Faculty of International Studies seminar on teaching methods

Focus on teaching thinking and methods

According to Professor Vu Duong Ninh (Chairman of the Association of Former Teachers of the School), university lecturers need to pay special attention to logical thinking in lectures, thereby not only helping students understand the lesson but also gradually transforming the teacher's thinking into the students' thinking. If the lecture is to be logical and have coherent thinking, the lecturer must have a firm grasp of the issue to be conveyed.

“In my opinion, thinking ability; expression ability; ability to connect between lectures, between teachers and students, between this subject and other subjects are the basic abilities that a good teacher must have,” emphasized Professor Vu Duong Ninh.

According to Professor Ninh, the task of a lecturer, in addition to imparting knowledge to students, is to provide deeper insights and help students develop the ability to self-study and research. This is completely different from teaching at the high school level.

Prof. Vu Duong Ninh (Chairman of the School's Former Teachers Association)

Analyzing the differences between a research university and a regular university, Dr. Lam Minh Chau (Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Anthropology) pointed out the core things that must be achieved in the teaching process to suit the nature of a research university. With the goal of creating new knowledge, a research university must aim to train people who are capable of creating new knowledge - the driving force for social development. Meanwhile, regular universities only need to create people with knowledge and standardize professional skills. To create new knowledge, those people must grasp the latest trends and viewpoints, considering classical knowledge or viewpoints as just the starting point for creativity and finding new things.

Therefore, in addition to teaching students the most updated knowledge, lecturers must train students to think critically and always have their own point of view on every issue..Finally, teach about research methods and problem solving.

Dr. Lam Minh Chau also emphasized that only when a lecturer is also a serious and independent researcher can he/she have high creativity; thereby leading, encouraging and inspiring students to be creative and dare to do different things.

In addition, the assignment of subjects to be taught in accordance with the training objectives and the teaching capacity of each group of lecturers is an important factor in improving the quality of training. Dr. Lam Minh Chau cited that abroad, teaching general subjects or teaching first-year students often requires choosing leading professors with extensive knowledge, not young lecturers. Because leading professors are those who have the ability to convey the most complex content in the simplest and most coherent way. General subjects seem not difficult but require very broad and deep background knowledge from the teacher.

Prof. Dr. Pham Quang Minh shared about three levels of analysis in international research that researchers and teachers must master. These are the international level, the national level and the individual level. Among them, analysis at the national level is still weak because not many students understand the internal political - economic - social situation of each country. And at the individual level, there are not many studies currently, partly because the habits and culture of Vietnamese people do not emphasize the individual... Besides, mastering these three levels of analysis is also difficult due to the complexity of international systems, the diversity of the national level and the unpredictability of the individual level.

Active teaching

Delving into the topic of teaching methods, the opinions expressed all agreed that traditional teaching methods such as reading and copying, one-way teacher-student interaction, etc. are no longer effective. Teachers must be proactive, creative, and apply a variety of different methods.

Sharing the results of the survey of students' opinions on teaching activities, Dr. Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang (Deputy Dean of the Faculty of International Studies) said: Students of the Faculty highly appreciate the teaching methods of lecturers and their ability to use modern means in teaching. However, students are not yet satisfied with the support to develop critical thinking and logical thinking skills. Students expect teachers to further improve their creativity in teaching; increase presentation and group work activities; increase the practicality of the subject; increase the amount of time for internships and practical work, etc.

Prof. Dr. Hoang Khac Nam (Head of the International Studies Department) believes that there are many different teaching styles that teachers can apply depending on each student. For example, the pedagogical method - both lecturing and applying knowledge to practical activities, helping students immediately apply the knowledge they have just learned into practice. This is a teaching style suitable for university level and has high interaction with students. However, for postgraduate students, lecturers can apply the "talker" style of teaching - which is highly lecturing with a broader, more academic knowledge base.

Prof. Dr. Hoang Khac Nam shared the criteria to become a good lecturer, which are: having passion for the job; being enthusiastic and inspiring to students; designing logical and engaging lectures; focusing on interacting with learners and constantly adjusting teaching methods to suit classroom practice; promoting students' initiative and independence in learning through many group discussion activities, seminars; accepting students' ego and accepting differences...

Dr. Tran Diep Thanh (Faculty of International Studies) discussed the necessity of seminars in teaching. Research shows that if students only read documents, they can only remember about 10% of knowledge; if they only listen, they can remember about 20% of knowledge; combining both listening and watching in learning, the amount of memory is 50%. However, if students present their own research results, the ability to remember is up to 70%. If students know how to coordinate with each other to work and present their own opinions, the ability to remember is up to 90%. This is useful reference information for lecturers.

Approaching teaching from the learner's perspective, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy (Head of the Department of American Studies, Faculty of International Studies) said that Vietnamese students are still afraid of strict teachers who are not willing to have academic dialogue. They often compare to choose teachers who are easy-going and give high scores. Not to mention that plagiarism among students is not uncommon. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and survey the practical needs, abilities, and learning psychology of students to make appropriate changes in teaching methods, helping to achieve the set goals of the learning process.

Boost EMI

From a separate perspective, Dr. Le Lena (Faculty of International Studies) brought to the discussion a presentation on the current situation of teaching specialized subjects in English at the Faculty. EMI is understood as the use of English as the main tool in learning and teaching at training institutions - especially when learners and teachers do not speak English as their mother tongue. This is a clear and increasingly popular trend in education today, especially in the context of strong international integration, the increasing number of students studying abroad, foreign universities increasingly looking for students outside their country to enhance their image and increase funding... EMI brings many benefits to learners, teachers, training institutions and to the overall development of the education and training sector of each country.

Dr. Le Lena (Faculty of International Studies) brought to the discussion the current situation of teaching specialized subjects in English at the Faculty.

The presentation pointed out the advantages of teaching EMI at the Faculty today such as: teachers teaching specialized subjects of the Faculty have good foreign language skills; the Faculty has many foreign guest lecturers; more and more international academic activities; orientation to focus on improving foreign language skills for students of the Faculty; strategy to internationalize the teaching programs of the School...

In addition, the implementation of EMI at the Faculty also has limitations such as: lecturers have not been trained to implement EMI classes; current EMI classes are built through the efforts of lecturers rather than the combination of specialized lecturers and English lecturers; the foreign language background of students is uneven; there is no truly effective support for both lecturers and students when participating in EMI classes...

Dr. Le Lena also suggested building a flipped class when teaching EMI - contrary to the current trend of conventional classes. Accordingly, the process of students reading and understanding the lesson takes place outside the classroom and is a self-study process. Students participating in the flipped classroom model will work on the lecture in advance by reading documents, summarizing documents, listening to lectures provided from videos, Powerpoint lecture slides, information on the internet, etc. Class time is mainly spent on answering questions, discussing, understanding deeply and expanding the issues to be discussed. The lecturer only plays the role of coordinating the discussion and answering questions. This learning method requires the initiative of both teachers and students and if done, will bring high teaching efficiency.