A Vietnamese language course for the 2020-2021 academic year was recently opened for children of Vietnamese people in the North Moravia region of the Czech Republic.

Vietnamese Ambassador to the Czech Republic Thai Xuan Dung (third, right)
presents textbooks to students at the course's opening ceremony in Ostrava city

Vietnamese Ambassador to the Czech Republic Thai Xuan Dung spoke highly of efforts by the Vietnamese People Association in the region to resume the teaching of Vietnamese amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Teacher Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen said Vietnamese classes have been maintained in North Moravia for many years. 

Teachers have also been sent back to the homeland to receive training in standardised Vietnamese teaching methods held by the State Commission on Overseas Vietnamese, aiming to help young generations of Vietnamese expatriates to learn more about the homeland’s traditions, culture and history.

She added besides support from Vietnamese people in North Moravia, this year’s course has continued to receive infrastructure and financial assistance from local authorities, especially the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.

Due to COVID-19, the number of classes has been limited to three with about 60 students and nearly 10 teachers.

According to the course’s organisers, the pandemic disrupted the teaching of Vietnamese for a certain period of time. However, as this is an activity connecting generations of Vietnamese in the Czech Republic, classes have been reopened.

Over the past years, in spite of numerous difficulties, students of those classes have begun to speak Vietnamese fluently and gain better understanding of the homeland’s history, culture and customs.

There are about 70,000 Vietnamese people in the Czech Republic in at present, and they were recognised as an ethnic minority in this country.