Foreign languages in the labor market of vietnam demands, supplies and recommendation

rticularly in science, technology, finance, and business. 
	However, it is one thing to develop policies, it is quite another to provide adequate resources and qualified teachers to implement policy aspirations. This is especially a major problem in developing countries, which are struggling to find sufficient funds for other curriculum initiatives. The issue of teachers’ instructional capability is complicated by the extent of the teacher’s linguistic competency. In response to this question, Nunan argues that “both linguistic competence and instructional capability of teachers should be developed. Teachers need special training…” (Nunan, 2003)
	For other less used languages, the most important thing that needs to be done immediately is to raise the awareness of the whole society about the importance and the contribution of these languages.
	On all the above facts, lessons, opinions and discussions so far, we would like to make some recommendations, which are arranged down from more macro to more micro ones, as follow:
	- Raise awareness of the advantages of language learning;
	- Develop and promote policies concerning language learning and linguistic diversity at all levels of formal and non formal education;
	- Reinforce the acquisition of competence in and/or raising awareness to the less used languages;
	- Set up a permanent forum to bring together academics and administrators from educational institutions, public and private sector employers, and employees’ organisations, in order to ensure realistic communication training for professional life;
	- Build up institutional and departmental language policies to provide guidelines for strategic curriculum design and implementation; 
 	- Develop a mechanism to raise fund for language promotion;
	- Given the dominance of English as the preferred foreign language taught and learned in schools and universities, there should be more empirical research, and solid forecasts of what the current status of English will mean in the future;
	- Given the fact that there is a perceived mismatch between the linguistic and intercultural competence of graduates and the real needs of the labour market, the curricula of language and intercultural training must be based on real workplace needs;
	- Given the paramount importance for universities to develop self-directed, self-access resources for students to acquire language competences in various forms of blended learning, provision of independent learning possibilities should be promoted as an integrated part of language modules integrated in the students’ degree programmes. Development of independent language learning skills and of skills of using of both virtual and real new learning environments should be integrated more systematically in all language education programs. The graduates should develop these life-long learning skills at a level which enables continuous development;
	- Given the importance of English, at least in the near future, the English language still should be given priorities, and the policy to make English a compulsory subject at schools should be implemented;
- Given the success of other countries in lowering the starting grade for language learning, we should offer the teaching of a foreign language starting from the first grades;
	- Given the fact that the language needs vary a great deal from business sector to business sector as well as between levels in organizational hierarchies, closer investigation in most companies and organisation would be required;
	- Language centres, language departments and non-language subject departments and faculties should joint efforts and consult with the labour market actors to diversify language and communication competence and to identify which are more demanding skills and competences;
	- Given the influence of the mother tongue on the acquisition of foreign languages, specific attention should be given to the development of academic mother tongue skills as a foundation for skills in other languages;
	- Given the weakness and the shortage of language teachers, training programs for language teachers together with curriculums and teaching materials should be reviewed. The curricula of language for the future labour market should be based on the real needs of workplace communication and aim at developing versatile communication. The education of language teachers and of language experts needs broader focusing and should include more elements related to communication at work in different fields and in different professional positions; 
	- Establish a national network to: 
	+ share knowledge and disseminate good practice on language 	learning opportunities,
	+ identify, develop and disseminate information on good practice 	to motivate language learners and to encourage the development 	of a language friendly learning environment,
	+ develop and promote methodologies to motivate language 	learners 	and to enhance their capacity for language learning,
	+ develop co-operation between language teacher associations 	and other, stakeholders promoting language learning and 	linguistic diversity,
	+ identify, exchange and build on good practices on teaching 	languages to people with special needs.
	In fact, the above recommendations are not new to the world, many of them or similar recommendations have been made and implemented to some extent elsewhere, but they are still unseen or still very obscure in Vietnam. That is why we hope these recommendations will be of help to language policies makers in Vietnam.
Conclusion
	Due to changes in economic, political and social context in the age of globalization, there are now definitely new and growing linguistic needs and demands	around the world in general and in Vietnam in particular. In an reaction to this, Vietnam should have a careful and closer look at foreign languages policies. Languages policies should be an integral part of a bigger strategy: empowering the workforce to meet the new demands of the market. That is to say languages policies should now be labour market-driven. In fact, facing the challenges of globalization trends, curriculum of Vietanm have paid special attention to foreign languages, first and foremost it is English. However, only English is not enough. There is a widespread recognition that global citizens in the 21st century need to have proficiency in various languages for communication in a variety of contexts. An ‘English only’ policy is dangerous. Although the government of Vietnam has always been emphasizing the need of an overall project for learning and teaching foreign languages, a clear vision is still unseen here. In this context, hopefully the recommendations that we have tried to make will be of help to language policies makers in Vietnam.
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