Comment by sondh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sondh | Hacker News Reader

I have just graduated from VNU (Vietnam National University), major in Information Systems and I don't recall being taught any of these. I live in the capital so I'm sure my curriculum is the standard one, approved by the Education Ministry: studied about Windows 3.1 at grade 3 (circa 1998), Microsoft Office suite at grade 5, Pascal at grade 8 (secondary school), Pascal again at grade 11 (high school). For high schoolers, we also have to study either IT class or mechanic class for a few months. At college, we study C/C++/Java/PHP but no mention of functional languages. The last exercise is too hard and I would agree with luckymoney that it is only given in gifted school/class.

What I'm trying to say is that the story is pretty one sided. The school website[1] is currently down but I have found the school in the department website[2]. The school appears to be one of the first three national-standardized schools in Da Nang. It also focuses a lot in using IT for management and teaching.

1: http://www.bevandan.vnn.vn/

2: http://pgdthanhkhe.edu.vn/donvi/detail/48491409.aspx

Yes I agree with you. I am Vietnamese American who has bootstrapped a few startups in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) for the past 4 years. The school described by the author is an exception, not the norm.

Ignore my prying if this is too personal, but for someone in your situation your English is incredible. How did you get it? Do you have native speakers in your family, or have you spent much time in an Anglo country?

Here's why I'm curious. If Vietnam's education system is producing students with such mastery of so foreign a language, that says something impressive about Vietnam's education system and, by extension, about Vietnam. In a roundabout way, it adds credibility to the OP as well.

I guess I graduated from a decent college and I live in the capital. Most of my peers are pretty good at English especially writing and reading. Our listening/speaking suck big time though. We have foreign language classes since grade 3: English, French or Russian (not common). The courses focus on grammar. I have heard that our grammar may be better than those of native speakers (no confusion between "your" and "you're" for example).

About myself: I just read HN, join English communities like Reddit, Quora. I try to travel but nothing much.

Regarding OP, his experience is just an exception. There are many other good or bad things in our system. And if you ask me, I will say the education in the U.S. is superior tbh.

All I can say is Bravo.

Thank you. If you happen to visit our country don't forget to ring me ;)

What's you're Quora user? You seem like an interesting fellow to follow.

> I have heard that our grammar may be better than those of native speakers

Not better, just closer to an arbitrary standard that has been held up as 'correct' by some subset of academics (who are not, by the way, linguists, as linguists are too knowledgeable about language to try and define what 'correct' means).

Hey, you're in Ha Noi? I'm half Vietnamese, might be going back soon. What's your email?

Yes I'm currently in Hanoi for now. I have my address in HN profile page (not sure if you can see it?).

Nope, not visible. You should put it in the 'about' section as well.

Can't see yours. Try mine, in my profile.

While English is taught from elementary school, it becomes much more important in high schools in Vietnam. There is at least one English-only class at most schools. Some schools do Vietnamese in the mornings and English-only classes in the afternoon, while at other schools every class except Vietnamese Studies is taught in English.

I've been involved with many high school and college exchange students from Vietnam over the past few years and some students I've been working with recently speak English at the same level as native speakers with no discernible accent. One of my current students scored over a 2200 on her SAT. It's really amazing. From my experience, and from what I've been told, the emphasis on English language studies has increased within even the last 5 years in Vietnam. Each year, the students that I work with here in the US speak better English than the students from the year before.

>> There is at least one English-only class at most schools. Some schools do Vietnamese in the mornings and English-only classes in the afternoon, while at other schools every class except Vietnamese Studies is taught in English.

Those are international schools. Their tuition are usually very high, and way out of the price range for most families in Vietnam. Normal schools where I live (Hanoi) only teach in Vietnamese.

We do have English class once or twice a week where we learn the basics of the language. But it does not provide us enough exposure to the language. To improve our language skills, we usually have to take extra classes after school.

There are a great many high schools that supposedly teach foreign languages. Very few (none that I've seen) of them produce anything remotely like this. In fact, there are many university graduate native speakers of English who can't write as well as sondh. This is something truly extraordinary and it makes me want to learn more about Vietnam.

In Vietnam, those students who have decent English skills and score high on English standard tests study most of their English outside school. They often took extra courses regularly and study in groups. The quality of English education in primary and secondary schools in Vietnam is much much worse.

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