English instruction in Vietnam to benefit from SCIL studies

Fulbright Visiting Scholar Quang Tran is hoping his SCIL research on the integration of technology in language instruction will help college professors and their students in classrooms at home in Vietnam.

Today, most English instruction at Da Nang University, where Tran is a professor, is delivered in the form of lectures. But Tran believes interactive and Internet-based teaching would vastly improve students’ ability to understand and use the English language.

His research project, being conducted in Wallenberg Hall under the auspices of SCIL and with support of Professor John Baugh from School of Education, is exploring different ways of integrating technology into language curriculum to enhance teaching and learning. Tran hopes to accomplish five goals during his nine-month stay at Stanford:

• Adaptation of a web-based intranet management program to support academic work of the teaching staff and students, and to facilitate better communication among them;
• Exploration of various stand-alone programs for designing and exporting original courses to networks for wider use;
• Production of “model units” for teaching in a multi-media laboratory;
• Translation and simplification of selected manuals for distribution at future teacher training workshops in Vietnam;
• Development of expertise in the use of the SPSS statistical program to support Vietnamese research.

Although the 30,000-student Da Nang University has a modern Information Resources Center with 300 computers, and there are about 1,500 computers with Internet access available on campus, teachers in Vietnam have been reluctant to accept technology as a valuable teaching tool, says Tran. Many are not comfortable with it, and feel it takes too much time to learn. There is also a widespread concern that technology will lead to a reduction in teacher’s dominant role in class.

But Tran believes technology can help them manage curriculum and assessment, plus aid in teaching the reading, writing and listening skills necessary in language instruction and research work.

"At the end of my stay (at Stanford) I hope to come back with an action plan to present to my colleagues in Vietnam of what we have to do to improve our mode of teaching and evaluation,” says Tran. “I will present model lessons that can be put onto a CD-Rom that is interactive. I will bring home a collection of software for teachers to use in the development of their courses. I hope to introduce how technology can be used effectively in the classroom.”

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