This field study is aimed at establishing criteria for an appropriate syllabus for the first-year students of English at the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' College. Following an overview of the past and present English language teaching in North Vietnam and at the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' College, the students and their learning problems are analyzed with a view to determining student needs. Such needs should be taken into account when selecting appropriate syllabus content. The relative advantages and disadvantages of language syllabus and teaching methods are discussed. The types of syllabus analyzed are : the structural syllabus, the situational syllabus, and the functional syllabus. The methods considered are:the grammar translation method, the direct method, the audio-lingual method and the communicative approach. The study next identifies the constraints in designing the first year syllabus for the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' College. The things to be considered are the desired qualifications of the language teacher and the program for teacher-training at the college. At the same time, the first year students of English are studied in terms of previous learning experience and motivation. The next stage brings together institutional needs and methodological options in a discussion of an appropriate syllabus for the first year. 1 . The syllabus aims and objectives : that is, the production of proficiency in the four language skills, especially the oral skills of speaking and listening. 2. The syllabus content : the general principles as well as the actual selection of various functions and topics. 3. The method : examination of an eclectic method and the teacher's roles in the classroom as well as the guidelines for more effective teaching. 4. Evaluation: the functions of and the techniques for evaluation. A sample of a language unit of the syllabus follows the discussion of constraints. After a general discussion of the teaching of each of the four skills, the study comes to some of the techniques for developing the oral skills of speaking and listening, the main objectives of the first year syllabus. It is intended that this field study will contribute a small part to the growing understanding of the syllabus design which, for a long time, has been so controversal an issue at the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' College.

In recent years, English has become a compulsory subject in schools and many tertiary institutions of Vietnam. The need to train teachers of English is greater than ever before. However, in the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers Training College (HFLTTC), English language teaching in general and the teaching of oral skills in particular leave much room for improvement. The students' oral proficiency is far from satisfactory. This problem has inspired the writing of this study report as an attempt to search for an appropriate method to improve the students' communicative competence. The study consists of four chapters. Chapter one will overview some English Language Teaching (ELT) methods in relation to teaching spoken English and their application in Vietnam. Chapter two will consider the context of the HFLTTC where teaching and learning are carried out with a view to identifying an appropriate approach to the problem. Chapter three will outline communicative competence as an objective of the ELT and discuss principles of the communicative approach to attain the objective, and suggest teaching material through which the principles can be applied. Chapter four will recommend the classroom techniques which may improve the students' oral proficiency. This study report should be regarded as an attempt to apply the communicative approach to teaching oral skills to students in the context of Vietnam.

With the increasing contact between Vietnam and English speaking countries and the growing demand for foreign language professionals in the last decades, the teaching of foreign languages, especially English, has gained considerable prominence in Vietnamese education. However, English has been taught in Vietnam for a relatively short time, there are significant deficiencies in this area. If these deficiencies are to be addressed then methodology is a crucial variable worthy of examination. Many of the EFL teaching (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) methods developed in the last twenty years are unfamiliar to a great number of the Vietnamese teachers, although they may be introduced to Vietnam in the near future. In this study a historical overview of language teaching development is provided. Since language teaching methods are products of Western experience, a scrutiny of their relevance to the Vietnamese teaching situation is necessary. In particular it is important to focus on the psychological and cultural appropriateness of different methods to the Vietnamese settings. A number of most crucial psychological issues such as the learner's motivation, aptitude, personality and learning style are discussed together with some social and cultural influences which may affect the learner's psychological attributes, The study also provides a specific investigation of the psychological attributes of Vietnamese students and a number of cultural problems faced by this type of learners in their English learning process. Finally some practical, though tentative, suggestions are made in the hops that more and more Vietnamese teachers of English will respond to the problem of teaching methodology and search for ways to bring about effective learning.

This field study proposes a basis for the establishment of a professional development program for Vietnamese high school teachers. The social background and the problems of teaching and learning English in Vietnamese high schools are discussed, including the students' goals in learning English in high schools; the teachers' qualifications and the methods of teaching commonly used; the coursebooks and how they are used; learning facilities, and the attitudes and policy decisions of education authorities. To develop effective solutions to these problems, it is necessary also to know the background to teaching and learning English in Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' College. In-service training is of vital importance in the education of all nations. A review of what other people have done in this field is included with particular reference to the problems which are relevant to the situation in Vietnam. Given the constraints of funding and work procedures, a short full-time in-service course would be the most practicable for the Vietnamese situation. A survey of the needs of high school teachers in their professional development has been carried out and is discussed in relation to the priorities to be given to various components of an in-service syllabus. The priorities were found to be: to improve the language, teaching techniques and awareness of a communicative approach to teaching and learning language of high school teachers in Vietnam. These priorities having been identified, the study considers: iv 1 - the syllabus model. 2 - the development of specific goals. 3 - the development of content. 4 - possible modifications of the syllabus in the future. The solution to the problem of professional development must take into account not only the work of internationally known authorities, but also the needs of Vietnamese teachers. The proposed course suggests ways of finding out and meeting the needs of participants and points to possible future development.

Increasing development of the relationship between Vietnam and other countries has resulted in a great demand for English language teaching (ELT) throughout the country. The need is ever greater for a considerable number of people who can use English effectively in their work. However, at present ELT in Vietnam is still far from satisfactory. There exists a common problem of communicative incompetence in Vietnamese learners. ELT in the Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' College (HFLTC) is taken to illustrate the fact that even after five years of training, students frequently remain deficient in the ability to actually use the language, to understand its use in normal communication, and to carry out their teaching adequately afterwards. That existing situation demands a critical look at ELT in all institutions to work out suitable materials and methods to be used in the Vietnamese setting. This work has been undertaken as an exploratory study of this problem. To provide a context for the study, the background to ELT in Vietnam is reviewed. Following it is a detailed description of different approaches used in ELT with reference to the teaching and learning situations in Vietnam. Special emphasis is placed on the differences between conventional approaches and the currently influential one - the Communicative Approach. A detailed comparison is made between two lessons taken from structuralbased and functional/notional-based textbooks representing two distinct approaches. This comparison will be examined from the methodological point of view, investigating, for example, how language is treated in the two approaches, how different types of activities are used, and the role of teacher and learner in the two approaches in order to highlight a possible fresh approach for Vietnamese coursebook designers, teachers and learners in ELT. A sample lesson based on the Communicative Approach is finally provided to assist any attempts to teach and learn English communicatively. It is hoped that this survey will contribute to reducing the existing problem of inadequate communicative competence in Vietnamese learners.

The English language occupied a specially important status in the increasing development of science, technology, culture and international relations in Vietnam, which has resulted in a growing demand for English Language Teaching (ELT) all over the country. The Hanoi Foreign Languages Teachers' Training College in general and its Department of English in particular plays a very important role in this by producing as many teachers of English as possible for high schools as well as for other Colleges and Universities in Vietnam as a whole. Unfortunately, ELT in Vietnam is still far from satisfactory. There exists a common problem of communicative competence in Vietnamese students, even in Vietnamese teachers of English. ELT at HFLTTC is taken to illustrate the fact that even after five years' training, graduates remain deficient in the ability of language use as well as understanding its use in normal communication. This being the case, how can they carry out effectively the teaching of English to high school pupils or students at other institutions? In this situation, we need to take a serious look at ELT in the Department of English at the HFLTTC so as to suggest suitable materials and methods which will enable the Institution to function more effectively. This project makes an exploratory study of the problem. To provide a context for the study, the background to ELT in the Department of English is reviewed. This is followed by a detailed description of different approaches used in ELT with the reference to the actual activities of teaching and learning in the Department of English. A special emphasis is placed on the difference between conventional approaches and the currently influential one - The Functional- Notional-Approach to language teaching and learning. The basic notions of this approach will be covered and also different categories of functions and categories of situations which the students of English often encounter in using English. Different techniques of teaching functional spoken English will be suggested with an aim to improving the teaching of spoken English in the above-mentioned setting. It is hoped that this project may become a contribution to solving some of the existing problems of inadequate communicative competence of Vietnamese students of English and to teaching and learning English with effective communication skills in the Department of English at the HFLTTC.