The task of building and developing undergraduate training majors and postgraduate training majors to reach international standards is identified as an important content in the development strategy of VNU until 2010 and vision to 2020. In particular, Linguistics - one of the 8 majors and majors selected to be built to reach international standards - has been training for 2 years at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son - Vice Rector of the University - answered an interview about the implementation of this training task.
- Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Kim Son, how do you evaluate the quality of Linguistics students who have achieved international standards after 2 years of training?-
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son: It must be said that the project to train Linguistics at international standards has only started since 2008, and has only been around for 2 years. There are 71 students in two courses. The first course has only studied 3 semesters, the second course has only studied 1 semester and is still in the stage of mainly studying general subjects. In such a short time, it is very difficult to evaluate the quality of students. Normally, the quality of training products can only be evaluated when at least one course has ended. But preliminarily, based on the results of general subjects and foreign languages, it can be seen that the results are positive. It is clear that when students have been oriented to study from the beginning, going through a rigorous assessment and testing process, they have had to motivate themselves and make a lot of effort to overcome their learning tasks, especially preparing foreign language skills to listen and understand teachers teaching in English. According to the results of the recent foreign language exam, many students got good scores. Thus, the most obvious thing to see is that the students' initiative in learning, or their learning attitude, has become much more positive.
- Could you please tell us the specific results that the School has achieved when implementing this training program?
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Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son: The University of Social Sciences and Humanities has made real efforts in implementing training in this field, as shown in the following aspects: Firstly, the University has designed a training program based on the training program currently being implemented at the Faculty of Linguistics and has revised and consulted advanced training programs in the world, adding new content to be suitable and accessible to the linguistics training programs currently being implemented in the world. Secondly, the University has actively prepared the teaching staff participating in teaching this program. Even those who do not teach in English, but only teach in Vietnamese, must have a doctorate degree or higher. Faced with the requirement to teach in English, the University's teaching staff must find every way to study to improve their professional qualifications and foreign languages in order to be able to complete the assigned tasks. This situation poses both challenges and opportunities for the teachers themselves. This is also an important push in the strategy of building and developing the school's staff. Project 16+23 requires the school to have a plan to send staff to study, improve their expertise and foreign languages abroad, and must be at universities in the top 200 in the world. Up to this point, the school has been actively preparing, contacting partners, mainly US universities such as Havard, Berkerly, Los Angeles... to send staff to study for 3 to 6 months. This can be done in late 2010, early 2011. Third, in terms of facilities, the school has built a system of high-quality classrooms with many modern facilities to serve training. The system of materials has also been well prepared with many English documents, currently a separate document warehouse has been established to serve this training program. Fourth, the School focuses on innovating teaching methods, adjusting subject outlines and lecture materials. When invited to teach subjects in this program, teachers must adjust their existing teaching content to update their knowledge, innovate their methods, and expand their sources of materials to meet higher training requirements. Fifth, the School has been doing a good job of expanding international cooperation as a basis for attracting and inviting excellent foreign professors to teach, preparing to send teachers to study to improve their qualifications, and sending students to practice their language abroad. Starting from this semester, there will be foreign experts coming to teach, and it is expected that each semester there will be at least 1-2 foreign experts coming to teach students.
- So what are the biggest difficulties that the School encountered when implementing this training program?-
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son: This project is a new task and has a higher strategic scope than all previous projects at VNU, but it comes with difficulties from the time it was approved until it was put into practice. The University of Social Sciences and Humanities is currently facing the following difficulties: Firstly, VNU sets common standards for all training programs under the 16+23 project, including common standards on foreign languages with the same foreign language study time. But the reality is that the input for the Linguistics major that has achieved international qualifications is mainly from group C, and the foreign language foundation is certainly not equal to the input for other majors under the 16+23 project. Thus, it will be difficult for Linguistics students to achieve international qualifications when they study the same foreign language study time, must meet the same standards but have a lower starting point. Secondly, the University is not proactive in teaching foreign languages and inviting foreign experts to teach foreign languages. Organizing students to participate in summer language internship courses abroad is a requirement in the initial design of the project, but certainly in actual implementation there will be many difficulties due to many factors. Third, the curriculum clearly stipulates that subjects must be taught in English, but many subjects related to Vietnamese linguistics must be taught in English. Is that completely reasonable? The policy of improving English proficiency as a tool to receive and understand lectures in English and participate in English-speaking seminars is correct, but in some specific cases it is not the primary goal. Especially when the project focuses on attracting foreign students to study, when studying Vietnamese research subjects taught in English, I find that unscientific. English itself will also become powerless in this situation. Obviously, foreign languages are important, but in specific conditions they are not the primary goal.
- So what specific proposals does the School have for VNU to achieve the desired results in implementing this training program?-
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son: The above are also the proposals of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities to VNU. One is to increase the foreign language study time for students majoring in Linguistics to reach international standards; two is to adjust the requirement of teaching in English for majors related to Vietnamese Linguistics; three is to have closer and more harmonious coordination between units in VNU in implementing common training goals.
- So with what has been done, what does the School expect from the output quality?-
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son: Of course, a training process with higher quality input; good budget investment; better investment in staff, facilities and teaching materials; students studying with a different mindset, more positive and more effort, then the training quality must certainly be improved. However, whether it has reached the standard we desire or not is a long story and requires continuous efforts.
- How do you evaluate the impact of this training program on improving the quality of training in the school in general? After Linguistics, does the school have plans to continue developing other university training majors to reach international standards?-
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Kim Son: With the goals of strong investment in all aspects of curriculum, lectures, staff, facilities... the implementation of training programs under Project 16+23 will certainly be an important step, a direction to improve the training quality of the University. The University also strongly supports the above policy of VNU and is currently planning to develop a number of projects to develop other international-standard training programs to submit to VNU.
