SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO VĨNH PHÚC

HỘI THẢO
Chia sẻ kinh nghiệm trong giảng dạy
và kiểm tra, đánh giá môn tiếng Anh
Seminar on good practices in English
language teaching and testing

Vĩnh Phúc, ngày 16 tháng 04 năm 2015

1


TEACHING WITH UNDERSTANDING
Lê Văn Canh
All dedicated teachers want to find out a model of the best practice. For so many years, teachers
have been advised to adopt a particular method of teaching, which is considered to be the best
practice at a particular time. Unfortunately, after leaving the teacher training workshop or teacher
training venue, teachers rarely use the method that is advised to them to teach their students in
their own classroom. Why?
From my professional experience as an English language teacher and researcher I have observed
that there were students who participated eagerly in any communicative activity, but showed
very little improvement on tests. There were also students who preferred teacher-fronted
instruction and participated reluctantly in any form of learner-centered activity, but who did
better on tests than their more enthusiastic classmates. Is this because of the problematic
relationship between the new methods of teaching we were trying out in our classes and the
progress our students made? While reading the literature on foreign language teaching and while
listening to presentations by teachers at international professional conferences, I came to realize
that teachers all over the world were haunted by this question, too. Teachers either debate
publicly or in private soul this question. It can feel as if we are caught in a perceptual cycle of
questioning the effectiveness of anything we try in our classrooms because we are all motivated

to treat students with successful pedagogical techniques, and to assess the outcome of those
treatments” (p. 11). Several decades ago, Earl Stevick (1980) wrote about language learning
“Success depends less on linguistic analyses, materials and methods and more on what goes on
inside and between people in a language classroom’ (p. 4). Therefore, “attention now has shifted
to teaching and learning processes and the contributions of the individual teacher to language
teaching pedagogy” (Richards & Renandya, 2002, p. 5). Put another way, the best practice in
teaching English resides in what I call ‘Teaching with understanding’.
What is meant by ‘teaching with understanding’?
It is important to clarify and emphasize that I do not mean that teachers are teaching without
understanding. On the contrary, by ‘understanding’ I mean understanding our own teaching
with reference to our students’ learning. Such an understanding, I believe, is the prerequisite for
any effective change in teaching and learning. Such an understanding is needed both to develop
an appropriate, clear rationale for the change and its hoped-for outcomes, and to develop
appropriate processes to enable the aims of the change to be achieved. Such an understanding
plus the knowledge of the principles of language pedagogy will enable teachers to develop their
own principled pedagogy which can accommodate their learners’ learning needs, learning styles
preferences and expectations as well as other contextual variables. I believe that we cannot teach
our students better without understanding the way we teach because teaching is multifaceted and
contextually situated. In what follows I will clarify further what I mean by understanding our
teaching
Where does understanding of teaching come from?
‘Understanding’ of teaching is developed through the process of repeated reflection on our own
teaching by asking the following questions:
•
•
•
•
•
•


be willing to explore by making small changes to our teaching. For example, if you usually teach
from the front of the classroom, what would happen if you taught from the back? If you always
stay in the classroom when students are reading, what would happen if you left the classroom?
Through exploring to see teaching differently by trying out new behaviors to see what happens
affords us chances to "construct, reconstruct, and revise our teaching" (Fanselow, 1988, p. 116).
When we try new things, we can compare them with what we usually do, and based on this
comparison we can see our teaching differently, including our beliefs about teaching and
learning. In order to see teaching differently, we need to go beyond trying to solve problems in
our teaching; we can do this by taking different avenues to awareness. Exploration of teaching
includes the use of avenues to awareness (Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999). The most traveled
avenue is that of problem solving. For example, when students stop doing homework, teachers
consider how to get them to do it again. If students don't understand the teacher's instructions,
that teacher works on ways to give instructions differently so they can understand. However, by
only focusing on trying to work out problems, we miss chances to see teaching outside of these
problems (Fanselow, 1987). Although problem solving makes sense and is certainly worth doing,
we can go beyond looking for solutions to problems by taking a variety of other avenues to
awareness. One of these avenues is to explore simply to see what happens. To do this, Fanselow
(1987) suggests we try the opposite to our usual classroom behavior. For example, if we are
aware that we say "very good" after most student responses, we can be silent, and then describe
what happened. If we usually have students sit in rows, we can have them form a semi-circle. If
we always teach from the front of the classroom, we can try teaching from the back. If students
read aloud in every class, we can ask them to read silently. The idea is to discover what we
normally do and to try the opposite to see what happens. Another avenue to awareness is
4


exploring to see what is. One way to do this is exploring what we actually do in our teaching as
opposed to what we think we are doing. For example, if a teacher thinks she has designed group
work activities that keep students talking in English and staying on task, she could tape record
students' group work interaction. This helps her to analyze the interaction to determine if

Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice (pp. 9-18).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5


Burns, A. (2010). Doing action research in language teaching: A guide for practitioners. New
York: Routledge.
Fanselow, J. F. (1987). Breaking rules: Generating and exploring alternatives in language
teaching. White Plains, NY: Longman.
Fanselow, J. F. (1988). "Let's see": Contrasting conversations about teaching. TESOL
Quarterly 22(1), 113-30.
Gebhard, J.G. & Oprandy, R. (1999). Language teaching awareness: A guide to exploring
beliefs and practices. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, K. (1999). Understanding language teaching: Reasoning in action. Boston: Heinle and
Heinle.
Nunan, D. (1988). The learner-centred curriculum: A study in second language teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. C. (1994). Series editor’s preface. In J. C. Richards & C. Lockhart , Reflective
teaching in second language classroom. (p. ix). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. C. (1999). Beyond training. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. C. & W. A. Renandya, W. A. (Eds.). (2002). Methodology in language teaching: An
anthology of current practice . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stevick, E. (1980). Teaching languages: A way and ways. Rowley: Newbury House.
__________________________________________________

MOTIVATING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN WRITING CLASSES:
A PERSONAL REFLECTION

6


the psychological qualities uderlying behavior with respect to a particular task”. A more explicit
definition by Dornyei (2001) stated that the motivated individual expends effort, is persistent and
attentive to the task at hand, has goals, desires and aspirations, enjoys the activity, experiences
reinforcement from success and disappointment from failure, makes attributions concerning
success and/ or failure, is aroused, and makes use of strategies to aid in achieving goals.
Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that motivation ensures the success of L2 learning.
Regarding writing skills, Hamidun, Hashim and Othman asserted that high level of motivation
for writing is a driving force for them to write in a meaningful way. According to Bruning and
7


Horn (2000), there are some factors that affect students’ motivation to write, including
encouraging students’ positive beliefs about writing, fostering authentic goals and contexts for
writing and creating a positive classroom environment. Jones (1988) stated that it is a challenge
for the EFL writing teacher to interest and challenge enough with the course curriculum for them
to want to learn to write well.
My students’ lack of motivation in writing classes
Despite being well aware of the crucial role of writing in developing their English proficiency,
most of my students showed a lack of motivation for it. They performed passively and
unenthusiastically during class time, and their writing products revealed insufficient investment
in terms of both ideas and linguistic resources. Without any exaggeration, they were just a little
more than mechanic copies of the models given in the textbooks, which actually could hardly
communicate anything new or meaningful. They just made very minor changes of words or some
information. More terribly, some students even copied the writings from a reference book
without any changes. These facts were really sad and alarming to me, because I knew that they
were active students and they could have done much better.
After a number of personal talks with my students, I found out that the routine that I adopted in
my writing lessons was one of the main causes. The lengthy explanation of structures and lexical
items, inflexible use of writing tasks in the textbook, limited organization of cooperative writing
activities and the requirement of submitting the final product right after while-writing stage

Unit

Writing task

[1]

1

Writing about a friend

[3]

[4]

[5]

√

√

√

√

2

Writing a personal letter to describe a √
past experience

√

√

√

√

√

7

Interpreting statistics on population √
from a chart

√

√

√

8

Describing a celebration’s activities

√

√

√

√

atmosphere that it had never had before; the students showed better involvement in class
activities and higher responsibility for their own study as well as their classmates’. Writing has
gradually become less of a burden and more of an enjoyment to them. In general, the goal of
enhancing students’ engagement and motivation in writing classes was, to a large extent,
achieved although some shortcomings regarding the conduction of each technique and the issue
of modest improvement of their accuracy still need further addressing.
Reflection on technique 1 (Customizing textbook tasks)
The data from teaching journal showed that the customized tasks were more personal and more
meaningful to the students so they were more willing to write and take part in class activities.
The new tasks, which required different answers from those provided by reference books, forced
students to think and write by themselves. However, the shortcoming is that some tasks in the
textbook were too difficult to adapt to students’ preference and ability.
In Unit 1 English 11 (Standard), the writing task in the textbook asks students to write about a
friend, real or imaginary, following the given guildlines. Then I made some changes to the task
by requiring them to write about one of their classmates without revealing his/her name. The
detailed steps include having students picking a card with a classmate’s name inside, writing
about him/ her without telling his/her name, and then exchanging the writing with a parter who
would guess about the person described in the writing and give comments.
The journal revealed that when students saw the box with name cards inside, they looked very
happy and curious. Picking up a card with a name inside, they started their writing eagerly. They
asked me for help with new words/ expressions. They seemed to think a lot about how to
describe their friend precisely so that their partner could guess who he/ she was. They had never
showed such willingness to write before.
Reflection on technique 2 (Organizing group writing)
The strong points of technique 2 include the fact that group writing activities created an exciting
class atmosphere and good writing products and that group work often involved both cooperation
and competition so students took part in it more eagerly. However, the exciting atmosphere
seemed to be only superfical; most students didn’t contribute much.
10


tasks. In each group, some were in charge of writing while the others decorating the poster.
However, as I saw it, the task seemed to be quite difficult for them. They discussed and then
argued a lot on what and how to write, although they mostly did it in Vietnamese. The materials
they had chosen seemed to contain many complex words so they had difficulty understanding
and choosing words. Then, some better students started to get stressed and some other weaker
students steadily gave up.
After using them for two units, I realized that while class writing activities helped to create an
exciting atmosphere and was somewhat successful in involving students in learning activities,
many factors should be considered in order to use them probably.
Reflection on technique 3 (Encouraging peer feedback)
Peer feedback was effective in getting students involved in the writing process, promoting
students’ confidence and responsibility and helping students learn from each other. However, it
was noted in my journal that if the students were not trained about how to give feedback, it could
have counter-productive effects on them.
After the first two units, it was shown that the students felt excited about checking their partner’s
writing as it was a new task to them, but they looked too serious and stressed when they read
their friend’s writing. They appeared to care too much about the grammar mistakes and did not
enjoy the writing. It was nearly the same senario for almost every pair that one student pointed
out the mistakes, and the other listened silently and unhappily. It seemed that they just focused
on grammar and cared little about the content.

12


Illustration 2: A peer-feedback pair (Class 11I)
The other thing was about the way they corrected their friends’ mistakes, which was quite
discouraging. As I found in the students’ first drafts, there were almost no comments on good
points. Only mistakes were highlighted. Many students often used large symbols to mark the
mistakes – big circles, long and thick underlines, crosses and even big question marks. These
things migh have made the students who had their writing checked feel that their writing was a


Reflection on technique 5 (Keeping a class album)
A class album was like a target for students to reach, so many of the students tried harder in
order to be selected for the album. Ss invested more in their writings: content, structures and
appearance. In the first three units, the album only focused on the best writings, so it failed to
attract the attention of most of the class.
[…] After 3 units in both classes, only 3 or 4 Ss, who were very good at writing, had their
writings selected for the album. The other students seemed unable to compete with them for a
place in the album if the highest marks were the only consideration. Thus, most of the Ss in the
classes did not care much about the album.

With a view to attracting more students, I decided that more considerations for selected writings
be enlisted. Then I introduced two other considerations including the writings with the most
14


interesting content and the writings with the most impressive look in addition to the writings
with the highest marks.
The modification brought positive changes to the students’ attitudes towards the album. The
number of students who had their writing selected increased. The album no longer included
names of good students; weaker students also took part in. In general, if the album covers a good
range of considerations, it will be a very good means of encouraging students to write.
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Major findings
All five ways adopted were, to a large extent, effective in enhancing students’ motivation in
writing classes in that they increased students’ self-confidence and sense of security during class
time, provided meaningful tasks that created a real purpose for students to write, created an
exciting, relaxing class atmosphere, which was both cooperative and competitive at the same
time, and drew a target for students to reach.
Recommendations

Nazifah Hamidun, Shafiq Hizwari Md Hashim, and Nur Farhinaa Othman (2012). Enhancing
Students’ Motivation by Providing Feedback on Writing: The Case of International Students
from Thailand. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 2, No. 6, November
2012.
P.D. MacIntyre, K. MacMaster and S.C. Baker, “The convergence of multiple models of
motivation for second language learning: Gardner, Pintrich, Kuhl, and McCroskey,” In Z.
Dornyei & R. Schmidt (Eds.), Motivation and second language acquisition (Technical Report
#23, pp. 461-492). Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Second Language Teaching and Curriculum
Center, 2001.
R.C. Gardner, Social Psychology in Second Language Learning, Edward Arnold Ltd, London,
Great Britain, 1985.
Z. Dornyei, “New themes and approaches in second language motivation research,” Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics, 21, 23-59,2001.
Zolt´n Dörnyei (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language Teaching,
31, pp 117135. doi:10.1017/S026144480001315X

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vu Thu Ha is a teacher of English at Tran Phu High School, Vinh Phuc Province. She graduated
from University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University
(VNU), Hanoi, in 2009. She worked for Faculty of English at ULIS from 2009 to 2011 and she
got a Master’s degree in English Linguistics in 2013. She has been teaching high school students
for 4 years now.

16


MEASURING SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ENLGISH PROFICIENCY
WITH INTERNATIONAL TESTS
Nguyen Kieu Oanh, M.A., Academic Officer, IIG Vietnam, Hanoi
Do Thi Xuan Hoa, M.A., Academic Officer, IIG Vietnam, Hanoi

century workforce. If one is to succeed, he or she will need a mastery of English because it is the
language of business, science, diplomacy and academia.”[ iii]

17


The Singaporean statesman further advised: “To maintain the high standards of English
competency in Singapore, we need to ensure that from the time a child steps into kindergarten, he is
exposed to good English. Our schools must provide a rich language environment. There must be a strong
reading culture where children can access and enjoy good books. There must be a culture of oracy.
Opportunities must be given to students to speak in English. Students must present information and
ideas, to clarify and to debate robustly with each other in English.” (Ibid)
English as a lingua franca has developed beyond national borders. According to research results,
scientific studies published in English have rapidly increased in number, from 84.5% in 1980 to 95.9% in
2000 [iv]. The tendency has inspired and called for the teaching of the language to increase proportionally
in a globalized world. Likewise, UNESCO statistics of 2007 [v] showed that 45.24% of scholarly journals
are in English, 11.1% in German, 6.51% in Chinese, 4.94% in French, 3.46% in Japanese, and 1.30% in
Russian, adding greater emphasis to the trend. The survey showed a similar tendency with the media.
Learning a new language
Research studies[vi] have found out that children exposed to more than one language before the
age of puberty seem to acquire all the languages equally well(Fromkin et al: 369). Research findings
have confirmed that if one starts learning a new language early in life, it will be easier for him or her to
master it. Therefore, it is advisable to start a new language as early as possible, since early imprints live
long, hold fast, and may affect a whole process.
In response to dire needs of integration, the teaching of English in Vietnam has gathered
momentum. However, its development has not met the requirements.[ vii] Problems have been identified
with methods of teaching-learning and an absence of a valid and consistent assessment. This report does
not seek to recap the situation of teaching and learning of English in Vietnam, which has been extensively
discussed elsewhere.
Backwash effect of testing and assessment

of these testing bodies: the Educational Testing Service (ETS).
These are proficiency tests that are independent of any specific curricula or syllabi. Apart from
the

most

basic

emphases

presented

below,

readers

are

advised

to

logon

to

or directly to for further information on and
deeper insight into the tests and their specifications.

Figure 1: The TOEFL Family of Assessments

Questions

Number of
Examples

Total Number of
Questions

Reading

36

3

39

30 minutes

Listening

36

5

41

30 minutes

Section



36

3

39

30 minutes

Administration of TOEFL Primary in Vietnam
The TOEFL Primary test has been administered in Vietnam since 2013. Students are advised to
take the Challenge TOEFL Primary as a screening procedure to familiarize themselves with the test, and
make sure that they are ready and competent enough to take the official test. Recent statistics have

20


shown that 25,200 students from 880 primary schools from 12 cities and provinces throughout the
country have taken the test.

TOEFL Junior tests


In Vietnam, the TOEFL Junior test is available in paper-based mode. The test measures Reading

Comprehension, Listening Comprehension, and Language Form and Meaning.

Sections

Number of Items


600–900

1 hr 55 min

Total
Administration of TOEFL Junior in Vietnam

TOEFL Junior has been administered in Vietnam for students of middle schools since 2012.
Recent statistics have shown that 61,836 students from 1,171 middle schools from 14 cities and
provinces throughout the country have taken the test.
With a section of explicitly testing language form and meaning, TOEFL Junior serves as a bridge
helping students to familiarize themselves with the higher levels of the TOEFL system.

TOEFL iBT
The TOEFL iBT test is an internet-based test that measures test takers’ ability in using and
understanding academic English at university level.
Sections

Number of items

Scale scores

Testing time

Reading comprehension

36-56

0-30

200-250 minutes

TOTAL
Administration of TOEFL iBT in Vietnam

21


More than 9,000 tertiary institutions in 130 countries in the world accept the TOEFL iBT test
score. It is, therefore, essential that students planning to study abroad, especially in North America, take
the TOEFL iBT to realize their plan.
Test takers can register online at or can visit IIG Vietnam to make their
registration.

TOEFL ITP (Institutional Testing Program)
The TOEFL ITP tests, a reliable assessment of academic English, are paper-based and use 100
percent academic content to evaluate the English-language proficiency of nonnative English speakers,
giving you confidence about your students' ability in a real-world academic setting. All questions are
multiple choice and students answer questions by filling in an answer sheet. The tests evaluate skills in
three areas:


Listening Comprehension measures the ability to understand spoken English as it is used
in colleges and universities



Structure and Written Expression measures recognition of selected structural and
grammatical points in standard written English



50

55 minutes

31–67

140

115 minutes

310–677

TOTAL
Administration of TOEFL ITP in Vietnam

As has been with other members of the TOEFL system, TOEFL ITP has been used by a big
number of tertiary institutions as a requirement for admission to post-graduate courses. Most recently,
MOET has announced an exemption of high school graduation test for students who own valid TOEFL ITP
with 450/677 points.

Supporting tools

22


To accompany the tests, there are a large number of supporting tools, ranging from traditional to
online formats to accommodate digital-era learning demands.

Lexile Measures


the

new

multi-language

website www.lexile.com/toeflprimary and www.lexile.com/toefljunior. Students and parents can use this
website to access more on Lexile measures and search for books and build custom reading lists based on
the student’s ability and interests.

English Learning Center (ELC)
TOEFL Primary and TOEFL Junior ELC are interactive online learning activities designed to help
students reach their full potential in English-language proficiency.
Featuring eight theme-based units with 20 total hours of learning material, ELC covers learning
objectives common to a range of curricula worldwide. Many of the activities are iPad compatible.
The TOEFL Primary and TOEFL Junior English Learning Center is appropriate for a range of
proficiency levels. Guided by teachers, each student moves at his or her own pace through the online
exercises and recorded practice. Automated feedback on Listening and Reading activities indicate areas
of strength and areas for improvement. Teachers monitor student progress and relay their feedback to
students’ Speaking items and practice questions through the Teacher Management System (TMS).
The TMS provides teachers with the tools they need to accelerate student progress. The system
features an easy to use communication center for students to receive teacher feedback. Using the
system, teachers can:

•

Generate reports

•

•

Read/listen to student responses

•

Access ETS scoring rubrics

•

View examples of student responses at different levels

•

Provide personalised feedback on speaking and writing practice using available rubrics

•

Provide written comments through email

English Discoveries Online (EDO)
Nominated by ETS as the most comprehensive learning program that realizes blended learning,
EDO is gaining popularity among English language teachers and learners worldwide. Thanks to its 10
courses (Beginning to Advanced) and high-quality educational content, EDO affords the best
opportunities for students of all levels to practice and improve their language competencies, i.e.
Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking, Vocabulary and Grammar. Students also substantially benefit from
interactive and authentic learning materials including real-life videos, topical articles, radio podcasts and
role-play to sharpen their communicative competence.
What makes EDO stand out is the fact that it creates a social, cross-cultural online platform for
students to share their learning experiences with fellow learners all over the world.

While WPP entirely focuses on developing the writing skill for students from primary to high school levels,
Criterion expands their target user range to high school graduates, tertiary level students, and
prospective candidates of such standardized tests as GRE, SAT and TOEFL. It is prerequisite for schools
to become a member of the ERB 2’s school network in order to benefit from shared resources and reduced
prices. Criterion, on the other hand, offers individual packages of teacher and student accounts without
any request for commitment.

Sanako Study 1200
Together with utilizing online programs in blended learning, transforming brick-and-mortar
language classrooms is a task to fulfill. An improved version of traditional physical classrooms is a
language lab. Sanako Study 1200 is a typical example of aninteractive and effective language lab
software that can profoundly change the way English is taught and acquired. Stimulating students to
learn languages by performing activities, increasing students’ time on task and speaking time, catering
for individual students to meet their level and needs, creating additional materials to fit course objective
are all feasible with Sanako Study 1200.
Full awareness of the importance of the English language and the learning needs of the language
learners in the process of global integration would be an impetus to enhancing the teaching and learning
of the language. The combination of internal and external educational measuring tools would provide
1
2

Circular # 42/2012/TT-BGDDT. MOET. On Criteria to assess quality of education institutions.
Educational Records Bureau(ERB) develops WPP

25