[trueluk]

While English is taught from elementary school, it becomes much more important in high schools in Vietnam. There is at least one English-only class at most schools. Some schools do Vietnamese in the mornings and English-only classes in the afternoon, while at other schools every class except Vietnamese Studies is taught in English.

I've been involved with many high school and college exchange students from Vietnam over the past few years and some students I've been working with recently speak English at the same level as native speakers with no discernible accent. One of my current students scored over a 2200 on her SAT. It's really amazing. From my experience, and from what I've been told, the emphasis on English language studies has increased within even the last 5 years in Vietnam. Each year, the students that I work with here in the US speak better English than the students from the year before.

[cmpitg]

In Vietnam, those students who have decent English skills and score high on English standard tests study most of their English outside school. They often took extra courses regularly and study in groups. The quality of English education in primary and secondary schools in Vietnam is much much worse.

[tuan]

>> There is at least one English-only class at most schools. Some schools do Vietnamese in the mornings and English-only classes in the afternoon, while at other schools every class except Vietnamese Studies is taught in English.

Those are international schools. Their tuition are usually very high, and way out of the price range for most families in Vietnam. Normal schools where I live (Hanoi) only teach in Vietnamese.

We do have English class once or twice a week where we learn the basics of the language. But it does not provide us enough exposure to the language. To improve our language skills, we usually have to take extra classes after school.

[gruseom]

There are a great many high schools that supposedly teach foreign languages. Very few (none that I've seen) of them produce anything remotely like this. In fact, there are many university graduate native speakers of English who can't write as well as sondh. This is something truly extraordinary and it makes me want to learn more about Vietnam.