Challenges of teaching English to primary children - voices from Ninh Binh teachers = Những khó khăn trong việc dạy tiếng Anh cho học sinh tiểu học của giáo viê

Chapter 2: The context of teaching English to primary school children in Ninh Binh.. Table 1 Teachers’ attitudes towards English language education at the primary school level Table 2 T

Hanoi – 2010

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

Supervisor: Tô Thị Thu Hương, Ph.D

Hanoi - 2010

PART 1: INTRODUCTION Error! Bookmark not defined

1 Rationale Error! Bookmark not defined

2 Significance of the studyError! Bookmark not defined

3 Aims of the study Error! Bookmark not defined

4 Methods of the study Error! Bookmark not defined

5 Scope of the study Error! Bookmark not defined

6 Organization of the studyError! Bookmark not defined

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Error! Bookmark not defined

Chapter 1: Literature review Error! Bookmark not defined

1.1 Nature of teaching English to primary school

children Error! Bookmark not defined

1.2 Challenges of teaching English to primary school

children Error! Bookmark not defined

1.2.1 The teacher Error! Bookmark not defined

1.2.2 The continuity and curricular integrationError! Bookmark not defined 1.3 English instruction to primary children in

Vietnam Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3.1 Policy Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3.2 Textbooks and materialsError! Bookmark not defined

1.3.3 Implementation Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3.4 The way forward Error! Bookmark not defined

1.4 Available studies on primary English teaching in

Vietnam Error! Bookmark not defined

1.5 Summary Error! Bookmark not defined

Chapter 2: The context of teaching English to primary

school children in Ninh Binh Error! Bookmark not defined

2.1 Introduction to Ninh Binh context of

teaching-learning English at primary level.Error! Bookmark not defined

2.2 Teachers and their backgroundError! Bookmark not defined

2.3 Summary Error! Bookmark not defined

Chapter 3: The Study Error! Bookmark not defined

3.1 Research questions and research approachError! Bookmark not defined

3.2 The data collection instrumentsError! Bookmark not defined

3.3 The participants Error! Bookmark not defined

Chapter 4: Findings and discussionError! Bookmark not defined

4.1 Teachers’ attitudes towards English language

education at the primary school level.Error! Bookmark not defined

4.2 Teachers’ self-evaluation of their professional

competences Error! Bookmark not defined

4.3 Teachers’ self-report of students’ achievementError! Bookmark not defined 4.4 Teachers’ understanding of the goal of primary

English Error! Bookmark not defined

4.5 Teachers’ perceived challenges of teaching

English to primary children Error! Bookmark not defined

4.6 Teachers’ performance in the classroomError! Bookmark not defined

Chapter 5: Discussions and ImplicationsError! Bookmark not defined

5.1 Discussion Error! Bookmark not defined

5.2 Implications Error! Bookmark not defined

5.2 1 To teachers Error! Bookmark not defined

5.2 2 To MOET Error! Bookmark not defined

5.2 3 To DOET Error! Bookmark not defined

5.2 4 To schools leadersError! Bookmark not defined

PART 3: CONCLUSION Error! Bookmark not defined

1 Summary of the study Error! Bookmark not defined

2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for

further study Error! Bookmark not defined

References Error! Bookmark not defined

Appendix

Table 1 Teachers’ attitudes towards English language education at the

primary school level Table 2 Teachers' self-evaluation of their professional competence Table 3 Teachers' self-report of students' achievement

children

LIST OF TERMS

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In response to the growth of English education, a great number of changes have been made in Vietnam so far On September 30th, 2008 the Prime Minister of Vietnam issued Decision No 1400-QĐ-TTg, approving the Project entitled “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2008-2020” According to this Decision, English is introduced into the primary education curriculum starting from Grade 3 According to the pathway projected in the Decision,

in the time being 20% of the primary school students should be taught English, then the percentage will reach 70% by 2015 and 100% by 2018

The Decision has caused a hot debate in the public and among English language education professionals One of the common voices in this public discourse is that teachers are not trained for primary English education Such a discourse has some justification since formal teacher training for primary English education was not available in Vietnam until very recently with the cooperation of the British Council, Vietnam All teachers who are currently teaching English at the primary schools were, therefore, re-trained to teach English to young children

Teaching English to primary children, in fact, used to receive little concern in Vietnam as it is simply thought that there is not much language knowledge to deal with at primary level However, when English is widely introduced to students from Grade 3, many issues emerge National and local education professionals, now, have a more serious look at the situation Teaching English to primary children is by nature far different from teaching to other groups of learner Thus, if teachers are not qualified to work with primary children, they may not be able to motivate the children

to study, or to use appropriate, effective tasks to develop students‟ communicative competence

As a foreign language specialist in a Provincial Department of Education and Training, the author saw a great number of challenges of teaching English to primary children in her province To successfully manage the English teaching-learning

throughout the province, the researcher feels the urge to study the challenges perceived

by the teachers so that some feasible solutions to the problems can be employed

2 Significance of the study

This study points out challenges of teaching English to primary children Although the survey was conducted in Ninh Binh province, the author believes the challenges are similar in other provinces throughout the country Thus, the results of the study will be of some contribution to education management regarding teacher development and language policy implementation

Professionally, the findings and comments of this study are believed to be relevant

to improving the primary English teachers‟ quality in Vietnam in general and in Ninh Binh in particular The study may be of great suggestions for the enhancement of primary English education in Vietnam and elsewhere

3 Aims of the study

This study aims to investigate challenges of teaching English to primary children as perceived by the teachers To be more specific, the objective of this study are:

- to find out the teachers‟ attitudes toward teaching English at primary level

- to investigate the challenges in term of professional support to primary teachers

- to suggest solutions to reduce the problems and challenges of teaching English

to primary children

These aims are formulated into 3 following research questions:

1 What are teachers‟ attitudes and perception about teaching English to primary children?

2 What do classroom teachers perceive of the challenges of teaching English

to primary children with particular reference to professional support?

3 What are feasible solutions to overcome those difficulties?

4 Methods of the study

The study used mixed methods to find answers to the three questions Tools for data collection in this study were questionnaire, interview (face-to-face and email) and class observation Data collected from questionnaires were analysed quantitatively via Excel software in the forms for descriptive statistics and qualitatively in the forms of

different topics relating to the research questions Data from interviews and class observation were qualitatively classified into corresponding topics for trianguation and for answering questions 2 and 3

5 Scope of the study

Dealing with challenges of all types is too broad for a study of this size Therefore, the focus of this study is to investigate some challenges relating to professional supports that primary teachers receive from local and national level in their teaching of English at primary level

6 Organization of the study

This minor thesis consists of five chapters

The first part is the introduction which reveals the rationale, significance,

aims, methods, scope and organization of the study

The second part includes chapters Chapter 1 is the literature review centering

on the nature of teaching English to primary school children, problems of teaching English to primary children in a variety of contexts are discussed, and a brief introduction of primary English teaching in Vietnam context

Chapter 2 is the investigation into the context of teaching English to Primary

children in Ninh Binh province

Chapter 3 discusses the methodology of the study i.e describes the study

context, participants, instruments and procedure of the study

Chapter 4 is about the data analysis and results It describes how collected data

is analysed and presented

Chapter 5 deals with result discussion, limitations and implications of the

study given by the findings

The last part is the conclusion which summarizes the study with suggestions

for further study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature review

1.1 Nature of teaching English to primary school children

With regard to primary school children, it is necessary to first specify that children have both features of new beginners and the peculiar characteristics of their age group Children have their own characteristics in learning foreign languages Mary Slattery and Jane Willis (2001: 4-5) pointed out 12 characteristics as follow:

1 Children learn through seeing, listening, copying and doing

2 Children are unable to understand an explanation of grammar rules, for example, rules of using tenses of verbs

3 Children can understand the meaning partly through non-verbal communication activities

4 Copying exactly

5 Love playing and using their own imagination

6 Short attention, so changes needed

7 Curiosity

8 Enjoy repetition of activities

9 Independent thinking is being developed

10 Ability to distinct between reality and imagination

11 Ability to organize the best to implement any activity

- learning is contextualized and part of a real event

- learning is interesting and enjoyable

- learning is relevant

- learning is social

- learning belongs to the child

- learning has a purpose for the child

- learning builds on things the child knows

- learning makes sense to the child

- the child is challenged appropriately

- learning is supported appropriately

- learning is part of a coherent whole

- learning is multi-sensory

- the child wants to learn

- learning is active and experiential

- learning is memorable

- learning allows for personal, divergent responses

- learning takes account of multiple intelligences

- the learning atmosphere is relaxed and warm

- the child has a sense of achievement

Besides, Read (2005) also suggests an integrated framework called the seven Rs for managing children positively and creating a happy working environment for them:

Relationships - creating and maintaining a positive relationship with learners is at the

heart of establishing a happy learning environment

Rules - establish a limited number of rules and make sure they are clear, as well as the

reasons for having them

Routines - classroom routines make it clear to everyone what is expected of them and

what they should do

Rights and Responsibilities - although these may not be stated explicitly with very

young learners, teachers can model through their own actions which of these they value

Respect - students who are treated respectfully by the teacher will respond in a similar

way to the teacher If the children feel that the teacher treats them as individuals, they will also respond to the teacher as an individual and not with a collective group mentality

Rewards - reward systems can be an effective way of reinforcing appropriate

behaviour e.g using stars, stickers, points, smiley faces, raffle tickets or marbles in a jar

Children will only be able to sustain their enthusiasm through primary school if they can develop an intrinsic interest in learning English through enjoyable and interesting activities and a good rapport with their teachers If teaching in primary school is overly formal and just another version of what is done in secondary school, it will kill children‟s early enthusiasm (Moon, 2005)

Teaching English to primary children is much different to teaching English to the other learners Without being aware of these can threaten the teaching-learning implementation in the classroom

1.2 Challenges of teaching English to primary school children

Moon (2000) argues that children are capable of learning foreign language from any age providing that the right conditions are in place to enable young learners to be successful Some of the most important conditions are:

(1) Realistic aims/expectation and expected outcome

(2) Well-trained teachers fluent in English

(3) Age appropriate curricula and materials

(4) Appropriate assessment and monitoring

(5) Enough time

(6) Continuity and Transfer to secondary level

Concerning the effectiveness of language learning at primary level, Isabel & Elisabeth (1997, p 23) emphasized the following factors which are considered to be of great importance for successful early language learning:

(1) Well-trained teachers (language competence and methodological skills)

(2) Well-organized in-service training

(3) Well-structured curriculum with adequate timetable

(4) Suitable and motivating materials

(5) Continuity of language learning within the primary school and from primary to secondary stage

(6) Quality assurance measures

Considering all the above factors helps to identify the challenges For over a decade, a number of studies investigating early language programmes have been conducted in various countries Nikolov M and Curtain H (2000) summarized a number of issues relating to teaching English to primary children around the world Through their collection, a concrete picture of teaching English to primary children was formed with a number of similar issues among which the most popular ones are related to teachers‟ quality and continuity of the programme

1.2.1 The teacher

The most important problems in many contexts are related to teachers‟ low level of communicative competence In Hungry, Bulgaria, Estonia and Croatia, there are not enough qualified teachers More than 76% of foreign language teachers at Czech basic schools were unqualified (Nikolov & Curtain, 2000, p 86) In Hong Kong, 55% of primary English teachers are not subject-trained The untrained language teachers tend

to experience two main difficulties Firstly, their own language proficiency is insufficient for them either to be a good model of language use or to teach consistently through the target language Secondly, their lack of awareness of appropriate language teaching methodology inhibits pupil learning and has a negative impact on the teachers‟ own professional development Most classes are taught using predominantly traditional teacher-centred, whole-class methods Teachers have tended to see their main role as to impart knowledge to pupils, who are generally expected to sit quietly and absorb information Teaching is often text-book dominated Many teachers, perhaps as a result of perceived or actual pressure from the school or from parents, try

to “finish the textbook” with little regard to the ability of the students In the context of teaching, this reliance on the textbook is also related to the fact that many teachers lack

confidence in their own English proficiency and so the textbook becomes a crutch on which to cling

1.2.2 The continuity and curricular integration

The gap between primary and secondary schools has been without doubt one of the major problems and is the reason for which secondary school teachers tend to start from scratch rather than building on achieved foreign language competence The reason for this lack of continuity from primary to secondary level have been identified

by experts in a number of workshops, seminars and conferences (cf Heindler & Felberbauer, 1995; Komorowska, 1997, cited in Nikolov & Curtain, 2000):

- lack of information on both sides due to little or no contact between primary and secondary school teachers;

- different language learning approaches; holistic, child-centred teaching at the primary level vs academic, subject teaching at the secondary level

In Japanese context, Yoshifumi (2006) pointed out two basic things that are lacking

in English education of elementary schools First, the curriculum lacks practical guidance in selecting or designing teaching materials and teaching methods as well as clearly articulated educational goals and philosophy Second, a pedagogical link between language learning theory and foreign language methodology has, in practice, been very weak for a long time

Obviously, the lack of pedagogical continuity from primary schools to middle school and curricular integration may have frustrating effects for all children Teachers and parents know that pupils who have spent three or more years in primary school learning a language that is not available in the middle school feel demotivated

1.3 English instruction to primary children in Vietnam

1400-first official involvement of Primary Education in the teaching of foreign language in Vietnam According to this Decision, English is introduced at primary level from Grade 3, the target is that by 2018 100% of primary children will be taught English The Ministry of Education and Training issued Decision No 50/2003/QĐ-BGD&ĐT dated November 30th 2003 providing guidance on full-day teaching in which English is an optional subject with 2 periods per week, starting from Grade 3, the objectives are specified as follow:

+ Forming basic English communicative skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing for students to communicate in English at schools, at home and in familiar social environment; of which, the former two skill are better focused

+ Provide students with fundamental knowledge of English to gain primary understanding of the country, people and culture of some English speaking country

+ Building students‟ positive attitude to English, better understanding and love for Vietnamese through learning English Furthermore, students‟ intelligence, personality and learning method have also been gradually formed

(National curriculum 2003)

1.3.2 Textbooks and materials

The new teaching approach allows a program to have several different sets of textbooks, including:

+ English Book 1, 2, 3 (The Centre for Educational Technology)

+ Let‟s Learn English Book 1, 2, 3 (the Educational Publishing House & SNP Panpac Publishing House, Singapore)

+ Let‟s Go Book (OUP)

Primary education management at all levels, from the central to local, use the primary English optional curriculum as a legal basis for teaching the subject in primary schools Although the official curriculum for primary English was approved since 2003, it is still not available to educators in school or training institutions Thus, the current MOET‟s textbook acts as the curriculum/syllabus The problem is that the headteachers, teachers, DOET‟s educational staff are not very clear about the aims or

goals of teaching English, the expected outcomes, the means to achieve the aims or how to assess children‟s progress and achievement Lack of clarity about aims and outcomes makes it difficult to assess whether the MOET‟s expected outcomes are being achieved i.e children are able to communicate very simply and are developing positive attitudes to English by the end of primary school (National Curiculum 2003)

1.3.3 Implementation

Currently, English language teaching at primary level has been actively implemented, mostly in big cities:

- English is an optional subject from grade 3 with the time allocation of two

periods per week In 2007, 32.2% of the primary schools in Vietnam implemented this program (MOET report)

- English is an optional subject in grade 1, 2 using Phonics Learning Box- UK Program In 2009, 87 primary schools (with 25 000 students) in Vietnam were involved in this program (VpBox report)

- In Ho Chi Minh City, an Intensive Program has been piloted with 8 periods per week at Grade 1 since 1998 (Nguyen Ho Thuy Anh, 2007)

It is a fact that English education at primary level has been implementing for over a decade but there is still no institutionalized curriculum and the teachers are not trained

to teach primary English

1.3.4 The way forward

MOET has just announced the Proposal for Primary English Curriculum According to this, students will learn all 4 English communicative skills with 4 periods per week to achieve all above aims and by the end of primary level students will get A1 level in ALTE

Primary teachers will be required to reach standard of qualification e.g TKT Certificate MOET is piloting a project within 16 provinces providing primary and lower-secondary school teachers with TKT preparation courses

1.4 Available studies on primary English teaching in Vietnam

In order to find out the effective ways of teaching English to primary school children, some research had been done to explore the use of modern equipments and techniques to raise quality of teaching These researchers identified some problems relating to the current practice of teaching English in the classroom employed by teachers

Vu Thi Luong (2002) and Dang Quang Sang (2007) put an emphasis on using games in teaching English to primary children to meet children‟s interests, characteristics and capacity in acquiring a foreign language Such an important part that games play in primary English language teaching, teachers, however, had many different opinions about them as well as difficulties in using them 90% of teachers in the study sample agreed that games are effective to language teaching but almost all teachers complained that they had not got any book or materials including a game collection so they used only some games repeatedly (Vu Thi Luong, 2002) Thus among 70% of the teachers using games in teaching only 20% used games frequently 30% of the teachers had never used games because they thought that the secondary school students were so anxious to learn English in order to pass the exams so the primary teachers should only focus on vocabulary and grammar and then asked students to do as many exercises as possible (Dang Quang Sang, 2007) Given this, the teachers spent no time for studying or collecting games for their learners As a result,

“games were not used frequently and usefully in teaching English to primary school children” (Vu Thi Luong, 2002, p 23)

Nguyen Minh Ha (2001) conducted a study on Teaching English on Computer to Primary School Children in a school in Hanoi According to her findings, one of the problems with the uses of the computer in TEYL was that “most teachers are not qualified enough to meet the demands of teaching English on computer Their major short-comings are poor English, lack of computer skills, inexperience and weak teaching methods.” She showed a fact that many teachers abused computers and became too dependent on computers The teachers had difficulty choosing appropriate programme, setting up a sustainable syllabus or applying techniques relevant to students‟ level She provoked a conclusion that “teaching English to children not only

fails but puts pressure on children‟s attitude towards English language.” (p 27) because most primary teachers considered English a school subject like Maths, Vietnamese so they asked children to learn by heart a list of words and structures

Ta Van Diep (2003) explored the uses of video clips as an effective means of developing communicative competence for primary school children in Hanoi because

“video clips create a natural language environment with the combination of sound and pictures” (p 19) However, the question of using video clips surprised many teachers because they had never considered video clips a means of teaching, instead, a means of entertainment Moreover, most schools in Hanoi were not equipped with video so both the teachers and learners did not have chance to enjoy video clips in English lessons

In an exploratory study on the situation of English Bilingual Education (EBE) in East Asia, To Thi Thu Huong (2010) gave an insightful discussion about the implementation of EBE in Vietnam from preschool to tertiary level As a response to the pressing need of society and strong political will from leaders of the country, “EBE will move very fast in years to come” (p 112) However, introducing EBE at primary level may cause some challenges for Vietnamese language maintenance Moreover, some obstacles to the implementation of EBE are identified as:

- lack of understanding and support from leaders and managers

- teacher quality and professional competence

- programme finance

- programme facilities and equipment

- the English and Vietnamese proficiency levels of the learners

1.5 Summary

In short, this chapter provides relevant literature which is needed to form the theoretical and the conceptual framework for the study First, an overview on the nature of teaching English to primary children is given, in which typical characteristics

of children, the optimal conditions for helping children to learn and an integrated framework for positive and happy classroom environment are discussed It has been concluded that teaching English to children by nature far more different than teaching English to older learners Second, two most common issues of primary education are

identified through a variety of context world wide, i.e teachers‟ quality and continuity

of the programme Last, an overview on English primary introduction in Vietnam from policy to practice is discussed

Having looked at the related literature, it is an urge to investigate the challenges of teaching English to primary children in Ninh Binh province since there has never been any investigation into how teachers are teaching English to primary children and what difficulties they are facing in Ninh Binh It is, therefore, essential for the present researcher to fill the gap by investigating what challenges are perceived by the teachers so that proper solutions can be adopted to help reduce these challenges

Chapter 2: The context of teaching English to primary school children

in Ninh Binh 2.1 Introduction to Ninh Binh context of teaching-learning English at

primary level

Ninh Binh is a small province in the North of Vietnam with 8 districts On July 8th,

2008 the President of Ninh Binh Provincial Committee of People issued Plan No 21/ĐA-UBND, approving the Scheme on foreign language teaching and learning in the education system for the 2008-2015 period According to this plan, English is introduced into the primary education curriculum starting from grade 3 from the school year 2008-2009 Thus, English has been a compulsory subject for 10234 students of grade 3 and 4 in 153 primary schools throughout Ninh Binh, 164 primary teachers have been employed to teach English

Two years after the introduction of English at primary level, there have been no official evaluation of the teaching-learning quality The Director of Ninh Binh Provincial Department of Education and Training decided to take an evaluation of the programme to check whether English teachers are actually efficiently and effectively teach English to students A formal agreement was signed between The Department of Education and Training and Apollo Organization of Education and Training in order to develop and administer a plan for evaluation In June 2010, all English teachers (including 164 primary school teachers of English) sat a general English test, mainly speaking, listening, grammar and vocabulary Although the test caused hot debate, it raised the strong awareness of self-study among teachers The result helped to classify teachers‟ level of proficiency so that they were put into different groups for in-service training

2.2 Teachers and their background

Ninh Binh has 164 primary English teachers with four different types of English language teaching degrees

 four-year university degrees qualifying teachers to teach at any institution, most importantly in upper-secondary schools This is the most prestigious teaching

degree but in most of the cases trainees do no primary-school practice (25 teachers)

 three-year college degrees qualifying teachers to work at lower-secondary schools or primary schools but trainees do no primary-school practice (1 teacher)

 two to four-year in-service training degrees qualifying teachers to teach English

to students from grade 3 to grade 12 (136 teachers)

 two to three-year in-service training degrees for ex-Russian and ex-French teachers qualifying teachers to teach English from grade 3 to grade 12 (3 teachers)

As can be seen, all teachers were trained to teach adults and adolescents, not primary children and most of them (83%) were in-service trained Moreover, there has not been any specialized or dedicated pre-service or in-service training courses for primary teachers in Ninh Binh, except one-day in-service training which was mainly focus on textbook analysis

Basing on teachers‟ original training it can be deduced that most of them have low level of English proficiency This can be proved by the results of Oral and General Test given by Apollo Organization of Education and Training, according to which the level of primary English teachers is described below:

Level Number of teacher Level Number of teacher

2.3 Summary

This chapter present briefly Ninh Binh context in which the policy of primary English instruction and teachers‟ background are detailed It is notable that Ninh Binh issued policy of compulsory primary English introduction three months earlier than national policy while the factor of workforce for teaching was neglected It means that Ninh Binh rushed for English teaching-learning at primary level, rushed for employing teachers without careful consideration, especially, into teachers‟ quality

Chapter 3: The Study Research questions and research approach

The study seeks to find answers to the 3 following research questions:

1) What are teachers‟ attitudes and perception about teaching English to primary children?

2) What do classroom teachers perceive of the challenges of teaching English to primary children with particular reference to professional support?

3) What are feasible solutions to overcome those difficulties?

The study used mixed methods to find answers to the three questions This approach is

used because by “using more than one method within a research program, we are able

to obtain a more complete picture of human behaviour and experience Thus, we are better able to …achieve our research goals more quickly” (Abbasi & Teddlie, 2003: 189)

The data collection instruments

The instruments for data collection in this study were questionnaire, interview (face-to-face and email) and class observation

Instrumentation one: A set of questionnaire answered by the teachers

The questionnaire consisted of three sections In section one teachers were asked to tick or give answer to 14 questions relating to their background which included their gender, place of residence, the number of years they had been teaching English, the training they receive to teach English to primary children, the number of students in their class, the number of their colleagues, and some issues relating to professional outcome, success, problems/challenges of teaching English to primary children Session two aimed to collect information about teachers‟ perceptions and attitudes towards some issues relating to teaching English at primary school using 5-scale degree of agreement (including 10 statements) Section three aimed to explore teachers‟ perception of the goals of teaching English to primary children using a number of goal-related statements with 5-point scale for teacher to choose

Instrumentation two: The interview

The researcher conducted interviews (face – to – face with 8 key teachers and email with about 30 teachers) for further explanation, clarification and details of their own teaching context about which the researcher was not clear when gathering information from the questionnaire

Instrumentation three: Classroom observations

A total of 17 classroom observations were done in a year The teachers‟ teaching methods and students‟ activities were taken notes and captured with some pictures The 6th among the topics below guided the analysis of data obtained from classroom observation:

(1) teachers‟ general perceptions and attitudes towards English language education at the primary school level;

(2) teachers‟ understanding of the goal of English teaching at primary level; (3) teachers‟ self-evaluation of their professional competences

(4) teachers‟ self-report of students‟ achievement

(5) teachers‟ perceived challenges of teaching English to primary school children (6) teachers performance in the classroom

The participants

One hundred and four elementary school teachers who are currently teaching English in Ninh Binh responded to the survey The author surveyed the respondents during the time they attended the oral test and OPT (Oxford Placement Test) given by Apollo Organization of Education and Training With the help of examiners, 120 survey copies were distributed and 104 teachers completed and hand in the surveys to the researcher The survey contains items addressing their perceptions and attitudes towards various aspects of English teaching and in total the survey took 30 to 35 minutes on average for the teachers to complete

85 respondents came from rural area More than 80% of the respondents were young female teachers in their twenty and thirties The average years of English teaching experience was 4 years, only 5 respondents had been teaching for more than