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Using English in class
Advantages
 1. Students have more chance to be
exposed to English.
2. Using English in class helps develop students' confidence in the language.
3. Students can see real
reasons for using English to communicate, eg. in giving
instructions, etc.
4. Students can "pick up" some classroom language
(eg. instructions) without practice.
5. It can help students develop
greater fluency as they are encouraged to think in English from the
early stages.
Group work in Nghe An
Disadvantages
1. It can take a long time to explain
things so students may get distracted.
2. Weaker or slower students
may not be confident enough to believe they can learn through
English, so they may be frightened or put off.
3. Teachers may have
limited English or insufficient fluency in the language. As a
result, they may give incorrect models.
4. It may take longer to
cover the school syllabus.
Using Vietnamese in class
Tran Van Co - ELT specialist, Binh Dinh
DOET
It is clear that using English regularly in class is of great
benefit to students. But it does not mean that Vietnamese should be
abolished completely. Actually, knowing how to use Vietnamese
appropriately can also help. Here are some suggestions on how and
when Vietnamese could be used at different stages of a 45- minute
lesson.
Stages Vietnamese is used ...
Warm-up
- explain how to do an
activity or the rule of a game
Check-up
- give feedback or revise a
grammatical point
Presentation
- provide the aim of the lesson.
-
provide the meaning of new words or concepts
- set a context
-
explain the use of a grammatical point.
- introduce cultural points
Practice
- give instructions
Consolidation
- check or revise what
has been learnt.
Homework
- explain what to do to prepare for new
lessons
Using Vietnamese in an English class can be a useful tool
for teachers, but it should not necessarily become the norm - even
for the stages suggested above. English should still be used for at
least 60% of the lesson.
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