Vietnamese Education Culture

Vietnamese Education Culture

Background

Vietnam faced serious threats from external invaders. During the course of its long history, the country has successfully withstood many great wars: over 1000 years under the domination of China, nearly a century of the French and 21 years of the Americans. Such diverse international influences have continuously remodeled Vietnamese culture in both general and education through generations. (Fry, 2012)

The advent of French colonialism and American involvement have place huge impacts on Vietnamese education. The greatest evidences can be seen through the redesign of schooling system, which is now similar to those of Western countries, gender equality at school and the invention of new Latin alphabet. However, the most impactful influences are rooted to the era of Chinese assimilation, where Confucianism ideologies and beliefs place emphasis on the value of learning, reverence for teachers and a dignified attitude to learn. (Nguyen, 2002)

Education Culture

1. Reverence for teachers

Vietnamese view education as a mean towards a successful social and economic life. In the past, teachers were considered high-classed and distinguished scholars with extensive knowledge of the world. Parents put great appreciation and hopes on teachers who will “train” their children in both intellectual and character development. The tradition of respecting teachers is not just formed in recent years but transfer through hundreds of generations, with evidence of bountiful number of maxims and proverbs indicating the grateful attitude to teaching career, i.e “Khong thay do may lam nen” (translated Without the teacher, you sure can’t be successful).

In modern society, as education is more widespread and accessible, pedagogy career are viewed more equally to other jobs. However, the role of teaching is still highly valued.

2. Classroom manners

2.1. Quietness:

With the tradition of respecting teachers, talking, bragging, interrupting in class or misbehaving to the teachers are strongly criticized. Students usually keep quiet in class and wait until called to answer the questions. However, such traditional learning style is sometimes misinterpreted as “passive or non-cooperative attitude” (Nguyen, 2002). Vietnamese students are quiet yet attentive, good at listening but sometimes reluctant to give opinions, systematically note-taking and consider the teachers as a comprehensive source of knowledge.

        2.2. Error correction

As a high-context culture, communication between teachers and students’ is to some extents indirect. Since respect and self-esteem are important to the Vietnamese, publicly criticism or humiliation should be avoided. However, in classrooms, many students believe error correction is a manner for personal growth. Constructive opinions are generally embraced as far as they do not cause any psychological harms. (Beckman-Brito)At some level of indirectness (and politeness), teachers usually give some compliments first and then correction on the students’ work.