ENGLISH TEACHING REFORM IN VIETNAM: RESPONSES OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS TOWARD THE TARGET ENGLISH LEVEL OF THE CEFR-V
Abstract
Various efforts and measures have been implemented to enable Vietnamese citizens to communicate and work with foreign partners. An important one is the implementation of the CEFR-V (a Vietnamese version of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) to stipulate target English levels for Vietnamese students by the end of each educational level. The target for undergraduates is Level 3 of English in the CEFR-V. The current study was conducted with 268 non-English majored students in a large university in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam to reveal whether it is an ambitious goal. Descriptive statistics reveal that the participants had positive perceptions of the current English-for-non-major program, especially of the teachers and learning resources. However, only two-thirds of the participants perceived that they could possibly gain the targt English level. Findings suggest that greater efforts should be made in the program but the more important agent to bring a positive change is the students themselves.
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