News & Events

TRA VINH – 2.6.2014.  After all the hardworking (and working hard) during the two terms, nearly 80 participants of the English Speaking Club met on the night of 25 May in the Administration Building for the last meeting before the summer vacation.

The night commenced with the recognition of 10 Club’s members who greatly contributed to the Club’s success during the academic year.

Ms. Huynh Do Thu, Club Advisor and deputy head of English Department, said: “We are about to end another academic year. If ESC is the English speaking zone for every participant to practice their English, ESC members have wholeheartedly built and maintained it during the year.”


The Club welcomed two volunteers from Canada to spice up the activities, and all had a lot of fun time together with team competition on three-legged balloon poping.

We were also entertained by a students-led fashion show. By the eight o’clock, the lobby in the building was already very busy.

ESC has played an important role in helping students develop their language and interpersonal skills. It’s a great fun and learning environment for anyone to be in.

ESC will take a break in the summer vacation and start meeting again in the autumn. We all hope to have more new members with us.

Members regconized for their contribution and efforts

Final Year Students (DA10AV):
Tran Thi Diem Trang, Nguyen Ngoc Thien Nhi
Nguyen Be Don, Ngo Thi Cam Tien, Thach Thi Hong Thao, Huynh Thi Kim Ngan

Third Year Students (DA11AVBPD):
Trieu To Hoa, Vo Thi Thuy Duong, Thach Tha Ri, Nguyen Thi My Tu

FL – Making Linguistics an insightful and well-equipped course for the students is the main focus of academic discussion among senior lecturers at the Faculty in the morning of April 22, 2014.

Previously, The FL’s courses relating to language and linguistics such as Syntax, Pragmatics, Semantics, Phonology, Morphology had been taught separately. The vast amount of complicated knowledge introduced in these courses raises some learning problems for the students in applying their linguistics training both inside and outside the classroom.

Dr. Nguyen Thi Phuong Nam said: ‘Let us make the new 75-period course, The Introduction to Linguistics, as uncomplicated and applicable as possible in order to cope with the requirements of the Vietnam’s National Foreign Language 2020 Project.’

It is in this respect that the current linguistics course is seriously reviewed and redesigned to provide students with valuable training for many different kinds of opportunities following graduation.

The new linguistics course is formulated to not only introduce traditional linguistics branches including Syntax, Semantics, Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology but enhance students’ intellectual skills with well-developed subjects of Cognitive Linguistics, Sociolinguistics and Visual Languages.

‘The aim of the course is to provide learners with foundation knowledge in various fields of linguistics so that learners can see more doors of linguistics in addition to Generative Grammar,’ Dr. Ho Dac Tuc said.

‘Getting to know not only theoretical issues but also up- to-date trends in linguistics such as current applications of Cognitive Linguistics and Visual Language are essential for students in both professional development and career goals. Students must be well equipped for a variety of jobs and graduate-level programs,’ Dr. Ho Dac Tuc added.

The new course was proposed and analysed following a well presentation on the lingustics course by both senior lecturers of linguistics, Mr. Nhan Nguyen and Ms To-Trinh Lien.

Further discussion will soon take place at the Faculty to finalise the content of the course.

The Faculty is in the process of reviewing the appropriateness of all programs offered in responding to the Faculty strategic planning directions.

By Huynh Ngoc Tai

TRA VINH – How accurately and how fluently students speak English was the first speaking activity Stuart Vinnie, the Senior ELT Training Consultant for Cambridge University Press, began the workshop on March 26, 2014 at TVU Campus One.

The 4-hour workshop focuses on developing speaking skills for TVU English language teachers with the goal of providing all teacher-participants an internationally benchmarked English teaching.

The workshop was attended by 40 teachers, the majority of them are lecturers from the Faculty of Foreign Languages, who enjoyed hands-on activities and participated in collaborative discussions throughout the workshop to further explore new and more dynamic ways to teach English speaking skills to their own students at the Faculty.

‘It is not the language, but what you want your students to do with the language should be the target of a speaking class,’ said Stuart Vinnie,  the English training expert in Southeast Asia.

Under Stuart’s enjoyable and practical guide, participants explored strategies to increase fluency, comprehension, and acquisition of vocabulary designed to motivate reluctant student-speakers. 

‘There are many ways to facilitate speaking instruction for English language learners. Classroom management, learners’ mixed abilities, and peer pressure are part of the issues considered during the workshop,’ Stuart said.

‘Be collaborative. Enjoyable. Practical. Predictable. These are all good goals for English language classrooms.’
 


Stuart Vinnie: Be enjoyable and practical are all good goals for English language classroom.

He reflected his teaching of English in South East Asia, demonstrated how teachers can quickly adapt a speaking activity to suit students’ linguistic abilities and capture their attention.

His instruction was so inspiring that participants can do the same for their students majoring in English at TVU.

Thao Nhung, a young lecturer at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, described her participation in the workshop as both educational and inspiring. ‘I wanted to build teaching skills,’ she said. “This training is a great opportunity for me to review and refresh myself with the methods of teaching spoken English.”

This workshop is among the collaborative activities between Cambridge University Press and Tra Vinh University since the University officially became a Cambridge English Language Assessment center in September 2013.

 News & photo by FL staff

TRA VINH, 23.2.2014 – Tra Vinh University (TVU) conducted a regional workshop on environmental sanitation on its Campus One from February 20 to 21, 2014, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET).

More than 120 delegates attended, including 107 representatives of teaching and managerial staff from 50 community colleges of the 13 provinces in the Mekong Delta.
 

The workshop is a sequel to the national target program on water safety and unified school sanitation for the period 2012-2015 instructed by the Vietnamese central government.

The TVU workshop is part of the follow-up of the Green Campus Joint Activities of Swinburne and Tra Vinh Universities, which, in January 2014, brought 18 students and three academics from Swinburne University, Australia, to Tra Vinh University for a 2-week program to jointly boost environmental awareness.
 
“The Senior Management of TVU is fully committed to environmental sustainability, and very much welcomes today's workshop which should help us continue to find ways for improved green campus action plans in our university and the local community,” TVU’s Vice-Rector Nguyen Tien Dung noted at the opening of the workshop.

Dr Ho-Dac Tuc, Deputy Dean of TVU’s Faculty of Foreign Languages, led the discussions on ‘education about and for the environment’ with a focus on integrating environmental education across the curriculum to complement awareness and environmental actions.

‘Understanding the environment together with a thorough knowledge of basic environmental concepts such as ecological footprint and biodiversity are essential prerequisites for students to actively participate and engage in managing the environment,’ he said.
 

‘Teachers, supported by Senior Management, play a crucial role in environmental education which means, not only learning about the environment, but also about changing behaviors and lifestyle in ways that help promote green activities and sustain the environment,’ Dr Ho Dac Tuc added.

To this end the actual working example of Swinburne and Tra Vinh Universities’ joint students activities on environmental sustainability and management during a 2-week period in January 2014 was introduced to the participants.

The exemplar suggests a framework for integrating environmental education across key learning subjects and introduces positive environmental changes.

Mr Nguyen Tien Dung told participants that one of the biggest challenges to implementing environmental education is having international experts to train local teachers.

The Swinburne academics visiting TVU last month are expected to establish annual activities with TVU leadership to further develop and reinforce the concepts of Green Campus.

ABOUT TRA VINH UNIVERSITY & FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Tra Vinh University (TVU) is a public university located in the city of Tra Vinh, a beautiful green city of trees, rice fields, canals, creeks and rivers in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. TVU has grown from Tra Vinh Community College and earned the university status in 2006. More than 20,000 students are currently enrolled in TVU’s 12 faculties. The newly established Faculty of Foreign Languages currently offers accredited English undergraduate degrees as well as minor in English to over 8,000 students from around the Mekong Delta.

News by School of Foreign Languages