghiem Buddhist Temple, where Melbourne's first Vay Tiền Online Tima. What do Vietnamese kids actually learn in public schools here? Former educator Frank Fox provides a glimpse into the local system. The school system in Vietnam rests on one major foundation learning by heart. While beneficial in fields like mathematics and geometry, it suffocates creativity in other subjects. Don’t get me wrong, there is creativity going on in Vietnam. There are people with the ability to react fast, find independent solutions and do as good a job as everybody else in the world. But it is not the native education system that hauls in the credit in these cases, only individual effort and determination. Fortunately these essential traits are commonly found in Vietnamese people. Let’s have a look a look at each level in the Vietnamese education Primary School Secondary School High SchoolKindergarten in Vietnam Kindergarten is not yet dominated by learning, it’s rather a nursery with opportunities to play and learn the rules of social interaction. Yes friends, to ensure that your child is treated well at the kindergarten, a monthly gift, nicely wrapped in an envelope, is more than welcome in both public and private School in Vietnam Once in primary school, our children face a curriculum that consists of the following basic subjects Mathematics, English, Reading and Writing, Sports, Crafting, Painting, Music and Morals and Etiquette. Looks pretty neat, doesn’t it? If you replace the moral and etiquette subject with basic science, it looks like our own curriculum back home. The difference is, that the children here learn by heart what can be learned by heart. In music you learn the notes and repeat meticulously what’s in the book. Even if learning by heart already kicks in, it’s still primary school, so the pressure is not yet in full effect. Looks pretty neat, doesn’t it? If you replace the moral and etiquette subject with basic science, it looks like our own curriculum back home. The difference is, that the children here learn by heart what can be learned by heart. In music you learn the notes and repeat meticulously what’s in the book. Even if learning by heart already kicks in, it’s still primary school, so the pressure is not yet in full School in Vietnam If somebody in Europe told you that he had to learn the periodic table by heart, you would either roll on the floor laughing or buy him a pint out of pity. Well, prepare to dish out many pints in Vietnam. – Mathematics This is the same as everywhere else in the universe. I actually can’t imagine any other way to learn math than learning the rules first and then start applying them and playing with numbers. – Literature This was one of my favorite subjects in secondary school. In Vietnam you basically learn about Vietnamese authors, preferably those from the army. You read articles, discuss the morale of the story and the writing style of the author. After that you learn his biography by heart. My question whether there is freestyle writing at tests was answered with a straight “No”. – Arts Learning about art in Vietnam is quite similar to learning about arts in Europe, however stricter. Topics are given and the students have to follow them. – Music This subject a creative highlight in a very Vietnamese way Take a song and replace the lyrics with your own. The cooler teachers let the students sing for the test. – English Grammar is taught, as well as reading and communication. The education in terms of grammar is pretty good and nobody can deny that. The main problem here is that many Vietnamese English teachers deliver a strong accent in the first place, and copying them doesn’t make it better. If students find the time to watch English movies in their spare time, they can develop pretty good skills. But that brings us back to the point of personal determination. – Chemistry This subject is taught without exploding oxyhydrogen gas, there is no mixing of sugar with sulphuric acid and no lithium tossed into a bowl of water. But as I mentioned above, these activities are substituted by learning by heart the periodic table of elements. – Physics Quite similar to chemistry in terms of the absence of practical experiments and the presence of more formulae to learn at school. – Biology The science of life another topic. Apparently there an array of interesting experiments is conducted in Vietnamese secondary school that we didn’t do, even at high school. Okay, here as well as in other subjects learning by heart is an integral part of the system. But they practice microscopy, anatomy and even dissecting a live frog. Vivisection is, however, not a practice to recommend for the sake of compassion. But, they usually don’t have a real skeleton in the cabinet, like we did. This subject shows it’s worst face. Out of roughly 100 Vietnamese students I asked on occasion if they like history, how many answered with “Yes”, do you think? Exactly zero. History in Vietnam comes with a general introduction to the king generation of Vietnam, skipping scientists and foreign countries. There is no cultural education about the past. But what do they actually learn in history? Well, on average, 12 A4 pages per week about how many helicopters were destroyed in this battle, how many soldiers died in that battle and what are the relatives of that general, his biography… is crammed into the short-term memory until the next test. When I asked roughly 45 students why there is a day off on the 2nd of September, only two knew what was going on and one of them finally came up with the answer “independence day”. – Geography A subject that gives an overview over the continents and introduces personalities like Columbus. The rest is focused on climate and agriculture, such as soil types, coffee production and weather. In a society that derives the lion’s share of its identity from farming and fishery, this is actually an important part of education. – Sports Physical Education is pretty much the same as it is back in good ol’ Europe and North America. Tests and exams at secondary school In secondary school students are expected, as in most other systems, to sit a variety of regular tests and exams. These include simple tests, evaluatory exams and entrance exams to further education. Simple tests There is a 15 minute test every week and a 45 minute test twice a month. It’s basically writing down everything you have crammed into your short-term memory over the last week – under time pressure. Evaluatory exams There are four main exams during every grade and they are basically the same as at the tests, but obviously a little more significant. High School Entrance Exams Here students re-cram everything from the last nine months that conveniently vanished from the short-term memory. By heart of course. There are four subjects that get tested during the final exams at secondary school in Vietnam Mathematics, Literature, English and one practical subject that is chosen every year by the Department of Education. This subject can either be biology, geography or physics. The first two account for 20 points each, the last two for 10 each, which adds up to a maximum of 60 points you can reach. In some special cases, a student can reach more than 60 points though, but that is rare and only for students who had excellent marks during the whole course of secondary school. Every year the headmaster of every high school sets a minimum score every student needs to be accepted at this particular school. Students write down their preferred high school, as well as usually two alternative institutes in case they cannot reach the required score to be accepted by their first School in Vietnam High school is basically the same as in secondary school, except there is more pressure and more to learn than before. The entrance exam for universities is quite similar At home, in Austria, I sometimes cursed the outdated school system we have and the fact that we are required to cram our heads with useless information from outdated books. And taking a look into the Vietnamese education system almost made me exclaim “Tu Felix Austria”! Almost. But at the end of the day, accepting the bad just because you’ve found worse is not the way to go. I originally moved to Vietnam to pursue a dream of living in Asia and teaching English, but over the past few years, my role as a teacher has morphed from teaching English as a second language to teaching Science and Maths. I actually studied Biology at university, so when the opportunity came along to utilise my degree and teach science and maths at a Vietnamese public school, you can bet I jumped at it! This is an opportunity that many people are not aware of, so I thought I’d lay out all the details here for anyone who also has a background in science or maths that they want to make use of. Where can you teach science and maths? I taught science and maths through a company called EMG Education, which supply teachers for public schools in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. As a secondary teacher at EMG, you specialise in either the science and maths program or the English program. Primary teachers teach all three subjects; science, maths and English. To teach within the secondary science and maths program you must meet the same requirements that every other teaching English position in Vietnam asks for, with the addition of a background in science or maths. A science/math background is not required for the EMG primary program. By teaching the science and math program at EMG, you are essentially teaching kids how to speak English through specialist content. This is called content integrated language learning CLIL and it looks like it might be the future of language learning. I loved my time teaching science and maths in Vietnam. I felt more challenged and engaged in the lesson content than I did teaching English, which I think shone through in my teaching. EMG follows the UK science and maths curriculum, with content similar to GCSEs. I was always so impressed by the knowledge and ability of the students – they were keeping up with the UK curriculum despite English being their second language. EMG provides full lesson plans, materials and textbooks, so there is actually little prep required outside of familiarising yourself with the materials. I taught grade 6, the first year of secondary school. For some of my students, it was their first time learning about science, let alone studying it in English. My 100+ students showed curiosity and excitement in every class; It was beautiful to see their wonder at learning about the world through science for the first time. We studied a wide variety of topics across all three sciences, including plant biology, the elements, geology, forces and space. Most science lessons included an interactive experiment which was so fun to do together. Maths was more challenging for me to teach as I’m pretty terrible at maths and have completely forgotten everything I studied at school. But challenges are good and by the end of the year, I had grown to love my maths classes. As with science, we studied a range of topics, some that my students already understood in Vietnamese and others that were brand new to them. Decimal numbers, fractions, prime numbers, 3D shapes and graphing are some of the topics I remember teaching. Obviously, I taught a lower secondary grade, so the topics were fairly simple but they do get more and more complex the higher the grade you teach. Normally EMG will assess your background knowledge and place you accordingly, so if you have a masters in mathematics, you’re probably going to be asked to be a higher grade specialist math teacher. Teaching for EMG Education As already mentioned, I loved my time teaching science and maths. I left this position for two main reasons; personality clashes and lifestyle, not because of the teaching or work environment. Pros of EMG Education ✅ Because you only have 4 different classes, you end up spending a lot of time with the kids each week which allowed us to build up a strong bond with your students. ✅ The content is fun and engaging to teach, and students are engaged and interested. ✅ The offices where teachers prep classes are super social which is perfect if you are new to the city. ✅ The academic coordinators who escort teachers to classes have almost native level English a higher ability than I found at my language centre’s equivalent position. Plus they were all amazing people and I have lots of fond memories working together. Cons of EMG Education ❌ I received little-to-no developmental support or teaching guidance during my time at EMG. This was probably just my case, as I came to EMG with a lot of teaching experience and was quickly put into their top pay bracket so I guess they thought I was doing a good job already. It does make me wonder if teaching at public schools is better suited to more experienced teachers who don’t need as much support. ❌ You are required to stay in the office until 5pm, even if your classes finish at 330pm. For me, this was a lot of dead time when I could have been working on the blog I ducked out most days, coming back to clock out at 5pm. ❌ It was challenging to take vacation time during the semester. It’s not impossible but it is discouraged, with an emphasis put on taking time off in the summer months when classes don’t need to be covered. ❌ When I worked at EMG, the science and maths department was very male-dominated, and at that, I worked with some very immature individuals. The Lowdown on teaching at EMG Most secondary math and science teachers have 8 lessons a week; 4 science and 4 maths. Plus two free blocks to prepare, so a total of 10 blocks. Working hours are scheduled between 8am – 5pm; most of my classes started at 730am in the morning and then again around 2pm. Most class sizes range from 30-35 students, always with an assistant in the room. The largest class size I heard of at EMG was 37 students. ✍ For more information on teaching English in Vietnam, check out my Complete Guide to Teaching in Vietnam.

in vietnam schools english mathematics