Less Grammar Focused English Teaching and Assessment Approach For conference on “Innovations in Testing and Assessment in English Language Teaching” Nguyen Hoang Tien, PhD Executive summary: This article will present some of the author’s viewpoints and recommendations for English teaching and assessing strategies in a spirit to boost language capability of the learners in general and of the young generation in particular in Vietnam as so far strategies are predominantly grammar focused, placing Vietnamese badly among the least English speaking nations in the world Tóm tắt: Bài viết trình bày số quan điểm khuyến cáo tác giả chiến lược học tập đánh giá môn Anh văn tinh thần nhằm nâng cao lực ngơn ngữ người học nói chung hệ trẻ nói riêng Việt Nam chiến lược từ trước chủ yếu tập trung vào vấn đề ngữ pháp, khiến cho Việt Nam bị coi dân tộc nói tiếng Anh giới 1.Current situation analysis and hypotheses In a globalizing world, due to the leading role and the economic and non-economic power of the United States, English has become predominant language in all fields including trade and business, education, science and technology, helping to bridge the social and cultural distance between nations as well In order to integrate with the world in a broadest sense, people tend to learn English from a very young age, especially in the most developed nations (i.e some of the North European countries), or even in some countries national governments treated it as a second native language (i.e some of the Asian countries) It is due to several reasons Firstly, there are tens of states in Europe, the EU itself consists of 28 nations, and each of them usually is very small in size and in terms of population (compared to average size of Asian countries), and situated not far from each other geographically or even culturally, but each of them speaks their own language The scientific, cultural and economic exchange in terms of trading relations are quite intense as those are the most developed nation worldwide, so it is almost impossible to carry out those exchanges effectively if not based on a common language, despite the fact that sometimes several countries share the same language (Germany, Austria and Switzerland, France and Belgium, all countries within the United Kingdom) and it is quite easy for Europeans to learn and speak others’ languages which are Latin based and in some cases are very similar to each other (i.e Portuguese and Spanish, English and French) In Asia, due to the complexity of national languages which are considered worldwide as the most difficulty ones, i.e Japanese, Chinese and even Vietnamese, the extensive discrepancy between nations in terms of economic and social development, technology’s advancement, social, cultural, historical and religious values, significant geographical distances and other conditioning factors, the acceptance English as a common language is not only necessary but an utmost existential imperative regarding current trends of intensive international and regional cooperation for development Given the mentioned facts and trends worldwide and the nature of the process of (foreign) language acquisition, two following hypotheses are put forward for verification H1: “As English becomes increasingly dominating language in the world and penetrating each field of individual, organizational and social life, the best way to acquire this language is non-stop using it, instead of repeatedly grammar-based and grammarrelated teaching, learning and assessing” H2: “Cultural factors have a great impact on learning, teaching and assessment strategies, processes and outcomes so that they should be considered greatly in a bid to enhance individual and national language proficiency” The above mentioned theses are close to each other and strongly interrelated as the first one (H1) places an emphasis on the essence of the language and the nature of the process of its acquisition The second hypothesis (H2) pays clear attention to the context, especially the cultural context of the process of language acquisition and its relation to the overall effectiveness of this process So the process of language learning, teaching and the outcome assessing termed generally language acquisition should be regarded in a context based approach as the contextual factors, both external and internal, mostly influence and should be boost to influence positively and profoundly, in a desired ways, both the effectiveness and the result of this process 2.Theses’ verification 2.1.Less grammar based teaching, learning and assessment In order to prove the hypothesis H1 let look at the way the children acquire their firs native language which is very much differing from the way we, as adults, learn foreign language Children learn native language in a natural way as at first they know nothing about grammatical rules of the language they gradually but systematically acquire More importantly they not use dictionaries for two reasons Firstly, they are intellectually and physically too young to know how to use them properly Secondly, this is their first language to acquire from the very beginning of their life The dictionary, English-local language and vice versa, is useful only when a person already knows sufficiently one language and wants to acquire another The dictionary, English-English, is useful only when a person are in certain stage of English advancement, normally over 12 age1 So these are not the case for children, regardless whether dictionaries are helpful or helpless as some people might consider Let us imagine adult people trying to learn foreign language the way children normally analyzing in detail some of its advantages and disadvantages related and some difficulties they might encounter We certainly come to conclusion that foreign language should be learned from a very young age, preferably in parallel with the period of acquiring native language This is the reason why most Europeans, especially Nordic European including Norwegians, Finns, Danes, Swedes, are so proficient in English than their counterparts anywhere else in the world They are so perfect in English pronunciation and in terms of guessing multiple meanings out of each word or expression, including slangs and local vocabularies In addition, their approach is quite practical and pragmatical treating English not as something to learn, but as an instrument to learn other things, to discover the world, so formal English lessons and related assessment hardly ever take place Instead, most Nordic people, due to their neighborhood with United Kingdom, often travel there for mutual diverse exchanges As open societies, most of foreigners and immigrants living there speak English, so this language should be used to refer to them by local people and authority, as well Furthermore, they overwhelmingly use English to communicate with each other as Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and Danish are quite unpopular as the languages of tiny nations and as a consequence it is hard or there is not enough motivation for Nordic people and other European nationals to learn them Last but not least, English grammar is the simplest one among other European languages, as well as the intuitive sentential structure, so there is no need to devote for this issue much time and effort Thus, one can find pleasure to explore this language in a more natural way as it relates also to the assessment works This is my case, when I learned Polish using Vietnamese-Polish and Polish-Vietnamese dictionary but with significant limitation as at this age my Vietnamese is still poor in terms of specific vocabulary related to history, geography, biology, chemistry, physics when I wanted to translate 7th grade textbooks of those subject into Vietnamese, at least I have felt then which should be focused heavily on for linguistic functions: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, instead on grammar exercises and riddles 2.2.Identified cultural factors and their impact on general language proficiency As has been said earlier and expressed in the hypothesis H2 that the process of teaching, learning and the assessment of the outcome should be grounded in the cultural context of the nation, organization and individual all together Hereafter, several multilevel cultural factors are presented which have great impact on the effectiveness of this process as well as its output result in terms of national language competencies Mentality Mentality relates to the psychological aspect and inner side of each individual Mentality is both related to and is a result of individual perception of the world Mentality of Asian people differs very much from mentality of the people in Western countries Asian people are mostly inward looking and deliberate in thinking and in expression of personal stance and viewpoint, whereas, the Western people are outward looking and tend to appreciate the freedom of speech and of the freedom expression of their thought standpoint Those differences in mentality impact the way of perceiving the world and the language acquisition process as a tool for this special purpose It is obvious that outward looking people who are prone to discover the world and to explore different ideas and thinking schemes will more intensively acquire and develop language as an instrument to carry out their passion and mission As the world today are integrating both economically, politically, socially and culturally on a grand scale and continual basis, Asian mentality tends to shift toward Western independent, democracy based style and scheme of thinking and that certainly will serve to improve their language skills and competency Cultural strength and openness There are diverse levels of cultural strength and openness across different nations from the East to the West of the globe Cultural strength and cultural openness are not always going one with another as strength does not necessarily imply openness as the case of Japan but the openness implies the strength and power of culture in terms of selective, willful and willing integration with desirable elements outside Strong and open culture often enable and facilitate the process of foreign language acquisition as a means for communication and expression, total integration and penetration That’s why Western European countries are showing higher level of English proficiency than Eastern nation, such as Japan and Korea characterized by strong own culture but lower level of visibility and openness Native language The native language and its characteristics are also important and impact national and individual ability to acquire other languages If the native language is easy to be acquired by others and is similar to English in a broadest sense possible then there will be no problem for its nationals (of this language) to have a great command of it Let us see how Germans, French and Italians are so fluent in English and the similarity of those languages to the English and the easiness for other nations to acquire them (those languages) Those languages are probably the second easiest language to acquire in the world The situations is completely different in case of Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Indian regardless the economic and social advancement of those nations Intercultural cooperation orientation The next factor impacting on the language acquisition capacity of certain nation is its level of intercultural cooperativeness with other, mostly neighboring countries to form a cluster of cultures for a purpose of cultural integration This is strongly visible in West European countries where the values, beliefs, assumptions and proposals are interlinked, easily to change, to adapt to find compromises with each other within a group of nations, but hardly be seen in the case of Japan, China and Korea or even the case of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh or even the case of India inside itself Each of those cultures is so specific, so diverse and so incoherent with each other and that makes them unable to form an archipelago of cultures in a bid to become a counterpart to what we usually call Western culture 3.Further recommendations and proposals Create a set of conditions and context to boost the awareness among the learners of the necessity of English language acquisition for the best benefit of their professional career and personal development in an age of global integration, focusing at the same time on development of four major skills (Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking) but with a full priority put on Listening and Speaking as they are Achilles’ heel of most Vietnamese people Treating English not as something to learn obligatorily for purpose of passing exams or achieving certificates but as useful and practical means to achieve professional purposes alike our native language That means to remove the exams based and, as a consequence, grammar check based approach toward learning and teaching focusing more on interactions and social language based integration Instead of a hard approach with mainly push-type instruments of pass-fail assessments to impact professional life and career, a soft approach with pull-type instruments of motivation and engagement to enrich and deepen language experiences in diverse international job contexts to be fully applied are needed in place 13/3/2017 qua email: kkhxhnv@tgu.edu.vn nguyentrungngon@tgu.edu.vn ... consequence, grammar check based approach toward learning and teaching focusing more on interactions and social language based integration Instead of a hard approach with mainly push-type instruments... subject into Vietnamese, at least I have felt then which should be focused heavily on for linguistic functions: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, instead on grammar exercises and riddles... else in the world They are so perfect in English pronunciation and in terms of guessing multiple meanings out of each word or expression, including slangs and local vocabularies In addition, their