VietNamNet Bridge – Many experts say that TOEIC (Test of English International Communication) will not be suitable to Vietnam, warning that the application of TOEIC on a large scale in Vietnam will repeat the bitter lessons of the A-B-C certificate-based English teaching movement several years ago.
Experts’ concerns have been raised since the Ministry of Education and Training signed an MOU with the US ETS (Educational Testing Service) on using TOEIC as the standard to assess the level of professional English of people.
Under the education development strategy 2008-2020, Vietnam strives to have the majority of youths able to use foreign languages proficiently. English will be a compulsory subject in primary schools, for 3rd class students.
After the said MOU was signed, IIG Vietnam, the official representative of ETS, organised many promotion campaigns to bring TOEIC into universities through TOEIC Vietnam. In HCM City, TOEIC Vietnam had working sessions with some universities including Hong Bang, Banking University, Marking and Economics Universities on creating curricula in accordance with TOEIC standards.
However, a lot of English teachers believe that TOEIC does not fit Vietnam’s education.
Dr Nguyen Hoang Que, Dean of English Faculty at the Marketing University:
It is necessary to use new standards instead of the programme on granting A, B and C certificates, which failed completely. The programme showed too many shortcomings, including low application level and inefficiency due to out-of-date teaching methods. However, it is still necessary to consider the application of TOEIC instead of the A, B, C certificate-based programme.
In order to apply TOEIC, universities will have to rewrite their curricula, raise the number of English lessons and classes. The more important thing is that English teachers need to be retrained.
Nguyen Dinh Huy, Master, Lecturer in the English Faculty, HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanities:
The application of TOEIC on a large scale in universities may repeat the bitter lessons of the A-B-C certificate-based English teaching programme. With TOEIC, teachers will show students how to get high scores, but will not focus on obtaining reading, listening, writing and speaking skills.
Dr Vu Thi Phuong Anh, Director of the Centre for Testing and Examining Education Quality under HCM City National University:
The TOEIC version now being used in Vietnam is an old version which utilises 1970s’ scientific theory of language testing, which only focuses on listening and reading skills, while not paying much attention to speaking and writing.
If applying TOEIC, teachers and learners will focus on learning by heart certain contents and the limited language used on the tests. This will not help improve the English knowledge of learners.
Vietnam should learn lessons from South Korea and Japan. In the two countries, people spent a lot of money to learn English, while businesses applied TOEIC throughout the countries. However, the English of Japanese and South Korean people is not good, especially if compared to Singapore and Malaysia. They choose other ways of learning English and use other products.
TOEIC imitates another product of ETS, TOEFL the old version (before 1995). The old version of TOEFL was once nearly boycotted by US universities themselves in the 1990s, and TOEFL had to change it to the current format.
Therefore, it is necessary to consider thoroughly the purposes of every education establishment and the diversified demands of students before applying TOEIC in English teaching at universities. The fact that many universities still use TOEIC can be explained by two reasons 1. ignorance, or 2. universities pretend to be deaf and dumb to benefit certain people.
(Source: SGTT) | 
