1. How long do you study Korean? a) 0~1 year b) 2~3 years c) 4~5 years d) more ( years) a) 32 c) 1

Most of the students started studying Korean from University, so they don’t learn Korean under university time like Japanese.

2. How many days do you study Korean at home a week? a) 0 day b) 1~2 days c) 3~4 days d) 5~6 days e) everyday b) 1 c) 6 d) 1 e)19

Half of them study Korean everyday, and do it 3days a week at least.

3. What ability is the most difficulty of studying Korean? ( reading writing listening speaking grammar) Listening-9 Speaking-4 Grammar-4

4. Do you like studying Korean? Yes / No (Why?) Yes-31 No-2 The most of them seem to like Korean. I expected Korean is hard for them and 80% of answered “No”.

 5. Why do you study Korean? a) job b) personal interest c) parent’s suggestion d) other ( ) a)11 b) 16 c)1 d)6

The students who answered (b) got interested from Korean pop culture like film and drama. The students for (a) thought the economic relationship between Vietnam and Korean was good, so they would be able to work at Korean companires.

6. Do you think studying Korean is important? Yes / No (Why?) Yes-31 No-2

From this result, most of the students study Korean with big motivations. I know Korean cluture influenced Southeast Asian countries.

7. Do you plan on studying Korean after finishing University? Yes / No Yes-34 No-0

8. Do you want to go to Korea in the future? Yes / No Yes-34 No-0

It was suprise answers, all of the students want to go to Korea, so they have big interest in that country.

Topic2 (Studying English)

 1. How long do you study English? a) 0~1 year b) 2~3 years c) 4~5 years d) more( years) a) 2 b) 2 c) 5 d) 24

Many people must have studied English as system, but some didn’t chose English as their first foreign langauge.

2. How many days do you study English at home a week? a) 0 day b) 1~2 days c) 3~4 days d) 5~6 days e) everyday a)1 b)26 c) 7 d)0

They don’t study English so much like Korean, maybe they don’t need to study so hard because they have studied English enough by High school time.

3. What ability is the most difficulty of studying English? ( reading writing listening speaking grammar) R-1 W-2 L-26 S-3 G-1

I think their original letters make it difficult because they also use alphabets

4. Do you like studying English? Yes / No (Why?) Y-29 N-4

 Even though four people answered “No”, many still like studying English. They think English is important because it is global langauge.

5. Why do you study English? a) job b) personal interest c) parent’s suggestion d) other ( ) a) 18 b) 7 c) 0 d)8

As my image, many of them study English for job and some still like studying for their interest, but the students for d answered that they had to study as their curriculm .

6. Do you think studying English is important? Yes / No (Why?) Y-33 N-0

Many of them said that English is global language and very useful anywhere. They also think English skill help them find jobs.

 7. Do you plan on studying English after finishing University? Yes / No Y-23 N-8

 No answer-2 From this answer, they have less interest in English than Korean, surely they

 8. Do you want to go to a country spoken in English in the future? Yes / No Y-19 N-14

Even though, all the students answered that all want to go to Korea, but nearly half of them don’t want to go to country connected with English.

Topic3 (Comparing Korean and English)

1. Which do you prefer Korean or English? Korean / English/ Both K-12 E-2 B-19

I didn’t expect this result because I though English is easire for them , so they really like Korean.

2. Which language is easier Korean or English? Korean / English/ K-8 E-24 B-1

They like Korean very much, but many of them feel it is difficult.

3. And why does the other language have difficulty? ( reading writing listening speaking grammar)

4. What do you want to study another foreign language except for Korean and English? Japanese-10 Chinese-8 Nothing-7 French-1 Cambodia and Laos-1

For them, Japanese and Chinese are important foreign language after English and Korean. Some of them think that two foreign languages are enough to study. However, one student study Japanese by oneself. Before I saw these result, I didn’t expect that the students like studying Korean more than English. I also feel that Korean is unneeded language, but they think Korean is important foreign as well as English. There is a data about the students who study Korean and English in Foreign language University in Hue.

 One of the first points was that the survey consisted of 30 female students and only 3 males, so like Japan, studying foreign languages is popular for girls more than boys. One of the reasons for it, there is the brain structure differences between male and female. Females generally have more language areas in their brain, so they can learn languages better than males. From the other sides, males are superior to females about spatial perception ability. That’s why boys don’t like study subjects such as literature and a language; they have to take exam to take the university. (Tominaga, 2006) As another reason of it, it could be connected with Vietnamese traditional thinking; humanities course like foreign language and art is for female students, and science course like engineering and math is for male students. They think science course is more difficult than humanities because it needs to logical thinking compared to humanities which needs to rote learning, moreover, boys are expected to study more difficult subjects than girls. That’s why foreign language university or college is thought like only female school, and many male students go to science Course University. However, most of the students, who study at science course, learn foreign language at the same time and often study abroad to get skilled foreign subjects. (Pham, 2009/10/8, personal interview)

To get a better idea of how much the Vietnamese students have studied various foreign languages, I asked them how long they have studied Korean compared to their English studies. The survey shows that almost all of the students (96%) started studying Korean in university. Based on the fact that on the final exam of secondary education, only English, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, and Russian are included, it is natural that they do not study Korean until university. (Nguyen, 2009/6/9, Gmail) Korean isn’t as popular as English, French and Japanese, and there are few schools to study. (Japan foundation). On the other hands, 72% of students have studied English more than 7 years. We can see that 27% of them might have studied another foreign language in secondly educational time. Moreover, a few students started studying English in university. In case of Japan, the vast majority of the Japanese students consequently study English as their first foreign language in secondly education. (Nihon no France go) In fact, there are few high schools, which teach foreign languages except for English.(Wiki) French, German, Korean and Chinese are accepted to be examination subjects in National Center Test for University Admissions, but not many universities accept these foreign languages’ score. (Gaikokugo wiki, 2009) It can be said more Vietnamese student have practical chances to study various foreign language than Japanese student in this point.

The next point of this survey is to know how the Vietnamese students study foreign languages. Thus, I asked how many times they study Korean and English. According to the survey, more than half of the student (57%) study Korean everyday, and almost all the students (96%) study at least 4 days a week. Meanwhile, about 20% of the students study English more than 5 days a week and nearly everyone study more than 3 days at least. We can see that the students study not only their major subject “Korean”, but also their minor subject “English” hard. Next, I asked which foreign language they think is easier to study, Korean and English. Many students (75%) answered “English”, and only 25% of them answered “Korean”. For many of them, English should be more familiar foreign language because they have been studied more than 7 years; moreover, Vietnamese can be a bit similar to English in written system. In Korea, many students feel to have more difficulty of studying grammar than English. I also asked them which they prefer Korean and English to get to know their attitude for their studying two foreign languages. About 60% of them answered “both”, and almost all of the rest of students answered “Korean”. As we can see, many students feel Korean is more difficult than English, but they like studying Korean. Talking about English, more than half of them seem to like studying English, which is just optional subject. Additionally, all students think English is an important foreign language as well as Korean.

The third point of this survey is the reason why the Vietnamese students study foreign language. I asked the students why they study Korean and English. The survey shows about half of students (48%) answered “personal interest”, about 30% for “job” and rest of them were “parent’s suggestion” and secret reasons. Some student answered that they like to Korean fashion, films and actors. It may be because influx of South Korean culture relates to their answers. South Korean pop culture such as drama, film and music has been becoming from 2002 and South Korean drama especially made up near 70% of the country’s TV for a period of time. In a swell of momentum of South Korean influx, the Vietnamese advance of South Korean corporations like car and electrical appliance also has been increasing. (Lee, Park and Yeon, 2003) These cultural matters might affect them to study Korean. On the other hand, more than half of students (54%) answered “job”, and about 20% for “personal interest”. About other opinion, some think it is a just part of curriculums and other think it is very useful tool to know many things all over the world.

 The emphasis in foreign language education was on “Russian” in 1980’s. Russian was thought the most important foreign language for Vietnamese people because it would be international language in the future and was language of the Soviet, which had the greatest power of revolution in the world. (Tahara, n.d.) Vietnamese national building project was firstly followed the example of other socialist country; the Soviet. Introducing planned economy is an economic system in which the state manages the economy, was a good example of it. (Planned economy Wiki, 2009) They got a lot of economic assistance from the Soviet as well. That’s why studying Russian was a lifeline for Vietnamese people. In fact, more than 90% of the students studied Russian at all educational levels, and some of them studied abroad to the Soviet. Except for Russian, English, French and Chinese, which are official languages of United Nation, were also taught at the same time, but weren’t really studied by that many students at all. (Tahara, n.d.) However, the Soviet had broken up, and Vietnamese had difficulty keeping the Soviet style. (Yamada, 2006) Therefore, the county was required to change their national policy contained of foreign language education.

 Open door policy called “Doi Moi “was introduced into Vietnamese economy by CPV in 1986. It’s shifting from planned economy to market economy, which is based on the division of labor in which the price of goods and services in a free price system set by supply and demand. (Wiki, 2009) “Doi” means shifting, and “Moi” means new. Its aim was to encourage industrialization, expand consumption and industrials, and accept and participate global economy included foreign fund.(Vietnam Gairyaku, 2009) Thank for it, Vietnamese economy was infused with energy. The great effort of it was that their economy could escape from the poorest country level. They could build friendly relationships with many countries and join to International organizations such as ASEAN, which is Association of South-East Asian Nations, and WTO, is World trade Organization. Major Western and Asian companies could be easy to plug into Vietnam in a stream, so the country got a lot of investing abroad.(Vietnam kabu no okite)Therefore, the country achieved economy growth like China, and is one of the emerging markets represented by VISTA: Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Argentina.(VISTA wiki, 2009)We can see that how Vietnamese economy is dependent on great foreign power from these matters.

 Vietnamese educational system was also revised to deal with International community after introducing Doi Moi. At the present time, Vietnamese educational system is based on the Vietnamese School Education Act in 1998. Under this law, the first 9 years of education (elementary school for 5 years and junior high school for 4 years) are compulsory. Vietnamese vocational schools are the equivalent of Japanese senior high schools, and students normally attend for 3 years.(Vietnam no kyoiu seido) In high education, Vietnamese universities should be divided into two types; public and private.  In addition, public universities include the 8 government-run national universities and the various province-run universities. (Vietnam, wiki) There are several educational changing points after Doi Moi. For example, many private schools and other states school were establishing. Thus, only 3% of students could take higher education before, but about 15% of students could get chance to do now. (Vietnam no daigakusei) Because of globalization and industrialization of Vietnam, learning computer and foreign language education are becoming popular everywhere in the country. (Kawazoe, 2005)

 After Doi Moi, “English” became the most important and popular foreign language in Vietnam instead of “Russian”. English is now synonymous with “fat income”. (Yamada, 2006) It is said that English skill is required by all companies in the country, so the people study English hard to get good jobs.(Pham, 2009).In 1991, English was introduced into elementary and junior high school curriculum as the first foreign language education. English is now taught at some urban schools from the third grade of elementary school as an elective subject, but it would be compulsory subject at all schools by 2018. (Vietnam no shogakkou no eigo hisyuka) In University, English is regarded as a tool to understand science and culture and taught 1^st and 2^nd grade students at least 300 hours. (Kawazoe, 2005)

Many Southern Asian countries had been influenced by India but Vietnam has much Chinese influence. The reason for it relates to the locations of the two countries. Vietnam is bordered by China and for 1000 years Vietnam was under Chinese rule. During this period, the people had absorbed and assimilated Chinese culture including mentality, food, fashion and written style into their culture. (Imai & Iwai, 2004) There are some examples about them. Generally, Vietnamese people are said that they study hard, and which would came from Confucianism, which encourages the pursuit of scholarly endeavors, brought by China in their early dominate term.(Chandler and Steinberg, 1987)Many of Vietnamese traditional meals and dietary habit like they use chopsticks and drink tea are based on Chinese.(Sterling, 2000) Ao dai, which is Vietnamese traditional costume, is also based on China dress, which was brought from the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century. (Ao dai, 2009)About written system, Vietnamese people didn’t have their own original written system before the first domination from China. They accepted Chinese characters to write Vietnamese as their official written language.  (Moore and Tuan, 1994)

Under Chinese rule, Vietnamese people were forced to study Chinese because the country was thought to be a smaller version of China. It very opened up the people to study foreign language. Chinese government created a system of school to train first their own children and subsequently the children of the Vietnamese aristocracy to staff the state bureaucracy, the mandarinate. After that, the competitive examination system was introduced to the country. The education was in Chinese and followed the Chinese model and outstanding students were sent to study in China. Even though Vietnam became independent of China, they kept on using Chinese at higher education; formal education was in Chinese using Chinese text book. (Tollefson, 2002) In fact, Vietnamese literatures and history books were written by the Chinese characters until the 20^th century. (Yamada, 2005 pp.54) The Vietnamese had their own identity and didn’t want to be under Chinese rule, but they  positively embraced elements of Chinese culture to modernize themselves.(Why VN hate and love) we can see that the old Vietnamese people had studied their foreign language ”Chinese” hard to have grown in power from this. It seems to be the staring point of the Vietnamese study foreign language hard.

French conquest called as French Indochina, which was part of the French colonial empire in Southeast Asia including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, also gave great impacts on Vietnamese educational system around 1887 to 1954. (wiki)The relationships between Vietnam and France started with the mission of the Jesuit in the 17^th century. At that time, Vietnamese government began to suppress the Christianity in fear of foreign power, and French government under NapoleonⅢ sent troops to the country to protect French missionaries.(Tsuge, 2006) As a result, It was the beginning of French conquest. During this term, The French wanted to purge the Vietnamese of Chinese culture; therefore, French culture seeped into Vietnamese culture as well as China. The greatest influence of it was introduction of “Quoc go”, which is official Vietnamese written system based on Latin alphabet. The French firstly didn’t expect it became their official written system, but just thought romanazing their written system would help them study French.(Brown et. Al, 2003) Modern Vietnamese architectural structure is strongly shown to be influenced by French. Not only major buildings such as opera house, railway station and banks, but also modern house style look like Western.(Kim, 1997) Sai gon, which was the old name of Ho Chi Minh city, was called “ Paris of East” because the city had a lot of French elements. (Solheim, 2006) On the other hands, French cosine didn’t influenced Vietnamese as much as Chinese, but French foods like French bread, pudding and coffee became established as Vietnamese diet. (Vietnam navi, 2009)

During French conquest, French colonial government promoted studying “French “. They set up universities or colleges for Vietnamese to study French. (Brown et. Al, 2003) Vietnamese were expected to participate in the civil under the French rule, so they had to convert to the French system and were required to learn French. At the same time, an educational system of three levels was introduced; elementary, primary and secondary education. French educational methods such as class discipline and rote memory came into Vietnamese educational system as well. That’s why French became the second language for Vietnamese people by these factors.(Vietnamese’s past Educational System, 2009) However, French government didn’t expect that French was used in whole county. Therefore, only elite children like privilege class studied French as their first foreign language from the third year of schooling.(Hue, 1996) French government was allowed to coexist Vietnamese language, so its integration policy seemed not to be strong. During this term, many Vietnamese people were suffering from poverty under French rule, but some people studied “French” hard to get developed Western knowledge in several fields for their promoting modernize. (Nguyen wiki) In a related move, Dong Du, which was a Vietnamese political movement that young Vietnamese students went to Japan to study, happened by anti French colonial rule members in 1905. They wanted to get Japanese military assistance to push out French power. (Dong Du, 2009) We can see that Vietnamese people have been studied foreign languages harder to protect themselves.

]]> http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/paragraph-1/feed/ 0 jelcyfubu http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/references/ http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/references/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:32:25 +0000 jelcyfubu http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/references/ ]]>  Le, N. (2005). Vietnam no keizaihatten katei. (The process of economic development in Vietnam). Aichi:Sankeisha.

 Page, K., Brett, D. (2003). Asian & Pacific Review 2003/2004: The Economic and Business Report. World of Information; 21^st edition

 Womack, B. (2006). China and Vietnam : the politics of asymmetry . Cambridge;  Cambridge University Press.

 Imai, M., Iwai, A. (2004). Gendai Vietnam wo shiru tameno 60 sho. ( 60 chapters to get to know modern Vietnam). Tokyo: Akashishoten.

 Chandler, P. D., Steinberg, J.D. (1987). In search of Southeast Asia: a modern history. Honolulu:University of Hawaii Press, pp.60.

 Sterling, R. (2000). Lonely Planet World Foods Vietnam. United States: Lonley planet, pp. 15.

 Wikipedia contributors. (2009, November 8). In Wikipedia, Ao dai. Retrieved 15:57, November 10, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aodai&oldid=325185711

 Moore, J., Tuan, D. V. (1994). Colloquial Vietnamese: a complete language course. London: Routledge, pp.5.

 Tollefson, J. W. (Ed.). (2002). Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

 Yamada, Y. (2005). Gairaigo no shakaigaku: Ingoka suru communication.( Socilogy of loan word: Colloquialize  communication. Yokohama: Shumpusha.

 Wikipedia contributors. (2009, November 12). In Wikipedia, French Indochina. Retrieved 16:19, November 13, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_Indochina&oldid=325521987

 Tsuge, H. (2006). Vietnam to kumu merit wo shiranai Nihonjin. (Japanese who don’t know merits of cooperation with Vietnamese). Kyoto:PHP kenkyujo.

 Brown, M. E., et at. (2003). Fighting words: language policy and ethnic relations in Asia.

MIT Press.

 Kim, W. B., (1997). Culture and the city in East Asia.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 Solheim, B. O., (2006).The Vietnam War era: a personal journey. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Le, N. (2005). Vietnam no keizaihatten katei. (The process of economic development in Vietnam). Aichi:Sankeisha.

Page, K., Brett, D. (2003). Asian & Pacific Review 2003/2004: The Economic and Business Report. World of Information; 21^st edition

]]> http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/introduction-2/feed/ 0 jelcyfubu http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/%ef%bd%86%ef%bd%8f%ef%bd%92%ef%bd%85%ef%bd%89%ef%bd%87%ef%bd%8e%e3%80%80%ef%bd%8c%ef%bd%81%ef%bd%8e%ef%bd%87%ef%bd%95%ef%bd%81%ef%bd%87%ef%bd%85%ef%bd%93/ http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/%ef%bd%86%ef%bd%8f%ef%bd%92%ef%bd%85%ef%bd%89%ef%bd%87%ef%bd%8e%e3%80%80%ef%bd%8c%ef%bd%81%ef%bd%8e%ef%bd%87%ef%bd%95%ef%bd%81%ef%bd%87%ef%bd%85%ef%bd%93/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:13:41 +0000 jelcyfubu http://jelcyfubu.wordpress.com/?p=237 ]]> In Vietnamese educational system, to reaserch about foreign languages is a good way to get ideas why they study foreign languaes very hard and foreign languages are important for them because foriegn languages are closely linked with their lives. As you can see, the country has long history inclusing dominations, Wars and economic reformation, and it affected them to study foreign languages with the march of time. In this paper, I will intoduce 6 languages; Chinese, French, Russian, English, Korean and Japanese, which are popular and important foreign languages in Vietnam.

As one of the reasons for increasing demand for Japanese education, Japanese corporations advance to Vietnam. Especially, Japanese electrical companies dominate a market, so there are many Japanese electrical appliances . Because of this, not a few Vietnamese people want to work at Japanese companies. Many Japanese companies ask people to have Japanese skill at the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 2 or above. However, if people are some Japanese companies help them study Japanese, and send them to Japan on the job training about 6 months or more.

Some examples of reasons that Japanese companies pay attention to the country are as follows. One is their low paying: it is a third of a typical Chinese pay and tenth of a typical Japanese pay. Another is that they are relatively friendly toward Japan. Additionally, there are many young, diligent, honest and skilled people. The above points make Vietnam very attractive to Japanese companies, and in 2007 it was selected as the best country for expanding business by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). (Nagara, 2002)

Japanese culture like drama, anime and comics also have been spreading throughout the country in the same way that Korean culture has. Japanese drama become widespread as Korean, but “Oshin” became popular and the word came to refer to occupation of housekeeper in the country. However, many Japanese anime and comics have reached the country. For example, ”Doraemon” and ” Dragon Ball” are very popular and deeply entrenched among children. Traditionally, Japanese animation companies have outsourced artist work to Korea and China, but in recent years, they are turning to Vietnam. (Pham, 2009/10/8, personal interview)

One of the biggest Vietnamese educational problems is the Vietnamese shortage of teachers. It happens at several educational levels; kindergarten, primary, secondary and advanced education. For example, at the secondary level, teachers meet the demand, but the balance of teachers for each subject, such as arts, computer science and technology is uneven. These problems come from unsystematic and scattered training and lack of a strategic plan for the education sector. (Adiminister, 10 June 2009) After Doi Moi, the educational style has changed greatly, so the governmnet can’t keep out the changes of educational demands that they need more (Kanda Vietnam no kodomo, http://www.ops.dti.ne.jp/~heiwa/peace/shiryo/kanda/k06.htm)

Another problem for Vietnamese educational situation is there is gap in the quality of education. The government pays teacher’s salaries, but can’t bear the cost of maintenance for schools. That’s why each local and children’ parents have to bear the cost to manage schools, so it causes the big gap in the quality of educational environment. For example, in one rich state, the students have computers in their classrooms and can take English classes. On the other hand, local people don’t have school houses and use temporary classrooms, which have roofs of straw and no light. (Adiminister, 10 June 2009)

As the case stands, Vietnamese government have still poor financial power for education, and it makes big problemes into Vietnamese educational system. Even though the country’ s economy has grown rapidly, they don’t have enough power to improve all international education system. They often relies on ODA, Official Development Assistance from foreign countries to build schools. (Dahm, 1999) In fact, poor children who lives can’t go to school.(Taylor, 2004)

As the reasons for it, some students answer they felt the classes are boring because they have to study grammar too much, have little chance to practice speaking and other subjects like economy. Moreover, they have to study too much and felt tired. On the other hands, some students thought studies fit their ability and it was able to study other subjects equally. That’s why not all students get satisfied to their curriculum because of the above situation.

However, almost every student felt happy to enter their university. As the reasons of it, there are “it’s my dream”, “be possible to learn many things”, “very important” and “it makes me come true my dream”. As we can see, there were a lot of positive answers for their university life.

This may be because it is very lucky to go to university in the country. In the country, only 20% of people can go to university because of academic ability, financial power and population growth. In the country,