No one speaks English in Vietnam?

Cultural discipline

Me and my team on stage in an English debate competition

Honestly, I think this might be one of the more outdated and old misconceptions about Vietnam. However, I still wanted to address this issue because I know that many foreigners still believe that there are rarely any English speakers in Vietnam. I was prompted to discover more about this issue when I was working as a museum guide at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, foreign visitors would always be surprised at my English skills and say things like "your English is really good compared to others".

Thinking about it now, I think the reason these foreign tourists adopted such misconceptions about the English level of Vietnamese people was through their experiences conversing in English. I suspect that most tourists would have to try to speak in English with people like flight attendants, taxi drivers, pedestrians, or hotel staff. Note that a lot of these people are from Generation Y or Generation X (Millenials I think), so for this age group, English is not a common skill. Learning English back in the day was quite a privilege because back then, Vietnam was still recovering from the war and our nation’s relationships with countries such as Russia or France were much stronger. Many grandparents actually went on exchange programs and studied abroad in countries such as Russia, France, and Japan. In fact, my grandmother is an example: she had taken higher education at a Russian university in Moscow and Tashkent (where I later lived!) As a result, the older generations cannot speak and use English as well as the younger generations.

Generation Z, predominantly, is a group that has exposure to the English language the most. As a result of globalization entering Vietnam around the start of the 21st century, English became a rising global language and something necessary to learn.

Since the Doi Moi reforms in 1986, English has become the second most common foreign language taught and spoken in the country, second only to Vietnamese. Nowadays, English plays a major role in Vietnamese people’s lives in general and has consequently gained the most important standing among all foreign languages taught in Vietnam. There are English versions of Vietnamese newspapers, documents, television shows, and radio broadcasts, despite the fact that the majority of Vietnamese people do not speak English with each other very often.

English is widely used in pop culture and education especially. English Language Teaching (ELT) is an important objective of Vietnam's education policy. This is evident in the steady increase in the amount of time given to the subject from the early 1980s to the present. Between 1982 and 2002, English became a required subject at the upper secondary level (grades 10–12), taught 3 times a week for a total of 300 periods, and an optional subject at the lower secondary level, depending on the resources available to the school.

After that, in 2020, English became a subject that must be taught in all public schools across the country for ten years (from Grade 3 through Grade 12), for a total of 1155 periods across the primary, lower, and upper secondary levels (455 periods more than allocated in the 2006 General School Education English Curriculum). It should be emphasized that the amount of time allotted to English in the new curriculum represents more than 10% of the total amount of time for all general education subjects in Vietnam.

Expat English teachers are very common in all schools in Vietnam

Regarding higher education, although the amount of time dedicated to teaching English may vary from university to university, the general pattern is as follows: at the undergraduate level, English is taught for 14/120 credit hours, which is equivalent to 630 learning periods; at the graduate (master's) level, English is taught for 7/50 credit hours, which is equivalent to 315 learning periods; and at the doctoral level, English is taught for 4 credit hours, which is equivalent to 180 learning periods.

Outside of the formal educational system, the high status of English may be seen in the government sector, where proficiency in English is a requirement for employment. Moreover, English language proficiency has been a requirement for employment in some ministries. In some economic sectors, hotels, corporations, and business organizations will only hire employees fluent in English.

Because Vietnamese people have such a high demand to learn English, it is taught and learned not only in the formal education system, but also in the informal or private education sector. Hundreds of English language centres, such as the British Council, or Oxford Language UK Vietnam are present in Vietnam. These private institutions provide English classes and testing services at various levels. They also offer a wide selection of English textbooks and teaching resources, enhancing the English language teaching environment in Vietnam.

It is clear that English is widely used in Vietnam in a multitude of fields: in communication, science, technology, trade, tourism, industry, advertising, and education. Due to the increasing trend and importance placed on English, Vietnamese children are learning English from a very young age.In fact, Vietnam ranked 41st out of 88 countries and territories around the world in the 2018 global English Proficiency Index (EPI). This indicated that Vietnam has made good progress in English proficiency.

My sister speaks English quite well as she has learnt it for a long time

From personal experience, I can verify this. So many of my friends and acquaintances can speak English well. Many can pull off any accent. The debate community I know can all give fluent speeches, with perfect grammar. I think not too far in the future, the majority of people in Vietnam will be able to speak English. But as of now, the misconception of there being little people being able to speak English in Vietnam is wrong - take me as an example :)!

References:

VNA (2020). Learning English from early years: Vietnamese have good capability | Society | Vietnam+ (VietnamPlus). [online] VietnamPlus. Available at: https://en.vietnamplus.vn/learning-english-from-early-years-vietnamese-have-good-capability/191017.vnp.

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Van, H.V. (2020). THE ROLES AND STATUS OF ENGLISH IN PRESENT-DAY VIETNAM: A SOCIO-CULTURAL ANALYSIS. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 36(1). doi:10.25073/2525-2445/vnufs.4495.