In August, International House Bristol, in partnership with the Hanoi National University of Education, launched Teacher Activity Group projects in two mountainous provinces in the north of Vietnam, Hoà Bình and Sơn La.
The project will create professional development communities of teachers that meet regularly, in which they can learn with each other and from one another. The focus is on teacher-driven sharing, collaboration, interaction and reflection, supported by provided content, in order to improve teaching and learning. The project will benefit 240 Primary, Lower-Secondary, and Upper-Secondary English teachers across the two provinces, with training for its members to roll the TAG model out to benefit other teachers across both provinces. During the TAG meetings, teachers will share and learn from one another’s classroom experience, guided by materials and content from International House Bristol and facilitated by the staff of Hanoi National University of Education.
The participating teachers will focus on the particular challenges they face in their teaching context, and on the implementation of the Communicative Language Teaching key methodology as part of the national English curriculum.
During the Hoà Bình launch on 23 August, Joanna Thorpe, project coordinator, and Lưu Thị Kim Nhung, Dean of the Faculty of English at HNUE, introduced the goals and implementation of the project, as well as outlining the benefits of the community of practice TAG model for continuing professional development. Nga Le and Davide Guarini Gilmartin also talked about the British Council’s wider activities across Vietnam. Afterwards, the participating Hoa Binh teachers joined their TAGs to introduce themselves to their new learning community, and share their own hopes and goals for the project.
At the Sơn La launch on 25 August, we were honoured and delighted to be joined by hundreds of teachers joining remotely from classrooms right across the province, to hear about the aims of the project and learn more about the activities taking place in our TAG communities.
The next Teacher Activity Group meetings will take place starting in early September, with monthly meetings continuing throughout the academic year.
To watch a recording of the Hoà Bình launch event, click here.
To learn more about the TAG model of continuing professional development, click here to watch a short video and click here to find the British Council’s 2020 report on their implementation.
Text and images by Joanna Thorpe, International House Bristol