In December 2013, British Council Vietnam working in partnership with Hanoi DOET and the Vietnam Australia School organized the second International Workshop on English teaching and learning towards the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A total of 600 teachers attended a day packed with workshops to help them learn more about how the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) is used to measure progress according to what learners can do with a language. Some workshops looked at how Can Do statements of the Common European Framework can be applied to teaching methodology and classroom activities to ensure learning outcomes are directed at learners and the other workshops looked at how the teachers themselves can use the Can Do statements to measure their own progress in improving their English language proficiency to meet the goals of MOET’s 2020 Foreign Language project.
This was the second conference this year organized for 600 English teachers working in Primary and Secondary schools on the subject of ‘English Teaching and Learning Towards the Common European Framework of Reference’ which relates to one of British Council’s top priorities worldwide to strengthen the teaching and learning of English. In Vietnam, British Council works closely with Ministry of Education (MOET) at an advisory level and a trainer building capacity level and more on a practical level with local departments of education to help support the government’s 2020 project which aims to improve the standard of English language teaching and learning.
Dang Hang Hieu from the International Department of Hanoi DOET commented that ‘Working with your team has always shown the quality assurance through your professionalism, expertise and experience. Indeed, the teachers' feedback is very positive. Besides our International Education Division, all the relating divisions of Hanoi DoET, as well as the DoET Board of managers did highly value the success of the conferences.’
The International Department of Hanoi Department of Education hopes that there will be more successful conferences in the future and British Council Vietnam aims to organise an international conference on a larger scale this year to start putting Vietnam on the map for international ELT conferences in the region.