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Hoang Thuy Linh, Ph.D.
Van Lang University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City
IMPROVING PRACTICALITY AND INNOVATING TEACHING METHODS OF THE HISTORY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF VIETNAM WITHIN VIETNAMESE EDUCATION SYSTEM
Abstract: Improving practicality and innovating teaching methods of the History of the Communist Party of Vietnam is an essential task of the higher education system in Vietnam. This research endeavors to improve the efficacy of teaching and learning Communist Party of Vietnam history, commensurate with the subject's significance. Employing historical, logical, analytical, and synthesizing research methods, this study identifies critical directions for Vietnam's education system in while proposing specific methods to improve the practicality of teaching the History of the Communist Party of Vietnam n Vietnamese universities and colleges.
Keywords: history of the Communist Party of Vietnam, innovation of methods, improving the practicality, Vietnamese education system.
INTRODUCTION.
Education, as a social phenomenon, has emerged and coexisted with the appearance and existence of human societies. The fundamental task of education is to prepare the younger generation to enter life based on the assimilation, inheritance, and development of the experiences and knowledge accumulated by humankind. To achieve high quality and efficiency, the educational process needs to adhere to a series of principles, such as the principle of "learning with practice" and "associating theory with practice" - a principle that has always interested educators and in each period of history, it has been ever-changing and constantly manifesting new methods.
In Vietnam, the study of the Communist Party of Vietnam's history is compulsory within the national education system. This subject encompasses theoretical, practical, and goal-oriented content, conveying the Communist Party of Vietnam's viewpoints, policies, and laws. It aims to instill a thorough understanding of the Communist Party of Vietnam's role in revolutionary leadership, provide education, and foster revolutionary ideals. Therefore, improving the quality of teaching and learning the History of the Communist Party of Vietnam is one of the critical educational issues that the Communist Party and the Vietnamese Government pay special attention to.
Intending to find solutions to improving practicality and innovating teaching methods of the History of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the article has evaluated the direction of Vietnamese education in improving practicality and proposed various teaching methods to make the subject of the History of the
Communist Party of Vietnam more interesting. The teaching and learning process results are more closely related to reality and would serve future practice more effectively.
MAIN CONTENT
1. Directions to improve practicality in the Vietnamese education system.
Education - is one of the critical subjects playing a significant role in the sustainable development of each country. Education is both a goal and a driving force for nation-building, a key to opening the door to the future. Vietnam is no exception to that rule - Vietnam's "planting people" strategy aims at producing competent personnel.
According to President Ho Chi Minh, "an ignorant nation is a weak nation" because the fundamental cause that leads to weakness, wrongdoing, and poverty in the nation is ignorance (Ho Chi Minh, 2000 [Vol. 4, p. 16]). Therefore, education must first adhere to social needs and serve national development goals to improve practicality.
There have been many mentions in Eastern and Western educational philosophies about the role and purpose of education, but in Vietnamese culture - one favors flexibility, inclusive thinking, morality, and gratefulness. The purpose and role of education must originate from practical needs, serve reality and have specific practical significance, putting people/students at the center of all educational activities. The role of education must be for the people and aimed towards the comprehensive development of Vietnamese people - the people of a socialist society. It is a new form, educating "useful citizens for Vietnam, an education that fully develops the human capacity" [4, p. 40], and, at the same time, directing the purpose of learning into specific and detailed contents. That is: " One learns to work, to be a person, to be a good cadet Learn to serve the union, the class, and people, the country and humanity"[5, p. 684]. The direction of Vietnamese education not only allows learners to become a teacher, an engineer, or a worker but also to lets learners "realize that one studies also to serve the country and the people"[6, p. 25]. Learning to live together, serving the country, and serving the people is considered the main principle in improving the practicality of Vietnam's educational direction. Teaching and learning must come from the practical necessity of life, "teaching and learning must follow the needs of the people and the State. Teachers teach well, students study well, providing enough staff for agriculture, industry, economic and cultural branches" [6, p. 138]. Thus, Vietnamese education aims not to be based on degrees but to create people with skills, morals, and knowledge to serve the country. It is an education that combines scientific theory with practice while learning advanced knowledge from other countries to practically help nationbuilding [6, p. 81].
To improve practicality and serve the practical needs of education, the content needs to ensure comprehensiveness and the concept of "Virtue, Intellect,
Body, Grace"10. Those four concepts of education were summarized by President Ho Chi Minh in his two words "talent" and "virtue" and the two words both "soft" and "specialized", meaning both qualified and capable. If one of the two above is missing, it would not be "human in the true sense of the word. Therefore, the activity of teaching as well as learning must focus on both talent and virtue" [7, p. 331], which would aim towards the goal of developing oneself. Which means to love the homeland, love the people, love science, love morality, make people have enough virtues and talents to serve the country and its people. The comprehensive and practical education that Vietnam aims to achieve is a learner-centered education, evoking independent thinking and forming an independent person, with a noble ideal of life and necessary skills for personal development and successful career. It is completely different from the "indifferent to society, to the working life and struggle of the people" [6, p. 80] education, only pursuing paper qualifications, money, authority.
Thus, improving practicality in Vietnamese education is to make education rooted in life's necessities and to serving life improvement, putting learners at the center of all development. The product of practical education is training people to work and think independently, fully converging the concept of "Virtue, Intellect, Body, Grace" towards the goal of self-improvement, serving and bringing glory to the homeland.
To achieve those goals of education, innovating educational methods and improving the practicality of education play an important role. The right educational method makes learners have a positive and self-disciplined attitude towards learning and self-discipline so that education would be effective, going hand in hand with practice and real experience.
2. Innovating teaching methods to improving the practicality of the History of the Communist Party of Vietnam subject.
Teaching method, in a broad sense, includes both the way of operation and interaction between the teacher (through means such as books, listening, seeing..) with the learners, together to accomplish the goals and tasks of education. Therefore, to carry out the teaching process effectively, the right teaching methods are of great importance and play a decisive role. Teaching method is an important component of the training process, a decisive factor to the quality of education and makes an important contribution to the realization of learning objectives.
Currently, Vietnam's education system has accomplished numerous achievements. However, under the influence of the market economy and the trend of integrating, the education system still has many shortcomings that need
10Ho Chi Minh (2000): Full document, Vol. 8, National Political Publishing House, p. 74: "Body: To strengthen the physical body, it is essential to maintain personal hygiene and public sanitation simultaneously. - Intellect: Review what has been learned and acquire new knowledge. - Beauty: To distinguish between what is beautiful and what is not. - Virtue: To love the homeland, love the people, love labor, love science, and value public property".
to be improves, such as: paying too much attention to "education must have human interactions"; focusing heavily on teaching theory, lighter on practice; not paying enough attention to developing thinking and creative capacity, etc. The education in political, ideological, ethical, lifestyle fields has not been given its due attention and less the process of learning less effective. The adjustments of education programs and methods are still slow. That has led to the a few consequences: A large percentage of students, after graduating from universities and colleges, are received by businesses need to be retrained to meet work requirements. In more than 400 universities and colleges, 2/3 of them conduct Information technology education; but surveys results show that about 70% of the graduates in the field of IT need to be retrained to meet work requirements. The majority of students do not grasp their field of work, 72% of students lack practical skills and experience, 42% of students lack teamwork skills. Among fresh graduates, only about 15% meet the requirements of businesses; over 80% of new graduates in the field of computer programming need retraining [8]. That result is one of the important bottlenecks that causes Vietnam's human resources to be underestimated. According to the World Bank's assessment (2016), Vietnam had a score of only 3.79/10, ranking 11th out of 12 countries surveyed in Asia (Korea reached 6.91 points; India reached 5.76 points; Malaysia reached 5.59 points). This assessment also shows that Vietnamese human resources have many weak elements, have a lack of dynamic qualities and creativity, industrial working capabilities, practical skills and soft skills [1, p. 125, 180]
Faced with the above situation, the Communist Party of Vietnam directed to continue accelerating the implementation of Resolution 29 (8th Central Conference, XI session, dated November 4, 2013) on fundamental and comprehensive readjustments of education and training. In particular, at the 13th National Party Congress, the Party emphasized: the need to fundamentally and comprehensively innovate education and training to improve the quality of the countries' human resources and develop people. The Party affirmed that, in order to improve the quality of human resources, education and training must: "Pay more attention to education on morality, personality, creative capacity and core values, especially on patriotism, national tradition, history, and a sense of social responsibility for all classes of people, especially the young generation; preserve and promote the national cultural identity of the Vietnamese people; arouse the aspiration to develop a prosperous country and to protect Vietnamese homeland" [3, p. 136, 137).
To overcome the aforementioned challenges and limitations in teaching and learning, particularly in the context of teaching the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam, it is essential to innovate teaching methods, enhance the quality of education, and implement proactive teaching strategies.
Universities and colleges is an important component in the Vietnamese education system, and History of the Communist Party of Vietnam is a compulsory subject in the training program. Teaching and learning the subject is
an activity in the educational process. It is the process by which educators (lecturers) affect the educational object (students) through scientifically transmitting, interpreting and analyzing the contents of political theory subjects, allowing students to grasp basic and core knowledge, and building a scientific basis for perception and belief.
In the process of educating the History of the Communist Party of Vietnam subject, educators need to develop teaching methods so that the students can understand the development process of the Communist Party of Vietnam alongside the policies and directional development through the stages of the Vietnamese revolution. One of the guidelines for great nation-building and human development is identified by the Communist Party of Vietnam as: "The human is the center of the development strategy, and at the same time the subject of development" [2, p. 71] and education has the mission of "raising people's knowledge, developing human resources, fostering talents, making an important contribution to the development of the country, building Vietnamese culture" [2, p. 77]. To fulfill that mission, the strategic goal of education is to form classes of people who are capable of absorbing new things, able to adapt to the new world environment, for survival and development - they are people with strong personality, life skills, the ability to improve society. Therefore, the process of innovation needs to focus on improving the practicality in teaching so that the subject becomes more interesting, attractive to the students, and especially so that the people could understand the noble purpose of education and the History Communist Party of Vietnam subject in particular.
Improving the practicality of education is a prerequisite for the innovation of teaching methods. History of the Communist Party of Vietnam is a course that summarizes the application of principles and development theories of the Vietnamese Party and Government in the practical conditions of Vietnam. Therefore, the subject itself contains the connection between the theory and practice pair of categories, which is the high unity of "learning coupled with practice", linking theory with practice. Therefore, in order to impart such highly theoretical and practical knowledge, educators cannot exaggerate and hyperbolize but need to be approached from a dynamic view. Teaching the History of the Communist Party of Vietnam subject shouldn't only be about facts and policies, but also about how to apply and compare that knowledge with complex developments, to summarize reality to draw lessons from experience. Without the ability to apply theory to practice, the lecture will lose its meaning. It will make the knowledge received after the learning become superficial; make the learners thinking and creative ability in practice limited.
For learners, in order to improve practicality, "one must think, learn to integrate knowledge with reality, must to experiment and practice. Learning must come practice" [7, p. 333]. It is an active educational method, which attaches importance to self-study with a combination of directional discussion, avoiding "only learning by heart, in order to show off, therefore making theory
also useless... Therefore, one must try to learn, and at the same time one must also practice" [5, p. 472].
Currently, while teaching History of the Communist Party of Vietnam, most of the lecturers use traditional methods (presentations, monologues, students taking notes). The teacher assumes all three functions: creating lecture materials, managing class, adjusting activities. To a certain extent, the teacher has not awakened the passion and thinking ability of the learners with an arid theory, and has not shed light on the complex issues of life. That makes students less interested in the subject and significantly affects the quality of teaching. Additionally, surveys of studying History of the Communist Party of Vietnam shows that: Many students consider this only as a compulsory subject, a "political" subject, so the student's learning purpose is heavily exam-oriented. Students only need to rewrite what the teacher has said, record the contents of the textbook, memorize it, take the final exam. This leads to an passive attitude, lack of practicality, unattractive form of learning, making students' learning efficiency low, which in turn, leads to incorrect perceptions. In order to limit the above situation, educators must skillfully combine the method of "learning with practice" in the training process. It is "theory must be put into practice. Practice must aim at theory... Theory is for practical application" [5, p. 472]. Educators must have clear, easy-to-understand teaching methods, and make the students think independently, freely, want to learn anywhere because "to become a complete intellectual, you must put that knowledge into practice" [5, p. 472];
However, in order to direct students to learn problem-solving skills, achieve professional competence, and allowing students the means to focus more on practical activities, the lecturer needs to first be inspired by the subject. This is considered as a necessary starting point of the education innovation process.
Inspiring students is a form of active teaching method that provokes them to think, reason, ask questions, present and debate, and most importantly, touch learners' emotions. Inspiration focuses largely on promoting the active roles of students in the learning process. Students are able to speak, share their thoughts, voice their questions about the subject, shape their own core values. Inspirations will make the subject History of the Communist Party of Vietnam touch the emotions of the learners, because the learners become the center of education; and lecturers have focused on creating conditions for learners to develop their own capacity.
Teaching and learning the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam is a process in which educators (instructors) impact the educational subjects (students) through the scientific transmission, interpretation, and analysis of subject matter. This process aims to equip students with fundamental, core, and essential knowledge, laying the scientific foundation for their cognition and beliefs. Through this cognitive process, the subject emphasizes nurturing an ideal way of living, revolutionary ethics, and love for the homeland. It also
provides specialized knowledge for practical application and enhances individuals' sense of responsibility towards their families and communities. By delving into historical events, laws, and societal mechanisms through the content of this subject, students develop necessary skills to navigate successfully in natural and social relationships. It directs students towards the ability to identify and solve problems, facilitating the transition from the realm of learning to practical application.
However, to achieve these values, the subject of Communist Party of Vietnam history needs to evoke the emotions of students and, most importantly, make them realize that knowledge and the subject hold positive significance for their personal development. For Vietnam, history plays an immensely vital role as it awakens national pride, ignites and harnesses the nation's internal strength, empowering the present and future. Drawing upon the past and entrusting faith in history, every Vietnamese individual learns to love their country and dedicate themselves when necessary for the survival of the nation and its people. In light of these meanings, teaching and learning Communist Party of Vietnam history aim to contribute to nurturing intellect, fostering cognitive abilities, and emotional education. It seeks to build and refine students' characters, nurturing enduring ethical and cultural values of the nation, and shaping individuals into virtuous beings.
In addition to inspiring students, instructors emphasize the implementation of the seminar method on the platform of Blended Learning, which maximizes students' digital capabilities in academic subjects like Communist Party of Vietnam history. By allowing students to actively choose their study time and offering flexibility in instructional formats, this approach enables learners to select topics and engage in activities such as role-playing, drama performances, or creating historical video clips, guided and directed by the instructor's guidance. Subsequently, the instructor organizes group discussions and exchanges between students. In these discussions, students play an active and proactive role, awakening their fullest potential. The instructor's role in this process is merely to guide, facilitate, and foster a shared understanding among the students.
Successfully conducting seminars to meet the requirements of expanding knowledge and educating students' ideologies is by no means a simple task; in many cases, it can even be more challenging than traditional lecturing. During seminars, the instructor must proactively guide the discussions; otherwise, they may be influenced by the students' inputs. Moreover, unexpected opinions might arise, leading to potential confusion if the instructor lacks proficiency in the subject matter. Therefore, when conducting seminars, instructors must invest in preparation and continuously broaden their understanding of historical and practical aspects, both domestically and within the region and the world. This preparation is crucial to maintain control and facilitate fruitful discussions, fostering a conducive learning environment for students.
In conclusion, the purpose of proactive teaching is to bring about fundamental changes by enhancing students' proactive and positive attitudes while strengthening the instructor's role as a guiding, directing, and adjusting figure. Thus, instead of the traditional lecturing approach, the emphasis should be placed on guiding students towards self-directed learning. Within this framework, the seminar method, particularly when conducted effectively, serves as a highly beneficial tool, fostering interactive and engaging learning experiences.
The aforementioned are some fundamental solutions to enhance the quality of teaching Communist Party of Vietnam history by inspiring students and implementing seminars through Blended Learning, thereby elevating the practicality of the subject. CONCLUSION
Education and training cultivate talents, nurture and preserve the national essence, with teachers being at the core of this entire process. Teachers play a vital role, not only in imparting knowledge but also in guiding, nurturing, and instilling human values in their students. Innovation is an arduous struggle, requiring the abandonment of outdated habits, thought patterns, management methods, and work styles. It is about becoming the best version of oneself compared to the past. Despite the challenges and potential setbacks involved in the process of innovation, teachers and educators have embraced a mindset of continuous efforts towards renewal, seeking to enhance the quality of education and training. With their profound responsibility, teachers have committed themselves to this noble mission of fostering innovation and improving the educational landscape.
In reality, there is no absolute method in education, but rather a combination of various approaches. For instructors teaching the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the transmission of content involves conveying information with a specific direction - the viewpoints, policies, and laws of the state. This knowledge can be relatively dry and principle-based. Therefore, when imparting such theoretical and practical knowledge, instructors cannot solely rely on events, ideologies, and purely academic knowledge. Without connecting it to practical applications and igniting students' emotions, thoughts, and creative abilities, the instructor's lecture loses its significance and persuasiveness. The knowledge and skills acquired through the learning process become superficial, and the students' critical thinking and creative capabilities in practice are limited. Thus, life skills, creativity, critical thinking, and character development are not merely outcomes but also requirements to be enhanced throughout the entire educational process.
From the perspective of modern education, instructors not only serve as guides and motivators but also fulfill three roles simultaneously - that of an expert, a facilitator, and an organizer. Therefore, instructors play a significant role in the process of "teaching the subject" and "teaching the person." As such,
instructors are the starting point and the beginning of touching the hearts and minds of students.
There is no singular method or principle in education that can achieve the desired educational outcomes. Education methods and principles need to be combined and integrated seamlessly and flexibly. To instill enthusiasm for the subject and achieve educational goals, a synchronized and diverse application of educational principles and methods is necessary. Only then can teaching the history of the CPV in a way that links theory with practice yield optimal results.
References:
1. Central Economic Commission, Nguyen Van Binh (Editor) (2019): Guidelines and policies of Vietnam to actively participate in the fourth industrial revolution; National Economics University Publishing House, p. 125, 180.
2. Communist Party of Vietnam (2012), Document of the 11th National Party Congress, National Political Publishing House - Hanoi.
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4. Ho Chi Minh (2000), Complete volume, Vol. 4, National Political Publishing House - Hanoi.
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