Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS an exploratory study on teachers’ opinions about math and english integrated teaching and learning program at an education center in hanoi

INTRODUCTION

Research statement and rationale for the study

The issue of the National Foreign Languages 2020 Project by Vietnam‘s Ministry of Education and Training (Decision No 1400/QĐ-Ttg ―Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National education system, period 2008 – 2020) has greatly contributed to enhance teaching and learning foreign languages in Vietnam

Among all the objectives suggested by the Project, the implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning has attracted attention from the whole society

The very first step of implementing the CLIL program is to integrate Math and English in the schools and education institutes It is obviously seen that in current context of Vietnam, Math and English integrated teaching and learning program (MEITL) has recieved much public attention and feedback from students, teachers, policy makers and the researchers as well Implicating CLIL in general and MEITL in particular has become the center problem of a number of studies in Vietnam recently The paper by Võ Đoàn Thọ (2015) studied the students at University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city and figured out the benefits of CLIL in students‘ perpectives and proposed the suggestions to have the effective lessons applying CLIL approach Nguyễn Thị Thuỳ Linh (2016), in her work, discusssed four critiques by the policy actors regarding the significance of CLIL in the Vietnamese context, teachers‘ readiness, students‘ readiness and CLIL materials That paper, also provided a general picture of teachers‘ perceptions of CLIL, how they implemented CLIL and the difficulties they encountered in practice By examining the current 6 th grade Math curriculum and English curriculum in Vietnam, Vũ Đình Phương and Lê Tuấn Anh (2018) found out three solutions to teach Math and English integrated and the 2-step process of preparation for teaching a Math lesson in English by using CLIL approach It can be seen that the findings of the above studies are mostly based on the CLIL‘s theories and the researchers‘ view and observations Those projects‘ outcomes, thererfore, though have pointed out many factors related to the implementation of CLIL, are still quite subjective and and do not provide enough strong ―authentic‖ evidence gathered from the teachers who actually implement CLIL in their teaching The teachers‘ opinions about MEILT program‘s benefits, challenges and their suggestions for the good MEILT lessons are not spent enough concern although they play an important role in the process of applying MEILT in the large scale ― What are the teachers’ opinions about

MEITL program’s benefits, challenges as well as their suggestions to improve the MEITL program’s effectiveness, therefore, becomes the guiding question for this research.

Aims and objectives of the study

The study first and foremost aims at exploring opinions of the teachers at an education center in Hanoi about MEITL‘s benefits, challenges and their recommendations to improve MEITL‘s effectiveness To be more specific, the inquiry of the teachers‘ opinions is undertaken by answering three following research questions:

Question 1: What are the benefits of MEITL program, as perceived by the teachers?

Question 2: What are the challenges of MEITL program, as perceived by the teachers?

Question 3: What are the teachers’ recommendations for improving the MEITL program’s effectiveness?

Research method

Mixed method with two main instruments – questionnaires and interviews - was applied to figure out the answers for the three research questions To get the responses from the all participants in the short time, the questionnaires with 32

―Likert-type‖ with 2 main aspects – MEITL program‘s benefits and challenges - were delivered first The teachers were asked to choose 1 from 5 alternatives ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree for each item Those responses, were then analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics method After the responses were grouped into MEITL program‘s benefits (with 5 categories) and challenges (with 7 categories), semi-structured interviews with 6 teachers were conducted to get explanations and the answer for the third question.

Scope of the study

Among various aspects which are essential to investigate around MEITL program, this study more specifically aims at examining the teachers’ opinions about Math and English Integrated Teaching and Learning Program at an education center in Hanoi The study is small-scale, the findings, hence are applied for the context studied but not generalized into broad environment The other aspects are still not researched and need further studies.

Significance of the study

This study benefits the following stakeholders:

Teachers: Based on the research findings, the MEITL teachers at center studied and other MEITL teachers will have chances to review of benefits, challenges and give suggestions for overcoming challenges Those are fundamental for them to better their practice in class by maximizing the benefits, overcoming the challenges using the recommendations suggested Obviously, this study may contribute to the success of teachers‘ teaching

Students: The findings of this study will help the students understand more clearly benefits and challenges of MEITL program and they, consequently, will have positive attitude in cooperating with teachers in class

Administrators and education policy makers: Thanks to this paper, school administrators and education policy makers would know well about advantages, disadvantages of implementing MEITL program, then, they can consider the teachers‘ recommendation to give methods to improve the MEITL program‘s quality This research, consequently, might contribute the sound basis to help enhance effectiveness of adopting MEITL program

Other scholars: This study can be used as reference for other educators in their work in the future.

Structure of the thesis

There are 5 chapters in the paper: Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Major findings and Discussion, Conclusion

Chapter 1: Introduction - restates the topic concerned, aims and significance of the study From the current situation of implementing MEITL program in the world and in Vietnam, the necessity of taking MEITL program‘s benefits and challenges in to careful investigation is pointed out The purpose and the range of subjects the study deals with are also clearly stated so that the readers have the general ideas about the whole research One most important component contained in this part is the practical meaning of the research, which benefits teachers, students, school administrators, education policy makers and scholars

Chapter 2: Literature review - serves as the basic foundation for the study, provides critical literature review on definition of CLIL, benefit, challenge, theoretical implication of CLIL, CLIL‘s dimensions and framework, reviewing of the studies concerning CLIL, as well as the description of MEITL as a CLIL program at a center in Hanoi By critical analyzing the related research, this chapter builds the study‘ theoretical framework which plays a crucial role not only in guiding the understanding of research-topic but also in designing the questionnaire and interviews to solve the research‘s problems

Chapter 3: Methodology - brings the detailed description about data collection and data analysis methods and procedure, helping readers to understand the process and specific stages carried out to fulfil the research It also explains logically how the findings in chapter 3 gained from the raw information collected

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions - presents result from data analysis, research results and discussions in comparison with other studies in the same area

Teachers‘ suggestions to overcome the challenges are also given in this part

Chapter 5: Conclusion – summarize the whole study (including all above parts) in concise words Recommendations are offered to suggest several solutions for other aspects to conduct further study in this area.

LITERATURE REVIEW

CLIL

CLIL was first adopted in 1994 (Marsh, Maljers and Hartiala, 2001) as the good practice achieved in different types of school environment where teaching and learning take place in an additional language Accordingly, the key characteristics of CLIL is to teach and to learn in another language

―An additional language is often learner‘ foreign language, but it may also be a second language or some forms of heritage or community language‖

According to De Graaff, Jan Koopman, Anikina & Westhoff (2007), CLIL could be considered as an umbrella term adopted widely in educational settings where instruction takes place in FL/SL The CLIL‘s aim was considered to promote the learning of both a FL/SL and other curricular content at the same time (Navés &

Muủoz, 2000: 2), or to safeguard the subject being taught whilst promoting language as a medium for learning as well as an objective of the learning process itself‖ (Coyle in Marsh 2002: 37)

Along this line, Eurydice (2006), defined CLIL as ―a special approach to teaching in that the non-language subject, but with and through a FL‖ This definition emphasizes the main focus of the CLIL classroom is not on encouraging the learners‘ progress in language but on developing the environment in which the learners can ―make use of language and develop their language competence with the non-linguistic content‖ (Coonan, 2007; Pavón Vázquez & Rubio Alcalá , 2010)

Language learning, using and overall language competence were put more emphasis here

Coyle (2008) provided more detailed definition of CLIL in which it was considered a lifelong concept embracing all sectors of education from primary to adults, from a few hours per week to intensive modules lasting several months It may involve project work, examination courses, drama, puppets, chemistry practical and mathematical investigations In short, CLIL is flexible and dynamic, where topics and subjects – foreign languages and non-language subjects - are integrated in some kind of mutually beneficial way so as to provide value-added educational outcomes for the widest possible range of learners It can be seen that Coyle‘s definition (2008) not only confirms CLIL program‘s characteristics – flexible and dynamic but recommends the useful techniques employed in teaching process – project work, drama, puppets, chemistry practical and mathematical investigation

This view was also supported by Coonan‘s (2003: 27) statement: ―CLIL is flexible CLIL models are by no means uniform They are elaborated at a local level to respond to local conditions and desires Indeed, the characteristics of CLIL development in Europe show a great variety of solutions […] It is the combination of the choices with respect to the variables that produces a particular CLIL project‖

The Coyle‘s (2005) and Coonan‘s (2003) definitions stated the focus of CLIL program (topics and subjects integrated – foreign languages and non-language subjects integrated) characteristics of CLIL program (flexible and dynamic), CLIL range (all sectors of education from primary to adults), and duration for a CLIL program (from a few hours per week to intensive modules lasting several months)

Those explanations cover almost all aspects of CLIL program

In sum, CLIL was firstly defined simply as a ―dual focused‖ educational approach which is applied to teach both content and language at the same time As a flexible and transferable approach, it can be adopted in in different types of schools and with different learners, promoting experimentation on the part of the teachers on the basis of the demands of their own settings

This part is giving more details of practical implementation for CLIL in real society Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010) critically analyzed two main reasons for the emergence and the development of CLIL program: reactive reason and proactive reason

Reactive reason: CLIL program emerges to solve the problems in certain countries or certain areas This situation happens in the country in which there are many first languages are used and there is a vigorous debate around choosing one of them as the instruction language, then CLIL becomes the solution for those countries (a foreign language is the instruction language to give equal access for all learners)

Proactive reason: CLIL program is to enhance language learning or other need of education, society, or personal development: the parents want children to be competent at a foreign language, the government want to build the bilingual, plurilingual or multilingual countries, improve language education for socio- economic development, the commission of some areas want to lay foundation for greater inclusion, linguists wish to develop language education through integrating with other subjects

This study adapts the 4Cs framework suggested by Coyle (2005) and the CLIL‘s dimensions by Marsh, Maliers and Hartialas (2001) as the guiding theories since they demonstrate fully the factors contribuiting to effective CLIL practice and present the dimensions which can be benefited from CLIL approach

4Cs framework by Coyle (2005) is the most highly accepted theory about CLIL analyze 4 components of CLIL - Content, Communication, Cognition, and

Culture Those four factors and their close interrelationship prove that CLIL is the emergent synergy program implying the close interrelation between the Content learning and the Language learning It means that learners of CLIL classes can achieve more than the sum of content and language The four factors are explained clearly as follows:

Content: At the heart of the learning process lie successful content or thematic learning and the acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding

Content is the subject or the project theme CLIL‘s content is considered much more flexible than selecting a discipline from a curriculum It can be the topics of cross-curricular, therefore, it brings chances for promoting learning, skill acquisition and development

What of content teaching is often pointed out clearly in the CLIL‘s syllabuses while how to deliver it, is not addressed in detail CLIL, as stated before, is to enhance learning in potential ―synergos‖ Therefore, how CLIL program gets the effective learning in different context becomes the issue for debates of the educators around the world Different teaching and learning approaches are raised to discuss across the areas where CLIL is concerned The one agreed by most teachers in Western society is a ―banking model‖ (Freire, 1972) This model considers teachers as the controllers (teachers deliver knowledge and information to the novice) The other approach which proves the educational effectiveness is

―social constructivist approach” This approach emphasizes learners‘ active role in language learning Accordingly, the key element in learning is ―interactive, mediated and student-led learning‖ And the learners‘ centrality in learning is only gained when the learners are provided with enough ―scaffolding‖ by someone

MEITL

MEITL is one common model of CLIL applied recently The students of the center are the students of primary and secondary schools, therefore, the MEITL models applied are not the same for all students For the primary students, MEITL is used as the form of ―pre-language teaching primer‖ in which task based learning technique is employed as the preparation for a long-term MEITL program providing words, structurers for learners to access Maths in English and develop thinking skill The assessment is taken in English For the secondary students, learners concentrates more on Math knowledge to gain the goal of getting international certification and national status and recognition The assessment is taken in English, too This program, as a model of CLIL, also has all characteristics of CLIL approach synthesised before The views of CLIL approach, its driving forces, its dimensions and framework synthesised in the literature review part provide the in- depth understanding about the program and they play the role of guiding theory through the whole paper.

Opinions

In their book, Aaron, Bander and Aaron (1992) defined the term opinion as a judgment based on facts, an honest attempt to draw a reasonable conclusion from factual evidence The authours also noticed that opinions themselves had little power to convince It should go along with the evidence This definition shows the basic understanding and points out the relationship between opinions and evidence: opinions are given based on envidence and opinions are potentially changeable, depending on how the evidence is interpreted

An opinion was once defnined as ―a conclusion reached by someone after looking at the facts Opinions are based on what people believe to be facts This can include probable facts and even probable lies, ―although few people will knowingly give an opinion based on a proven lie‖ (Thenewsmanual.net, 2018) The term

"opinion‖, in this case, is connected to the fact and the thing that a person believes to be true This definition entails that the opinion should be verified since people might have based their opinions about facts which are themselves untrue or they might have reached the wrong conclusion because of a gap in the logic they used to think it through

There are two types of opinions, namely expert opinion and personal experience:

Expert opinion is a special kind of opinion since experts can give their opinion on an issue, based on their special knowledge of the facts However, even opinion from an impartial expert must be attributed, their opinions can be judged and verified

Personal opinion is the conclusion reached someone reaches based partly on facts and partly on what they already believe Personal opinions, sometimes, are given by people just because they are asked If the personal opinions are based on beliefs or values which a person already has, they are called value judgments

To summary, ―opinions‖ can be seen as the views, the ideas, or the judgments that people have about something or someone, based on the fact they know or their own belief

The teachers‘ opinions studied in this research are personal opinions which are based on their knowledge of MEITL program and their real teaching experience

The undeniable role of teachers‘ opinions in the process of implementing MEITL nowadays can be explained not only by the role of teachers in classroom but by the context of Vietnam this period time Teachers, in the modern education, have different roles:

(1) a planner when planning for teaching and learning

(2) an organizer when asking the learners to do some learning activities

(3) as a participant to participate in the activities with the learners

(4) a supervisor to examine the students‘ learning activities

(5) an adviser to assess the students‘ learning result and offer feedback

(6) a source to answer some difficult questions

(7) as a promoter to inspire the students‘ learning interests and performance

(Zheng, 2017) The teachers perform important roles in teaching and learning, their opinions, therefore, become crucial Only when the teachers have correct understanding and hold positive views on MEITL program can they fulfil their roles properly and make MEITL program effective Especially in the period of time, when the integrated learning is not entirely familiar in Vietnam, it is more necessary than ever that the teachers should have correct conclusion about benefits, challenges of MEITL to fully implement this approach and make the future lessons of MEITL program more beneficial.

Benefits

―Benefit‖, in Merrian Webser dictionary, is ―something that produces good or helpful results or effects or that promotes well-being‖ (benefit, 2019) The term

―benefit‖ emphasizes the succesful consequences suffered by something

Accordingly, investigating benefits of MEITL in the teachers‘ opinions is to figure out the positive effects or significant contributions that MEITL program brings about to the schools, the cirriculum and the learners, as perceived by the teachers

As analyzed in the previous parts, CLIL approach, theoretically, can bring enormous benefits in terms of context, content, language, learning, and culture (Marsh, Maljers and Hartiala, 2001) However, that those benefits are obtained or not and to what extent the benefits are gained in the initiating period of implementation in Vietnam are still a big questions for those who concern The real good effects of MEITL program is revealed clearly by the teachers who carry out the program and witness what really happen in class.

Challenges

In Merrian Webser dictionary, ―challenge‖ is difined as something difficult which requires great effort and determination (challenge, 2019) Challenges, therefore, require a lot of skills and energy to deal with or achieve, especially when those challenges are something that has not been done before In this study, the challenges that need finding out are the factors obstructing the teachers‘ process of teaching with CLIL approach In the context of Vietnam in which CLIL is a quite strange approach and has just been applied in certain schools, facing challenges is nearly unavoidable The participants, with their own teaching Math and English integrated experience, are asked to express their view on all the difficulties encountered in employing MEITL program.

Related studies

Together with the great demand of teaching and learning Content and Language integrated in general, teaching and learning Math and English integrated in particular, the number of research papers on this field also increases steadily and those studies reveal valuable findings

Benefits of CLIL to second language acquisition, competence are widely agreed by the researchers through time Bredenbrửker (2000), in his study on the development of foreign language competence, examining 195 CLIL and non - CLIL learners over 2 years, drew a conclusion that CLIL positively influenced on foreign language competence in general CLIL‘s contribution to language learning was also supported by a case study of Rumlich (forthcoming) in which the students of CLIL approach performed better in foreign language written test than those in regular program Strong evidence for CLIL‘s benefits in the acquisition of English language competences (reading, writing, listening and spoken production and interaction) was once provided in De Diezmas‘s work (2016) After examining and contrasting test result of writing, oral production and interaction, reading, writing of the 4 th grade students from CLIL classes and traditional classes, the author went a to conclusion that CLIL‘s learners were much better at oral production and interaction

This result has entailed the effectiveness of CLIL approach in developing students‘ language communicative competence

Other researchers also showed great concern for different benefits and have presented important findings through their work It can be listed here effectiveness in teaching and learning Math and students‘ engagement (Billingsley, 2013); benefits of raising language awareness, strengthening motivation, bringing positive attitude to language learning (Morkửtter, 2002) and Fehling (2008); developing intercultural learning (Lamsfuò, 2008 & Kollenrott, 2008)

Besides, numerous studies have been carried out to figure out challenges of CLIL approach Billingsley (2013) pointed out the challenges he faced in trialling the integrated lessons He found it was not easy to keep balance between the two areas integrated Materials and resources also became the obstacles when the researcher shared that he normally searched for hours to find materials for a part of a lesson Time allocating also challenged the author since the integrated lesson went longer than expected: ―I planned for 40-minute lessons, but the lessons ended up being an hour The time went faster and there was a lot of stress making sure they understood both topics.‖

Fletcher and Santoli (2003); Schoenberger & Liming (2001) made arguments around the MEITL‘s challenge due to the lack of English vocabulary They claim that not understanding English words and expressions was an obstacle for solving Math problems

Other reasons leading to the inability to solve Math problems in English were added in the paper of Roti, Trahey and Zerafa (2000) whose population was multi-age learners in 5 th and 6 th grade Accordingly, the learners failed to solve problems because of various factors: difficulty in finding out the relationship between the words and the symbols in mathematical problems, the difference between Math language and everyday language, wrong understanding of problem driven by students‘ dependence on cues

Gersten et al (2005) and Van De Walle & Neugebauer (2004) offered the time and opportunities‘ lacking to develop the understanding of both Language and Math This difficulty was clarified through the specific examples taken from the real classes

Along this line, Miqdadi and Al Jamal (2013) used self-reported questionnaires and interviews involving 248 participants to identify the difficulties encountered by learners in MEITL program at the Jordanian University for Science and Technology The paper‘s findings reported the challenges in terms of time, students‘ motivation, students‘ engagement, and language learning time in class

Another valuable study on teachers‘ challenges is the one of Lampert (2001) which categorized the difficulties of administering CLIL into the complex content knowledge, preparation, and decision-making in which she had practiced for a year

She realized those challenges through her own teaching, then she portrayed and interviewed individual student to find the causes to the problems

As stated before, in Vietnamese context, CLIL has attracted much public attention since the Decision No 1400/QĐ-Ttg ―Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National education system with aims of improving the foreign language competence of Vietnam people A large number of studies on CLIL have been undertaken in Vietnam since 2010 and proposed noticable findings

The study by Võ Đoàn Thọ (2015) is one of the pioneering work in the field of CLIL in which he examined the students at University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh city who studied most of subjects in English and reported the benefits of CLIL program and suggested the recommendations to apply CLIL effectively He firstly summarized three main benefits of CLIL: (1) CLIL students were typically more engaged, (2) they could academically cover the same curriculum content as those in a corresponding monolingual program, with a focus on grade-equivalent / age-correspondent knowledge, skills, and concepts, rather than ‗dumbed-down‘ units of work, and (3) CLIL students demonstrated higher levels of intercultural competence and sensitivity, including more positive attitudes towards other cultures Recommendations in 4 factors were also given to make CLIL approach benefitial: (1) choosing appropriate materials; (2) Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT); (3) Conveying culture through CLIL (cross- curricular content); and (4) Creating a safe and natural environment

Nguyễn Thị Thuỳ Linh (2016) conducted a case study with the participation of 9 teachers using CLIL approach in their teaching at Quoc Hoc Upper-Secondary School for Gifted Students in Hue City, Thua Thien Hue Province to investigate the teachers‘ perception of CLIL and the difficuties they faced applying CLIL Most teachers in this case study showed acceptance, support and certain understanding of the significance of CLIL They aslo claimed a number of difficulties in CLIL including language ability, lack of training and lack of materials

More recently, Vũ Đình Phương & Lê Tuấn Anh (2018) undertook the research into the program of Teaching Math in English to Vietnamese 6 th grade students by using Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach and figured out the advantages, disadvantages of this approach, proposed solutions to use CLIL approach to teach those contents effectively, and suggested the process of preparation for teaching a Mathematics lesson in English by using CLIL approach

The teachers in this study had advantages in terms of the teaching context since the issue of the National Foreign Language project, the students‘ fairly good level of English, diverse materials in teaching Math and English At the same time, they faced several difficulties: allocating time in class, not being entirely familiar with this approach, the students‘ different level of English proficiency in a class The two researchers proposed some solutions for teaching Math in English to Vietnamese 6 th grade students by using CLIL approach: using Soft CLIL model (Language - led) to teach some topics from Math as a part of English subject at the beginning of grade 6; using Subject - led model to teach some Math lessons in English; and using Hard CLIL model (Language - led, partial immersion) to teach some mathematical topics in English The most considerable result of this study was the 2-step process of preparation for teaching a Math lesson in English by using CLIL approach - studying the Math lesson carefully to determine mathematical terms and structures in English that students need to acquire for learning Math in English and discussing with teachers of English to ask them to introduce those terms and structures in English lessons 4 weeks before teaching target Math lesson

In sum, the above studies, both in wordwide and in Vietnam, have presented the significant findings of CLIL regarding diverse aspects such as CLIL‘s benefits, challenges, reasons causing challenges, and several suggestions to apply CLIL approach effectively However, most of those studies do not cover all components of the CLIL when discussing the benefits, difficulties, and discussing the recommendations This study fills in that gap by using the 4Cs framework (Coyle,

METHODOLOGY

Context of the study

Vietnam, a developing country, always shows great interest in education in general, in learning and teaching foreign language in particular The important role of English as a foreign language in Vietnam has received the greater care than ever since 1400/QĐ-TTg ―Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2008 to 2020‖ was issued in 2008 by the Prime Minister approving Project 2020 To fulfil the project‘s objectives of renovating thoroughly the tasks of teaching and learning foreign language within national education system, implementing a new program on teaching and learning foreign language at every school levels and training degrees, eight essential and challenging tasks were proposed Among the all tasks, constructing and implementing other teaching and learning programs in English for Mathematics and other subjects could be considered as the most considerable innovating change in Vietnamese language policy leading to the appearing and developing of Math and English integrated learning program all over the country (Nguyễn Thị Thuỳ Linh, 2016) In the period

2011 – 2015, within Project 2020, it was planned to use English as a medium of instruction in Math in about 30% of upper- secondary schools in five big cities, then expand to 15–20% of schools in five other provinces and with other subjects (MOET 2008) Step by step, according to Decision No 959/QĐ-TTg – ―Developing the Gifted Upper-Secondary School System, Period 2010 to 2020‖, this policy first piloted in gifted schools only As a result, from academic year 2011–12, five subjects, namely mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and information technology were taught in English in piloted gifted schools (Trần Thị Thuý Nhàn 2013); the remaining schools will implement by 2020 (MOET 2010) However, it was admitted by the Prime Minister that the objectives of the National Project would not have been fully achieved by 2020 due to the limit of time, preparation ("Bộ trưởng Giáo dục thừa nhận Đề án Ngoại ngữ 2020 thất bại", 2016)

Decision 2658/QĐ-BGDĐT ―Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2017 to 2025‖ was issued in 2018 by the Minister of Education and Training as the legal foundation of MEITL program, allowing the schools and education institues to continue implementing MEITL in current time

Teaching and learning Math and integrated learning has attracted much more concern when the double – degree - program was approved and applied not only high schools but in 7 secondary schools in Hanoi

Double-degree program is the program administered in several schools in Vietnam currently Joinng this program, learners can study in 2 education systems and get two degrees after completing the course For the high school students, the two education systems include one system by Vietnam‘s Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and the A-level program by the

UK (with 5 subjects learnt in English which are Math, Physics, Chemical, Economics, and Academic English For the secondary students, the program involves the program by MOET and GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) – designed by Cambridge University for students at the age of 14-15 all over the world or IGCSE (International GCSE)-designed based on GCSE but more adaptable

The center studied here is one of the pioneers in Vietnam adopting MEITL program for students in primary schools and secondary schools MEITL program by this center, approved by Hanoi Department Education and Training, is to provide students with both Math and English knowledge so that the learners are able to not only solve the Math problems but also use English accurately and fluently At the moment, the center‘s MEITL program is implemented in partnership with nearly 40 primary and secondary schools, both private and public The teachers are assigned to teach in several schools co-operating with the center

The program, consulted by lecturerers from highly prestigous universities such as Hanoi National University of Education, New Castle University, University of Education, Vietnam National University Hanoi, is designed based on Vietnamese Math curriculum and the Math curriculum of Singapore, America One learning coure for one grade is divided into 2 semesters with 16 topics and 2 paper tests each About 70% of the topics are in common with Vietnamese Math curriculum and the other topics are chosen from Math curriculum of Singapore and America to make learners familiar with Math content internationlly

Students have 1 of 2 sections per week learning Math and English integrated in their school depending on the school‘s policy The learning materials used in the program are the coursebook ―Let‘s learn Math‖ published by Hanoi publisher, the weekly extra exercise worksheets and monthly tests online (optional) designed by the teachers of the center The teachers themselves collect materials and design the tasks in weekly extra exercise worksheets for their students to practice more The tests are designed and taken based on the Circular 22/2016/TT-BGDĐT ―Sửa đổi, bổ sung một số điều của quy định đánh giá học sinh tiểu học ban hành kèm theo thông tư số 30/2014/TT-BGDĐT ngày 28 tháng 8 năm 2014 của bộ trưởng bộ giáo dục và đào tạo‖ and the format of the Cambridge test.

Research design

As presented in introduction part, the teachers‘ opinions about MEITL are investigated through seeking the answers for three following questions:

Question 1: What are the benefits of MELT program, as perceived by the teachers?

Question 2: What are the challenges of MELT program, as perceived by the teachers?

Question 3: What are the teachers’ recommendations for improving the MEITL program’s effectiveness?

As mentioned before, the mixed method with two instruments, namely quantitative and qualitative research methods, was used to figure out the answers for the three above questions due to its convenience for collecting quite rich, comprehensive data of the individual teachers‘ opinions in the short time, asking for detailed explanation from the participants, and raising validity of the study by comparing quantitative results and qualitative findings The quantitative method was employed first to seek for the teacher‘ opinions about advantages and challenges of MEITL Data collected from quantitative methods, however, just revealed a surface of problems The qualitative, adopting active, intensive, semi- structured interview and content analysis as an instrument was followed to figure out deeper understanding of the teachers

All the 21 teachers (both visitor teachers and full-time teachers) of the center were involved in the study They are all Vietnamese native speakers, using English as a foreign language They are assigned to teach in 1, 2 or 3 schools cooperating with the center The teaching grades are assigned based on the teacher‘s major The

10 teachers majored at English Teaching Methodology teach grade 1 to grade 3 only and the 11 teachers majored at Math Teaching Methodology teach all the levels The teachers all contribute to design the teaching materials (the weekly exercise worksheets and the monthly online tests) The details of the teachers are provided in the table below:

No Teacher Major English Experience Teaching certificate grades

B2 (CEFR) 1 year Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 1 year Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 3 years Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 3 years Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 2 years Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 1 year Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 1 year Grade 3 to grade 9

C1 (CEFR) 1 year Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 2 years Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 2 years Grade 3 to grade 9

B2 (CEFR) 2 years Grade 3 to grade 9

This research employed the questionnaire instrument included ―Likert-type‖ questions, asking the teachers choose from strongly agree to strongly disagree alternative The questionnaire was administered in English and comprised 32 items falling into 2 categories The first one was ― Teachers’ opinions about MEITL program benefits” , focusing on 5 thematic sections: Context (item 1 to 3), Content

(item 4 to 8), Language (item 9 to 13), Learning (item 14 to 19), and Culture (item

20 to 23) The second one – ― Teachers’ opinions MEITL program benefits”, included 9 items (from 24 to 32), focusing on challenges faced by the teachers in

Task designing, Materials collecting and adapting, English - Math balancing, Applying MEITL for primary students, Applying MEITL for the students with low level of English competence, and Teaching and learning complex Math themes

The questionnaires were delivered to all 21 teachers of the center at a weekly meeting The aims of the research and all items were explained clearly so that all the teachers got the general information about the research and understood all the items To make the data valid and reliable, the participants were asked to not discuss when responding After the participants finished replying to the questionnaires, the questionnaires were taken back one by one and checked if they had been completed or not

To enhance the reliability and the validity of the study as well as to reduce limitations of questionnaire, the semi-structured interviews with 6 teachers were employed in Vietnamese to get both the researcher and the participants on the same page, to avoid misunderstanding, and to save time and energy for both sides in grasping the research focus as an instrument There are two main parts with 4 guiding questions the interviews (see appendix 2) which are teachers‘ general information (the first guiding question) and their opinions about MEITL program regarding benefits, challenges, and suggestions to make the program more efficient (the three later guided questions) In the first part, the teachers shared their major and experience in teaching Math and English integrated In the other part, they talked more about what students, teachers, schools could achieve from this program, the difficulties when applying it as well as the recommendations to improve the MEITL program‘s quality The several follow up questions were asked in the interviews to get clearer explanation from the teachers

The guiding questions were sent to the participants 3 weeks after they had completed the questionnaires and 2 weeks before the interviews to give them adequate time to ponder and reflect Teachers‘ experience and background were considered firstly to select interviewees They had different experience in teaching Math and English integrated: 2 of them have been teaching Math and English integrated for 5 years, 1 of them has 3-year experience, 1 of them has 2-year experience and the rest have 1-year experience only In addition, they had different background: 2 of them graduated from Faculty of English Language Teacher Education and others graduated from Faculty of Mathematics Teacher education (in English) The diversity in interviewees‘ experience and background provided diverse data reflecting the big picture of implementing MEITL currently One more criterion taken into account when selecting interviewees was the teachers‘ responses in questionnaires Those having different responses from others and those whose responses were in doubt were chosen

There are two stages in data collecting procedure:

Stage 1: Collecting data from the questionnaires

Stage 2: Collecting data from interviews

Both statistics method and content method were used to analyze the data of the research The statistics method was applied first to analyze the questionnaires‘ data then it was followed by the content method to interpret the interviews‘ data

The results from the two methods were triangulated in order to figure out the valid and reliable findings The methods‘ detailed descriptions as well as data analysis procedure are given as follows:

3.2.4.1 Statistics analysis of the questionnaires

After collected by the five-point Likert-scale questionnaires, the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics The frequencies of the occurrence for each of the questionnaire statements were tabulated first The raw data then was converted into percentage from overall average percentage of 32 items to average percentage of each item in order to make comparison easier Two characteristics of a single variable including the Mean (for the central tendency of the participants‘ evaluation of METTL‘s benefits) and the Mode (for figuring out the most frequent extent of agreement the participants showed) were used to decode the data and describe the respondents‘ opinions about MEITL The Standard Deviations was also taken in account to find out the agreement between participants in each item In the data analysis, responses ―strongly disagree‖ and ―disagree‖ were grouped as disagreement with a statement, while ―strongly agree‖ and ―agree‖ answers were interpreted as agreement

3.2.4.2 Content analysis of the interviews

Thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) to inteprete the data from the interviews in the steps of identifying, analyzing, and reporting themes or categorizing pattern (Braun and Clarke, 2006), was chosen for this research project due to its simplicity, straightforwardness, flexibility, and reader-friendliness Accordingly, in the present study, the data collected from interview was coded into the following aspects with equivalent themes:

- MEITL program’s benefits with five themes (context, content, language, learning, culture)

- MEITL program’s challenges with seven themes (Collecting and adapting materials, Designing tasks, Balancing Math and English knowledge, Applying MEITL for primary students, Applying MEITL for the students with low level of English competence, Teaching and learning complex Math themes, Allocating time and Teaching Grammar and structures

- Recommendations to improve the program’s effectiveness

At the last stage, the result from qualitative method was mapped to the qualitative methods, and compared the results then the findings were presented in relation to the research questions

In sum, the procedure of data collection and analysis can be summarized in three stages as follow:

Stage 1: Collecting and analysing data from questionnaire Stage 2: Collecting and analysing data from interviews Stage 3: Mapping, comparing the results from two methods, finding the results in relevance to research questions.

MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

Overall rating

The present study focuses on both benefits and challenges of MEITL program, in teachers‘ view All the participants agreed the benefits brought about by the program and admit the challenges when joining the program in the role of teachers However, they still made positive evaluation of this program, which was demonstrated in the over-numbering of benefits to the challenges (the averge Mean for 23 questions of benefits was 3.8 while the average mean for 9 questions of challenges was 3.4) The Mode of the items belonging to benefits ranged from 3 to

5 (neutral to strongly agree) whereas that belonging to challenges ranged from 1 to

5 (strongly disagree to strongly agree) That result, proved that the teachers agreed with nearly every benefit and disapproved several challenges In the interview, they also denied the existence of several challenges and gave strong evidences to their arguments The suggestions to improve the program quality were also offered based on the teachers‘ opinions.

MEITL program‘s benefits, as perceived by the teachers

The benefits gained were sorted in five categories: Context, Content, Learning, Language, Culture The findings revealed that all the Mean scores were above 3.0 except item #5 stating‖ MEITL provides multiple perspectives for the study‖ and and item #20 stating ―MEITL program builds intercultural knowledge‖ and all the SD values were less than 1 It indicated the clear advantages achieved from the program and the agreement on the benefits among the participants Among all items of benefits, item #8 stating ―the program guides the students to access Math knowledge in English‖ had the highest Mean (4.6) Getting Math knowledge in an addition language was the first and foremost advantage achieved by the program that the participants discussed in the interviews The lowest score of benefits fell to item #20 with the Mean score as 2.7, stating ―MEITL program builds intercultural knowledge‖ The benefit of providing intercultural knowledge, accordingly, was not clearly realized in the program More in-depth analysing and interpreting about benefits in 5 categories are given as follows:

With the overall Mean of 3.8 and 80.9% agreement responses, the result obtained from this category demonstrated the obvious benefits to both students and schools in terms of context Disagreement rated only 3.2% Especially, the item of accessing international certification became the second outstanding benefit with the Mean of 4.4, most of the responses for this item were 5 and nearly all participants agree on this benefit

1 MEITL helps prepare for globalization 0 0 14.3 71.4 14.3 4 4

2 MEITL helps learners to access international certifications 0 0 9.5 38.1 52.4 4.4 5

Table 1: MEITL’s benefits for Context, as perceived by the teachers

Majority of the teachers (85.7%) agreed that in the age of 4.0 revolution, teaching Math and English integrated was necessary and it helped the schools have chances to cooperate with other schools in any context This result was supported by all 6 interviewees, as said by T3 ―dạy và học Toán Tiếng Anh tích hợp là bước đầu để phát triển chương trình dạy học tích hợp liên môn‖ (MEITL program is the initiating step for the development of other CLIL programs) T1 also shared the same idea by stating ―học tích hợp Toán – Tiếng Anh là 1 bước trong quá trình toàn cầu hoá vì khi học chương trình này, nhà trường sẽ có cơ hội hợp tác, trao đổi kiến thức với các đơn vị giáo dục khác trên thế giới trong tương lai‖ (learning Math and English integrated is one step of globalization, it brings opportunities to cooperate, exchange knowledge with other countries in the future)

As the cooperator of the international contests such as ITMC, HOMC, World Time, HKIMO, the center provides chances, information, knowledge for the learners to take part in those contests T2 and T3 indicated that they often introduced and encourage their students to participate in the international contests since it was the time for the learners not to challenge themselves but to get the valuable certifications contributing to enhance their profile in the future This benefit was clarified by T4 ―bạn cũng biết hiện nay hệ song bằng được phê duyệt giảng dạy ở 1 số trường cấp 2 và cấp 3, rất nhiều học sinh muốn tham gia chương trình học song bằng này, mà nếu không có kiến thức Toán bằng Tiếng Anh, làm sao các bạn ý có thể theo học được?‖ (you know, double-degree program is provided by many schools in Vietnam nowadays How can they attend the program without learning Maths and English integrated?)

More than a half of participants (66.7%) reported the program‘s benefit in enhancing school profile while only 9.5% of them rated as disagreement This result was made clearer through the interviews T6 claimed that the schools implementing METL program, nowadays, became ―hotter‖ than those not having MEITL ―Như bây giờ mình thấy phụ huynh họ tìm trường học cho con, họ thường quan tâm xem trường đó có triển khai dạy học tích hợp Toán – Tiếng Anh hay không, nếu có thì họ sẽ ưu tiên hơn‖ (If Math and English Integrated is learnt at school or does not becomes one factor that parents and students take into careful consideration when choosing schools), revealed T6 T4 also argued ―mình thấy có trường mà học sinh của người ta tham dự các cuộc thi Toán quốc tế mà có giải cao thì danh tiếng, uy tín của trường đó sẽ tăng lên đáng kể Rõ ràng khi nhìn vào các trường mà có học sinh đi thi Toán quốc tế được giải cao mình cũng phải trầm trồ và đánh giá cao chất lượng giảng dạy của trường đó mà Và chương trình mà mình đang giảng dạy thì giúp học sinh có cơ hội để thi và đạt thành tích cao trong các cuộc thi Toán quốc tế‖

(I have witnessed the improvement in some schools‘ profile when their students get high scores and certificates in the international contests This approach, clearly, supports students a lot in gaining that achievement)

However, T5 showed her disagreement on this aspect because ―thực ra chương trình này có thể triển khai và đạt hiệu quả ở một số vùng, một số trường nhất định chứ ở nông thôn, miền núi hay vùng sâu vùng xa mình thấy các nhà trường hay học sinh, bố mẹ học sinh cũng không để ý đến học tích hợp Toán Tiếng Anh‖ (it is applicable for certain schools in certain areas In many areas such as countryside, mountainous and remote areas, learning Math and English integrated does not attract school administraters, learners, and parents‘ attention)

The results of this category show the benefits MEITL program brings to the context in terms of preparing globaliazation, getting international certificates and enhancing school‘s profile Those benefits gained since MEITL program satisfies the need of society in current context of Vietnam They also show the meeting of the program with the theory proposed by Marsh, Maljers and Hartiana (2001) They also reflect the current trend of Vietnamese education, which is in the process to catch up with the modern education of the developed countries and to participate in the globalization The teachers‘ opinions about benefits of context, at the same time, show the development of Vietnamese education when learning, teaching, and competition nowadays are not bordered inside the country but are extended into the international environment

The results gained from the participants‘ responses to the category ―Content benefits‖ illustrated the role of MEITL in helping learners enrich their knowledge in Math (the Mean score of this category was 3.7 and SD was 0.9) The more detail is presented in the table below:

4 MEITL provides in- depth knowledge of Math

5 MEITL provides multiple perspectives for the Math topics

6 MEITL prepare for future study 0 0 19.1 61.8 19.0 4 4 0.6

7 MEITL program trains skills for working life 0 0 43.9 47.6 9.5 3.7 4 0.6

8 MEITL program guides students to access Math knowledge in English

Table 2: MEITL’s benefits for Math learning, as perceived by the teachers

It is clearly seen from the table that item #8 had the highest Mean score (4.6) and all the responses to this item fell to agree and strongly agree This result is consistent with that from interviews The very first benefit all participants mentioned was the chance to learn Math in English In the lessons, the students focused on the basic knowledge first and learnt advanced knowledge of Math when they had time, shared by T1, T3 and T6 Moreover, the teachers also provided students with various resources to learn Math in English including Math books in English available in the bookstores, Math books in English they could buy online or the websites to learn Math in English The amount of in-depth knowledge provided greatly depends on students‘ level: much time should be spent on accessing knowledge for the high-level students and less time for the low-level students In T2‘s words, the advanced knowledge attracted great interest from the students in grade 3 to grade 9, the ones of grade 1 and 2 spent most of the time learning basic knowledge This situation is due to the parents‘ hope and the social reality Grade 1 and 2 are the two first years of schooling, the students are still not familiar with learning and doing difficult exercises, it is better to let them have time to relax, and change their learning habit Additionally, the international contests for students in Math and English are not for the 1 st and the 2 nd graders, therefore, it is better to access advanced knowledge since grade 3 rather than grade 1 and 2 Learning Maths and English at the same time is the preparation for studying abroad or further studying in the future In T3‘s thought, ―môn nào cũng thế, để có thể học lên các bậc học cao hơn trong tương lai thì cần học ở các nguồn tài liệu khác nhau, mà đa số các tài liệu có giá trị thì được viết bằng Tiếng Anh Tiếp xúc với các tài liệu này càng sớm thì cơ hội tiếp thu kiến thức từ các nguồn đa dạng càng nhiều‖ (in order to get higher level in every subject including Math, ones should get knowledge in different materials, many of which are written in English Learning Math and English integrated from young age helps learners learn Math from various recourses) He also considered this program crucial for those wanting to challenge themselves in SAT in the future

More than a half (57.1 %) of participants showed their agreement in responding to the chances to be trained working skills in MEITL program All individuals in the interviews also indicated that their students were trained useful soft skills through the program T6 reported that she always asked her students to work in groups, to work in pairs in all her lessons With her support, they developed their group-work skill ―Trong các giờ học, mình luôn khuyến khích học sinh phát biểu ý kiến, và mình dành thời gian cho các con trình bày về các cách các con giải toán‖ (in my class, the students are highly motivated to share their ideas, to present their work), stated by T2 That is the way to train presentation skill The word problems given in the books also required students to deal with many situations in real life Solving those problems helped learners to prepare to work in society in the future

It is not striking when most of the teachers showed their uncertainty with providing multiple perspectives for Math topics in Math and English integrated classes (66.7 %) because ―tuy nhiên đã là Toán thì phải chính xác nên thường là các chủ đề, các kiến thức Toán sẽ chỉ có 1 cách hiểu‖ (Math knowledge is normally true for all areas and through the time Nearly all concepts were normally agreed by the scholars around the word), said T3

The strong evidence from data was found to support the benefits for content (Math) in MEITL program All the participants agreed that the learners not only learnt Math knowledge but also learnt other skills such as presentation skill, group working skill, making argument skill, etc Those skills were introduced and practiced through the games and activities in class This result can be explained as the entailment of methods applied in the CLIL program Most of the teachers often employed diverse methods in class including communicative methods, therefore, the students were motivated to be active in the activities After long time of interaction, they would be well equipped with above skills

The teachers‘ opinions indicate the outstanding results on benefits for achieveing Math knowledge: getting in depth knowledge of Math and accessing the international certicicates Those benefits are highly appriciate in current time in Vietnam since the demand of learning abroad increases considerably and learning Math in English can be seen as the preparation for future The findings here corroborate the ideas of Võ Đoàn Thọ (2015) which emphasized the considerable academic content results gained by students of this program in comparison to those of the traditional program: ―CLIL students academically cover the same curriculum content as those in a corresponding monolingual program, with a focus on grade- equivalent/age-correspondent knowledge, skills, and concepts, rather than ‗dumbed- down‘ units of work‖, they can perform ―well on tests of content knowledge‖ It is clearly seen that the current research and that of Võ Đoàn Thọ (2015), though have different participants and different contexts, still get similar findings in terms of content benefits It is the demonstration for CLIL‘s dimensions by Marsh, Maljers, and Hartial‘s (2001) and CLIL‘s framework by Coyle, Hood, and Marsh (2005) when enhancing learning of ―subject matter, theme, and topic forming the basis for the program, defined by domain or discipline according to knowledge, concepts, and skills‖

Average Mean of 5 items describing the benefits for language learning was quite high (4.0) 68.6% of the responses fell in agreement while the percentage of disagreement accounted only 1.9 % (with 2 responses) Table 3 presents the Average, Mean and SD of 5 aspects in benefits for language learning:

9 MEITL program helps to improve learners‘ overall English competence

10 MEITL program develops oral communication skill 0 0 47.6 47.6 4.8 3.6 4 0.6

11 MEITL program develops awareness of CLIL language

12 MEITL program develop self-confidence as a language learner and communicator

13 MEITL program introduces the using and learning of English

Table 3 MEITL’s benefits for English learning, as perceived by the teachers

The above table indicates the very high level of agreement among respondents upon the benefits for English competence (overall SD = 0.6)

MEITL program‘s challenges as perceived by the teachers

Together with benefits, applying MEITL also faces significant challenges, which are shown in the Table 8:

24 It takes time to 0 0 52.4 47.6 0 3.3 3 0.7 designs MEITL tasks

25 Teachers lack time to deliver both Maths and English knowledge

26 It is difficult to collect content materials for MEITL course

27 It takes much time to adapt content materials for MEITL course

28 It is hard to balance between teaching and learning Math and teaching English

29 It is hard to make the program effective to the students with low level of English competence

30 It is hard to manage time for Grammar in MEITL program

31 It is hard to make 57.1 38.1 4.8 0 0 1.5 1 0.6 the program effective to the primary students

32 It is hard to to teach the complex Math knowledge in English

Table 6 Teachers’ opinions about MEITL’s challenges 4.3.1 Collecting and adapting materials

Table 8 reveals an unexpected finding that the teachers disagreed with challenges in collecting material Item #26 emphasizing the challenge in collecting material had the low Mean score with value of 2.3 and was disagreed by 71.5% participants Collecting materials for MEITL program was not a challenge for the teachers in this study ―while Griva, Chostelidou, and Panteli (2014) reported a high percentage of the Cypriot teachers putting forward the apparent difficulty in collecting appropriate content material (62.5%) Discussing around this kind of challenge, the participants shared that they had various sources of materials (from internet, from the reference book of America, Singapore, Canada, India) and they also discussed with other teachers, cosulted the expert and collaborated with English and Math teachers in schools to find the good materials at the same time

―Mình thấy cũng không có nhiều khó khăn lắm vì bọn mình thường thảo luận và đóng góp cho nhau trong các buổi sinh hoạt chuyên môn hàng tuần, với cả có những chuyên gia tham gia cùng và tư vấn nữa Thêm nữa là mình cũng thường xuyên trao đổi với giáo viên Toán, giáo viên Tiếng Anh để học hỏi những tài liệu hữu ích từ họ‖, (I do not find too difficult since I discuss with other teachers and consult the experts when there is a problem I also discuss with Math, English teachers to get the good ) (T6)

The challenge in adapting content in real teaching was agreed by more than 50% of the participants This challenge occurred when considering the Math themes different from ones in Vietnamese Math curruculum Teachers with less experience found it difficult to deal with students‘ response and engagement in strange topics

This finding is understandable because the experienced teachers have had read and used different materials, they can evaluate students‘ ability better and predicts students‘ responses to the materials given Therefore, they can mangage well with the materials

More than 50% of the participants expressed their uncertainty of the bulkiness in designing MEITL tasks Those who felt neutral were the teachers for secondary teachers and those agreed with this difficulty were the primary teachers

This difference can be explained by the influence of students‘ English vocab richness It is not easy to design tasks for small children who do not have adequate English words and are not similar with task types ―Bài tập cho học sinh lớp bé cần rõ ràng, nhiều hình ảnh, dạng bài tập đủ đang dạng, cần độ khó của toán vừa đủ nhưng Tiếng Anh không được quá khó vì học sinh đã biết nhiều từ đâu‖ (making the tasks diverse enough, clear enough and simple enough for the young kids to understand is really challenging), T1 shared T3 also gave a possible reason for this difficulty which is the shortage of time for this program: ―trong thời gian 1 hoặc 2 tiết học 1 tuần, nội dung của các bài tập cần phải đi hết các nội dung Toán, các thuật ngữ Tiếng Anh, mà lại cần dạng bài thú vị cho học sinh hứng thú‖ (with the limited time amount for this program, the tasks need to cover the knowledge of both Math and English in an attracting way) Obviously, to certain extent, designing tasks is a big obstable for the teachers teaching primary students since the students‘ English vocab richness as well as the limmited time This challenge was supported by McDougald (2016) when indicating ―CLIL is context orientated, making it impossible at times to find the ―right material‖ for a lesson, let alone materials that also provide culturally enriching elements to further promote the teaching and learning process‖ His conclusion showed difficulty to find ―good‖ material to meet the CLIL framework which requires CLIL program to cover language, content, cognition, culture in context

4.3.3 Balancing between teaching Math and teaching English

More than 65% of the respondents admitted that they often went further in either Math or English in certain lessons This result goes in line with report of the study by Griva, Chostelidou, and Panteli, (2014) in which the majority of the participants revealed that CLIL could potentially make content- based knowledge suffer (55% Cypriot teachers and 67.73 % Greek teachers) Vũ Đình Phương and Lê Tuấn Anh (2018) also supported this finding by stating in their research

―Determining the suitable time to teach Mathematics in English is also a challenge‖

O Ceallaigh, Ní Mhurchú & Ní Chróinín, (2017) once again supported this view when stating ―the balance between content learning and language learning is not always achieved, as the teachers more focused on language development than on content learning‖ The reason for that bias was explained by T5 that greater emphasis was put on content learning in L1 classes and in CLIL classes more focus should be placed on language learning The current study figures out quite different bias when 2 teachers (T1 and T2) showed bias towards English but T6 put more emphasis on Math The difference among teachers here is due to the students they teach To the very small children (the 1 st and the 2 nd grader) the focus was given to English while the focus was on Math knowledge to students from grade 3 to grade 9 and to the students in the gifted class

It can be said that the problem of balancing completely between Math and English in a lesson does not matter a lot The teachers should be flexible in their spending time or focus depeding on the students‘ need and levels as long as they deeply understand the objectives of the whole program and of each lesson and they can help their students attain those objectives

4.3.4 Applying MEITL for primary students

Item #31 stating ―It is hard to make the program effective to the primary students‖ achieved the lowest Mean score of all items (Mean score is 1.5) and was disagreed by 95.2 % of the respondents This result markedly differs from that of research by Griva, Chostelidou, and Panteli (2014) discussed in the Literature review part By examining 248 Greek and 100 Cypriot Teachers of primary education, the researchers suggested the outstanding finding of obstacles in applying CLIL primary students Vast majority of the Cypriot EFL teachers declared that CLIL is ineffective for primary education (66.7 % of Greek teachers and 77.5% of Cypriot teachers) The finding was also explained by the lack of teacher training in teaching young learners On the other hand, the teachers surveyed in current study were well trained before teaching primary students ―Liên tục trong 3 tháng hè và đều đặn trong các buổi sinh hoạt chuyên môn hàng tuần, giáo viên ở trung tâm đều được đào tạo kĩ năng dạy Toán Tiếng Anh tích hợp cho các đối tượng học sinh, đặc biệt là học sinh tiểu học‖ (in three months of the summer, we are trained how to apply this approach for the students in different level, especially for the primary students) [….] ― nguời đào tạo có thể là các chuyên gia về giáo dục tích hợp, các giảng viên Toán, giảng viên Tiếng Anh, giảng viên giáo dục Tiểu học từ các trường đầu ngành như đại học sư phạm hà Nội, đại học giáo dục đại học quốc gia) hoặc là các giáo viên có nhiều năm kinh nghiệm trong chính trung tâm‖, (the trainers are the lecturers majored in Math, English, CLIL, primary education from prestigious universities or the experienced teachers in the center), T5 shared

4.3.5 Applying MEITL to teach the students with low level of English competence

More than 70% participants agreed the with difficulty teaching students with low level of English competence This result is consistent with the teachers‘ explanation in the interview ―có nhiều lớp tiếng Anh của học sinh không tốt, dù dùng những từ đơn giản nhất để nói học sinh cũng cứ ngơ ra ý, nên lúc dạy mình thấy khá là áp lực với tốn sức‖ (there are many students with low level of English competence, even when i use the simple words, they are still not clear, I feel so stressed in that case) (T5) This finding is along with conclusion drawn by Griva, Chostelidou, and Panteli (2014) in which 81.4 % Greek teachers and 52.9 of Cypriot teachers agreed on ineffectiveness for lower level students In this study, this situation can be explained by the irrationality about grouping students in a class That the low level students are in the same class with the high level ones, make it hard for teacher to boost most of the class Obviously, the MEITL program becomes ineffective for those with poor English knowledge

4.3.6 Teaching and learning complex Math themes in English

Item #32 ―It is hard to teach the complex Math knowledge in English‖ was agreed by majority of participants (71.43%) and the its Mean score reached quite high value (nearly 4.1) This situation happened because there were certain schools starting applying this program for students of grades 2, 3, or even 6, 7 They did not have background of Math and English integrated knowledge since grade 1

Therefore, it was hard to them to learn complex Math themes in English That result entails the difficulty in using English to explain complex topic in Math All the six interviewees admitted they fell back to use Vietnamese when failing to explain advanced exercise for students ―Thực ra có những chủ đề học sinh học tiếng Việt còn đang thấy khó, sau khi giải thích bằng Tiếng Anh mà thấy học sinh ngơ quá mình sẽ nói lại bằng Tiếng Việt‖ (There are some problems, you know, the students feel extremely difficult even in Vietnamese In those cases, I find Vietnamese works better), said T1 T6, in the same shoes in this aspect, states ―in test preparation classes, we have to deal with advanced exercises, after explaining English once or twice, I use Vietnamese to make it easier for students‖ Another example throwing lights upon this viewpoint was when the students wished to explain their solutions but they did not have enough lexical items for the too complex problems, they would prefer Vietnamese

A likely argument made by Bonnet (2004), to some extent, supported this result In his study, the analysis of data sample revealed that the learners often came back to used mother tongue (German) This was due to not only the lack of foreign language competence but the not understanding of concepts in German

The use of Vietnamese in MEITL program, in my opinion, is not negative since L1 plays an important role in learning foreign languages, ―the L1 is a resource which learners use both consciously and subconsciously to help them arrange and re-arrange the L2 data in the input and to perform as best as they can‖ (Yadav,

The teachers‘ recommendations to improve MEITL program‘s

Detailed analysis of the results shows that apart from the benefits, the MEITL program still faces considerable challenges in implementing in the context of Vietnam currently Being aware of this situation, the teachers always consider and suggest practical recommendation to overcome those challenges and improve the program‘s effectiveness

4.4.1 Raising public awareness of CLIL program in general, MEITL in particular

In the interviews, the teachers admitted that they felt quite stressed facing with strict requirements from parents The parents hoped their kids to understand every problem in any Math books (English version) T1 shared that there were some cases that the parents took the advanced Math books written in English in from any sources they know and asked their kids to translate all the exercises or to finish them If the kids cannot do that, the parents felt not happy with the program and the teachers as well, the program would be considered useless It was really hard for the teachers to explain to every single parent about this issue

That the program has been implemented as the top-down policy in several schools leads to the parents and students‘ unwillingness apply this approach T2 and T3 also felt discouraged and uncomfortable when hearing the parents, or even the teachers of other subject saying ―thời gian học toán Tiếng Việt còn không đủ nữa là Toán Tiếng Anh tích hợp‖ (time for learning Math in Vietnamese is not enough, why Math and English integrated learning?)‖ or ―Toán Tiếng Anh tích hợp, mất hết cả thời gian, chỉ cần Toán và Tiếng Anh thôi‖ it is waste of time to apply this approach, Math and English are enough‖ The students, influenced by their teachers and parents, saw Math and English integrated learning as an unimportant subject and they would not cooperate well with teachers in class

The teachers here suggested having more conferences with parents and students to explain the objectives, benefits and the process of implementing this new approach The school administrators, other teachers, parents and students should be equipped with necessary understanding about this program They must know that what the kids achieve through this approach is far beyond the sum of Math knowledge and English skills, Math and English integrated is not only the combination of the two subjects or the translation of teaching Math into English

The chances brought by the program should be mentioned in the conferences, also

Moreover, it is important for all the stakeholders to understand the process of employing program: it is not the matter of one week, one month or even one semester, it needs time to achieve the wanted result How to support the learners to fulfil this program is also the issue to be discussed in detail to prepare for the administration of the program

This recommendation was by Nguyễn Thị Thuỳ Linh (2016) in her study In the research investigating the significance of CLIL in Vietnam, teachers and students‘ readiness, how they implemented CLIL and difficulties they encountered when applying this approach, she figured out the big challenges to the teachers implementing this approach resulted from the lack of public‘s understand about CLIL‘s theories and practices She, therefore, suggested the provision of the approach for the stakeholders because ―they have been more willing to adopt CLIL if they had been provided with clearer explanations about the purposes of CLIL‖

It was complained by interviewees that there were too many exercises in the book and they did not have enough time to help learners develop their communication skills and intercultural communication

Therefore, it was recommended by all the interviewees that the number of exercises should be reduced so that they could spend more class time on oral skills

The intercultural knowledge should be added more through the exercises in the coursebook for the students to understand about the similarities, the differences between the different cultures in the world, and the way to communicate successfully in the multi cultures environment

T4 also hoped to separate books into advanced level and mainstream level

As explained previously, the students with low level of English competence find hard to solve the complex Math problems in the book If there is a book for advanced students and another for the mainstream one, nearly all the students can follow the program

T6, concerning the problem of modifying course books, expressed her wish to have different course books for the students learning 1 section per week and students learning 2 sections per week At the time of the interview, the students in the same grade used the same coursebook regardless the different amount of time in class they spent for MEITL program This drove to the situation that the students had to skip many parts in the coursebook If the other coursebook with fewer tasks are used for the students spending 1 section a week joining MEITL program, this situation will be solved

Coursebook modifying is the reasonable recommendation since there is no coursebook that fits all students Especially, in context of Vietnam, learners are not familiar with the MEITL program, to have the appropriate coursebook for different students is in bad need in MEITL implementation process

As reported by teachers, the class size of MEITL classes in almost schools was quite big (from 25 to 60 students) Therefore, it is better to reduce the number of students in each class into about 15 students per one class, T4 and T5 agreed

This change would help students have more time for speaking activities and get more care from teachers Moreover, the teachers also hoped to have classes with similar-level students to make program beneficial to nearly every kid ―nếu phân ra được các lớp theo trình độ học sinh thì lúc dạy sẽ hiệu quả hơn, lớp giỏi thì dạy nhanh, dạy nhiều bài nâng cao, lớp cơ bản thì dạy chậm, dạy kiến thức cơ bản thôi‖

(if the classes are re-organized, MEITL will be more effective: the hig leveled students can learn advanced knowledge and the other follow basic knowledge) (T5)

The relationship between class size and students‘ achievement is undeniable

That is, the small class sizes have positive effects on students‘ achievement (Biddle

& Berliner, 2002); reduced class size can be expected to produce increased academic achievement, the major benefits from reduced class size are obtained as the size is reduced below 20 students (Glass and Smith, 1978) The positive impact of class size on students‘ learning is due to the fact that when the class size is small, individual students will get more attention from teachers and they will have more time being engaged in active interaction in class The school administrators should consider re-organizing class to make the MEITL program more beneficial

4.4.4 Using Information and Communication Technology

In the interviews, most of the teachers suggested using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in MEITL classes to overcome challenges in language competence and to motivate the students The effectiveness of ICT in class was demonstrated by the teachers themselves in real teaching: ―Khi mình dùng các trò chơi mình thiết kế trên powerpoint để dạy, học sinh rất thích thú và hào hứng‖ (When I use the games or the activities in powerpoint, the students seem to be very excited and they are eager to take part in those games) (T3); ―Dùng máy tính và loa hỗ trợ mình lúc dạy từ vựng vì thay vì chỉ nghe và nhìn giáo viên, học sinh có thể học từ thông qua tranh ảnh, thông qua phát âm của người bản ngữ‖

CONCLUSION

Summary

As mentioned, the research aims at investigating the teachers‘ opinions about MEITL program at an education center They also based on their real teaching to suggest the further recommendations to enhance benefits and overcome challenges of the program in the context of Vietnam Using the 32 - item questionnaires followed by the semi-structured interviews, the reseach produced the satisfactory findings:

5.1.2 The benefits of MEITL program, as perceived by the teachers

The data analysis has specified 5 dimensions the program benefit: context, content, language, learning, and culture The outstanding benefits categorized in 5 dimensions are summarized as follows:

Context: MEITL program helps prepare globalization in terms of enhancing schools‘ profile and bringing chances to Vietnamese schools to exchange knowledge, cultures with schools in other countries; helps learners to access international certification in Math and English; gives strong messages and plays a role of a fundamental model in employing CLIL approach in Vietnam

Content (Math): the MEITL program provides in depth Math knowledge for the advanced student; instructs the students to access Math knowledge in English; prepares for future study, it trains skills for working life (problem solving skill, presentation skill, group working skill, etc)

Language (English): the program helps to improve learners‘ overall English competence; develops learners‘ oral communication skill, develops awareness of both L1 and CLIL language, develops self-confidence as a language learner and communicator; introduces the using and learning of English

Learning: the MEITL program improves learners‘ motivation in general, complements individual strategies, develops cognitive skills, fosters positive attitude towards language learning, fosters positive attitude towards Math learning, diversifies methods and approaches to classroom practice

Culture: the MEITL program provides chances for learning about specific neighboring countries, and introduces wider cultural context (though not many)

5.1.2 The challenges of MEITL program, as perceived by the teachers

Besides the benefits, there are still challenges occurring when applying MEITL program, which are difficulties in designing tasks, balancing between Math and English knowledge, applying the program for students with low level of English competence, teaching and learning complex Math themes, time allocating and Grammar teaching

5.1.3 The teachers’ recommendations concerning improving the MEITL program’s effectiveness

The teachers also suggested applicable recommendation to enhance the MEITL program effectiveness including raising public‘s awareness of MEITL program, regarding its objectives, benefits, challenges and the process of applying, modifying coursebooks to fit various groups of targeted students, reorganizing classes (reducing class size and arranging the students at similar level of English competence, Math knowledge into the same class), using ICT hardware and software in teaching and learning.

Implications

The current research‘s findings assert the benefits and challenges of MEITL programs Those findings both support the framework by Coyle (2005) and theory about the CLIL‘s dimensions of Marsh, Maljers and Hartiala‘s (2001) Such benefits and difficulties can be used as good examples to prove the practicality of CLIL theories In another word, CLIL approach with the framewok by Coyle

(2005) can be implemented successfully in the current context of Vietnam

This study also has practical benefits in practice The policy makers, school administrators, center managers, when implementing MEITL program, can consider the teachers‘ opinion of challenges and suggestions to have necessary modification in class size, materials, process of collaborating with parents, etc so that the program could gain better result in larger scale.

Limitations and recommendations for further studies

There are several limitations that can be pointed out here concerning this survey research Firstly, the research employed questionnaires and interviews as the instrument to get data, the results may be bias because they not triangulated with what really happens in real teaching Second, the findings cannot be said to fully reflect the whole picture of the MEITL program‘s benefits and challenges

As the result, this study leaves several gaps unfilled and they become new potential line of inquiry The future research of similar topics may employ more data collection instrument and the survey can be conducted with more interviewees in order to get more objective results

The present study involves the participating of teachers only, there are still other stakeholders that other researchers can examine such as students and policy makers

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APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE TEACHERS

My name is Do Thi Nham, I am conducting my MA research titled ―an exploratory study on teachers‘ opinion about MATH AND ENGLISH INTEGRATED TEACHING AND LEARNING PROGRAM IN AN EDUCATION CENTER IN HANOI‖ (the program hereaffter is writen in the short forrm of MEITL) in an attempt to figure out the benefits and challenges of the program I would greatly appreciate if you could be willing to respond to the questions below

Please read every statement carefully and tick () on the alternatives that you find most suitable

Thank you very much for your cooperation and participation!

PERSONAL INFORMATION Teacher’s Name (optional): _

Experience in Math and English Integrated Teaching:

First year 2-5 years More than 5 years

In responding to the statements in this questionnaire, please tick () on the appropriate choice to indicate your level of agreement, from strongly disagree to strongly agree:

BENEFITS OF MEITL PROGRAM, AS PERCEIVED BY THE TEACHERS

2 MEITL helps learners to access international certification

3 MEITL enhances the school profile

4 MEITL provides in-depth knowledge of

5 MEITL provides multiple perspectives for the study

6 MEITL prepare for future study

7 MEITL program trains skills for working life

Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4) Strongly agree (5)

8 MEITL program guides students to access

9 MEITL program helps to improve learners‘ overall English competence

10 MEITL program develops oral communication skill

11 MEITL program develops awareness of

12 MEITL program developd self-confidence as a language learner and communicator

13 MEITL program introduces the using and learning of English

14 MEITL program improves learners‘ motivation in general

15 MEITL program complements individual strategies

16 MEITL program develops cognitive skills

17 MEITL program fosters positive attitude towards English learning

18 MEITL program fosters positive attitude towards Math learning

19 MEITL program diversifies methods and approaches to classroom practice

20 MEITL program builds intercultural knowledge

21 MEITL program develops intercultural communication skills

MEITL program provides chances for learning about specific neighboring countries

23 MEITL program introduces wider cultural context

CHALLENGES OF MEITL PROGRAM, AS PERCEIVED BY THE TEACHERS

24 It takes time to design MEITL tasks

25 Teachers lack time to deliver both Math and

26 It is difficult to collect content materials for

27 It takes much time to adapt content materials for MEITL course

It is hard to balance between teaching Math knowledge and teaching English knowledge

It is hard to make the program effective to the students with low level of English competence

30 It is hard to manage time for Grammar in

31 It is hard to make the program effective to the primary students

32 It is hard to use English to teach the complex content in Maths

APPENDIX 2: GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEWS

1 Bạn có thể giới thiệu đôi chút về bản thân được không ạ?

(Can you introduce about yourself?)

2 Từ quá trình đi dạy của bạn, bạn thấy chương trình này mang lại những lợi ích gì ạ?

(From your own teaching experiencing, can you tell me the benefits of this program?)

3 Có khó khăn gì giáo viên, trung tâm găp phải trong quá trình triển khai chương trình đến các nhà trường không ạ?

4 Bạn có đề xuất gì để giúp chương trình hiệu quả hơn ? (Do you have any recommendations for improving the program‘s effectiveness)

APPENDIX 3: RESULTS FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRES

2 MEITL helps learners to access international certification 0 0 % 0 0 % 2 9.5 % 18 38.1 11 52.4

3 MEITL gives strong message about plurilingual education 0 0 % 2 9.5 % 5 23.8% 14 66.7% 0 0%

4 MEITL provides in-depth knowledge of Math 0 0% 2 9.5% 7 33.3% 11 52.4% 1 4.4%

5 MEITL provides multiple perspectives for the Math topics 0 0% 6 28.5% 14 66.7% 1 4.8% 0 0%

6 MEITL prepare for future study 0 0% 0 0% 4 19.1% 13 61.8% 4 19.1%

7 MEITL program trains skills for working life 0 0% 0 0% 9 43.9% 10 47.6% 2 9.5%

MEITL program guides students to access Math knowledge in

9 MEITL program helps to improve learners‘ overall

10 MEITL program develops oral communication skill 0 0% 0 0% 10 47.6% 10 47.6% 1 4.8%

11 MEITL program develops awareness of CLIL language 0 0% 1 4.8% 7 33.3% 13 61.9% 0 0%

MEITL program develop self- confidence as a language learner and communicator

13 MEITL program introduces the using and learning of English 0 0% 0 0% 3 14.2% 14 66.7% 4 19.1%

14 MEITL program improves learners‘ motivation in general 0 0% 0 0% 6 28.6% 12 57.1% 3 14.3%

15 MEITL program complements 0 0% 2 9,5% 5 23.8% 12 57.2% 2 9.5% individual strategies

16 MEITL program develops cognitive skills 0 0% 0 0% 3 14.3% 15 71.4% 3 14.3%

MEITL program fosters positive attitude towards English learning

18 MEITL program fosters positive attitude towards Math learning 0 0% 0 0% 1 4.8% 15 71.4% 5 23.8%

MEITL program diversifies methods and approaches to classroom practice

20 MEITL program builds intercultural knowledge 2 9.5% 7 33.3% 8 38.1% 4 19,1% 0 0%

MEITL program develops intercultural communication skills

MEITL program provides chances for learning about specific neighboring countries

23 MEITL program introduces wider cultural context 0 0% 5 23.8% 12 57.1% 4 19.1% 0 0%

24 It takes time to designs MEITL tasks 0 0% 0 0% 11 52.4% 10 47.6% 0 0%

Teachers lack time to deliver both Maths and English knowledge

26 It is difficult to collect content materials for MEITL course 1 4.8% 14 66.7% 5 23.7% 1 4.8% 0 0%

It takes much time to adapt content materials for MEITL course

It is hard to balance between teaching and learning Math and teaching English

It is hard to make the program effective to the students with low level of English competence

30 It is hard to manage time for

31 It is hard to make the program effective to the primary students 12 57.1% 8 38.1% 1 4.8% 0 0% 0 0%

32 It is hard to use English to teach the complex content in Maths 0 0% 1 4.8% 27 4.8% 14 66.7% 5 23.7%

Giáo viên 1 (T1) Giáo viên 2 (T2) Giáo viên 3 (T3)

1 - Mình tốt nghiệp thạc sĩ tại trường đại học Victoria chuyên ngành lý luận và phương pháp giảng dạy bộ môn Tiếng Anh

-Mình đã tham gia giảng dạy chương trình tích hơp Toán Tiếng Anh được

-Mình chủ yếu dạy đối tượng học sinh tiểu học (khối 1, 2, 3)

Mình tốt nghiệp thạc sĩ tại trường đại học Victoria chuyên ngành lý luận và phương pháp giảng dạy bộ môn Tiếng Anh

-Mình đã tham gia giảng dạy chương trình tích hơp Toán Tiếng Anh được 4 năm

-Mình chủ yếu dạy đối tượng học sinh tiểu học (từ khối 1 đến khối

5), cả lớp cơ bản lẫn lớp nâng cao

Mình tốt nghiệp đại học trường đại học Sư phạm Hà Nội chuyên ngành sư phạm Toán Tiếng Anh

-Mình đã tham gia giảng dạy chương trình tích hơp Toán Tiếng Anh được

-Mình dạy cả học sinh tiểu học lẫn học sinh trung học cơ sở (từ khối 3 đến khối 8)

2 - Đầu tiên, khi học sinh được tiếp xúc với môn học này, các bạn sẽ được trải nghiệm việc nói Tiếng anh Trong các tiết dạy cuả mình, mình đẩy nhiều hoạt động để học sinh được chia sẻ ý kiến, suy nghĩ của mình với cô và các bạn Có những học sinh đi ra khỏi lớp rồi vẫn tự nói lại về các thuật ngữ mình vừa học bằng tiếng Anh

-Mình dùng rất nhiều body language trong giờ, học sinh có thể học theo để diễn đạt khi bí từ tiếng Anh Cac từ tiếng Anh cũng đc các bạn ấy dùng để nói trong giờ, để giải quyết cac bài tập toán  các bạn ấy đã vận dụng được từ

- Tiếp cận môn Toán bằng Tiếng Anh, học nhiều hơn các dạng Toán, cách tư duy của nước ngoài, cách tiếp cận Toán ở nước ngoài Ví dụ khi dạy Toán có lời văn ở tiếng Việt thì sẽ đọc đề bài, cho hs suy nghĩ và đề ra hướng giải quyết

Nhưng ở Toán T.a thì chia ra từng bươc rõ ràng hơn: xác định yêu cầu đề bài, tìm từ khoá, xác định cách làm, trình bày, kiểm tra lại

-Học sinh từ lớp 3 trở lên sẽ đưa nhiều kiến thức nâng cao hơn

-Phát triển năng lực tiếng Anh Tuy nhiên do ít thời gian, đa phần thời gian sẽ tâp trung vào việc làm các bài tập, nên ít thời gian để luyện kĩ

-Học sinh được trang bị kiến thức Toán và Tiếng Anh trong 1 môn học Mình chủ yếu dạy các kiến thức cơ bản, có số ít bài nâng cao dành cho học sinh khá, giỏi, hướng dẫn các con học các thuật ngữ toán học, học cách giải toán

-Học sinh có thêm cơ hội thi lấy các chứng chỉ nước ngoài nhưng cần nhiều thời gian Việc các con học sinh được làm quen vói việc học tích hợp toán tiếng Anh từ bé là nền tảng cho các con sau này nếu có nhu cầu tìm hiểu sâu hơn về môn toán

-Đang trong quá trình toàn cầu hoá nên học tích hợp Toán Tiếng Anh trở nên phổ biến

- Minh cũng dùng dùng máy tính và loa hỗ trợ mình lúc dạy từ vựng vì thay vì chỉ nghe và nhìn giáo viên, học sinh có thể học từ thông qua tranh ảnh, thông qua phát âm của người bản ngữ

- Các bạn vừa được tích hợp giữa môn tiếng anh và môn Toán

- Và cái môn toán-tiếng anh được kết hợp giữa cả cái việc mà mình dạy theo giáo trình của Bộ GD và kết hợp rất nhiều những cái cải tiến mới của nước ngoài vào Như vậy, sẽ khiến cho các bạn ấy có một lượng kiến thức nhất định mà các bạn có thể tự tin, sau một quá trình nhất định nào đó thì các bạn có thể tự tin năng nói, tương tác, nhất là lớp lớp

Học sinh lớp 1, 2 vẫn có đủ thời gian để luyện phản xạ, giao tiếp -Học được nhiều từ vựng

-Học các cách để diễn đạt vấn đề thực tế

-Học sinh sẽ tự tin hơn (do đc rèn tư duy, học phản xạ, tích luỹ nhiều từ Trong trường hợp ko biết từ các bạn vẫn có thể tìm cách để diễn đạt ý nghi của mình

-Trường có môn Toán Tiếng Anh sẽ thu hút phụ huynh, học sinh

Hiện tại bố mẹ mong muôn các con học song bằng

-Dạy và học Toán Tiếng Anh tích