English has experienced its popularity in teaching and learning in Vietnam over the last few decades. Demand for learning English even gets stronger when Vietnam fosters its international relations. English, in parallel with the knowledge of some other fields, turns out to be a key to open the door into the bustling world. In any walk of life in Vietnam, you can find people use English; from the big cities to mountainous areas; from the international conferences to daily conversations, or just few pidgin words with the foreign tourists. People learn and use English with different purposes, but there is a fact that they are trying to learn English with the hope that they can use it effectively.
In Haiphong Foreign Language Center, Haiphong University (HFLC), English is the foreign language dominating the teaching and learning programs for nearly 30 years. Despite a prejudice that learning English at a center is less effective than that at some universities, colleges, or international schools, learners at HFLC, regardless of their ages, always strive for a good command of English as they are well aware of their learning purposes.
Learners of English, naturally and obviously, want to become the masters of all the four skills, and those at HFLC are not exceptions. Though there are some who propose what they need is speaking a fluent English, therein they consider listening a tool for the realization of their goal, there also are some who say writing is necessary because documenting reports, letters, memos, etc is what they daily deal with in their office, learning to read effectively remains the top in the targets of most learners here. However, most of them say they find it difficult to focus on reading, and especially to have effective reading. Some even say it is boring to start reading because there are piles of new words, and lengthy reading texts.