Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Why so many CEF students find English difficult ~ Guest blog by CEF staff Ms Ngoc

As we visit many CEF children we have a chance to talk to them about their schooling. I found out that 80% of them have challenges in learning English, especially with their listening and speaking skills.  In my opinion, the main reason is that they are from remote areas and they do not have many opportunities to work on, and improve their English.

First I think at school in rural areas, they do not have enough school equipment for students to practice their listening skill, so students just hear their Vietnamese teachers’ voices. Besides, students are poor so they also do not have computers at home to listen to English conversations every day. Therefore, their skills are not as good as that of other students who live in urban areas. Second, because they live in rural areas they do not have any chance to talk with foreigners, which students need to do. They need to practice speaking English as much as they can in order to improve their speaking skills.

It is interesting that some of CEF students are willing to talk whenever they see Linda or their sponsors. However most of them are very shy and do not want to communicate at all. They lack confidence in speaking in English. Last but not least, when learning another language, from my perspective, we have to take full advantages of our time to do English exercises and practice our skills every day. However, CEF students are from poor families so they spend most of their home time helping their families with household chores. They do not have much time to study, although they have lots of subjects and homework to do at home. Due to some of the above reasons, I think CEF students find English challenging.

English summer classes for CEF tertiary students

With CEF’s support, the children can have better conditions to study; especially opportunities to develop their English.  If they have good English, they are able to communicate with their sponsors whenever they see each other.

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