That is the common mood of many public teachers in Ho Chi Minh City when participating in the English proficiency survey according to the plan of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City.
Mr. D.T - a Literature teacher at a high school in District 1 - said that on April 23, due to a system failure, he had not participated in the survey. He will participate in the survey again on April 29. However, the results of some teachers at the same school participating in the survey made Mr. D.T worried.
"Teachers participating in the survey all complained about difficult and long questions. They said they only scored on average. Everyone expressed concern about whether to retake the exam or not. For many years, I have rarely used English, and much knowledge has been forgotten. I am not confident that I can do well," said Mr. D.T.
Mr. D.T still supports the department's approach, but he believes that the inspection and assessment need to be planned in advance so that teachers can prepare and should also choose a more suitable time, because at this stage teachers are preparing for students to take the second semester final exam.
Similarly, Ms. T.T - a teacher in Tan Phu district - said that the exam questions were difficult. "All English teachers and other subjects commented that the exam was more difficult than expected," said Ms. T.
Ms. T also expressed concern because the recent survey results were not too good. "At school, we teachers also told each other that we would take the exam voluntarily, not ask for help. But when completing the exam, teachers with poor results cannot help but worry even if the department affirms that the results will not be used for assessment and classification," Ms. T confided.
Mr. Ho Tan Minh - Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City - said that this survey is not a competitive nature, evaluating the individual or expertise of each teacher, but is a survey activity to build a comprehensive picture of the English proficiency of the teaching staff.
The survey results will be important input data, helping the city have a scientific and practical view of foreign language proficiency in the education sector, thereby building a suitable development strategy.
"The Department also commits to absolute confidentiality of personal information. Only individual teachers and the Working Group of the Steering Committee for project development have access to the survey results. This result cannot be used to consider salaries, rewards, discipline or serve any personal purposes," Mr. Ho Tan Minh affirmed.
Mr. Minh believes that participating in the survey is not only a responsibility, but also an opportunity for each teacher to review their own English proficiency, thereby proactively building a personal learning and development plan, ready for new opportunities in teaching and integrating into global education.
According to the plan of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, the survey will take place over 7 days, from April 23-29 for each group of teachers.
The survey subjects will include managers and teachers who are teaching at public primary, secondary and high schools in the city.
Teachers conduct a survey of English proficiency and proficiency in the form of objective multiple-choice questions for 90 minutes. The survey content includes 3 skills: listening, reading and writing according to the European Common Language Coefficient Reference Framework (CEFR) with levels from A1 to C2.
