THE DISTRICT SYMPOSIUM IN VINH TRUNG PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL

“We organise fewer symposiums with higher quality” – said Mr. Nguyen Tu Duy – the specialist from the Bureau. 

On January 11th , 2019, most English teachers were from primary, primary and secondary schools in Vinh Linh joined a symposium in Vinh Trung Primary and Secondary School. The symposium started with a demo of Unit 11: What time is it? - Lesson 3- tasks 4,5,6. 

 Pupils warmed the atmosphere with a lovely chunk “We are robots”. Then, they did task 4 (Read and complete), task 5 (Let’s write), task 6 (project) and took part in “Sticking the activities” game. Most pupils could do the tasks very well as they could review language learnt, realize the differences of verbs in the change of subjects (words and pronunciation) and write about their daily routines.

Miss Mi Sa – the presenter of this period – demoed methods to teach children effectively including: how to teach them grammar, pronunciation and how to make meaningful tasks. She showed some phrases which pupils have known and required them to change the forms of these phrases. Hence, pupils remembered the changes of words coincidentally. Also, these changes were highlighted to emphasize how to pronounce. Pupils then practised /s/, /z/ and /iz/ sounds. Last but not least, she set a meaningful context for each task. That was the reason why pupils knew what, how and why to do the task. These careful steps lead to a successful demonstration and the success was recognised by the results of pupils at the end of the period as well as comments from observers during and after the observation. 

However, anything has two sides and so does this lesson. Comments from the observers in the meeting after the obervation covered more aspects that the teacher could not pay attention to because of time limitation. Here are some: 

• Ms Van (Vinh Kim Primary School) “Less time spending in grammar will increase the time for speaking” 

• Mrs Bich (Kim Dong Primary School) “Teachers should give projects as home-link for pupils at the previous period so they can prepare for these well. In addition, teachers can add a specific time to refer the time abrreviation (Ex: 19.00 means 7 p.m.). And, the balance of English – Vietnamese instructions in the class should be concerned ”. 

• Ms Hien (Vo Thi Sau Primary School) “The teacher should check and write the answer on the board as the same time. She should also invite more pupils to join the game because the class size is just about 20 pupils” 

• Ms Yen (Vinh Lam Primary School) “If the teachers change the gap-filling activities into a multiple choice task, more pupils can do the task better” 

• Ms Trang (Cua Tung Primary School) “The teacher should let the pupils see the answers in task 4 after whole class checking” 

• Mr Tu (Vinh Thuy Primary School) “Pupils can see the handouts better if these handouts are bigger” 

• Mr Dao (Vinh Thach Primary School) “All teachers can "use" K.I.S.S instructions at the tasks. And, the teacher should dance with pupils while they are chanting” 

To conclude, Mr Nguyen Tu Duy gave a speech about what teachers should do to improve the quality of teaching English (in parallel with the concern of headmasters of these schools in teaching and learning English), some plans for the next months in cluding an intergrated test of Maths, Vietnamese and English (reading, listening and writing skills tested)/

 By Nguyen Thi Thuy Van – Vinh Kim Primary School