76-9952 COHEN, David Nathan, 1946- EFL INSTRUCTION AT THE LYCEE DE VIENTIANE, 1973-1974. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1975 Education, language and languages

Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

@ 1976

DAVID NATHAN COHEN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. EFL INSTRUCTION AT THE

LYCEE DE VIENTIANE, 1973-1974

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in Foreign Language Education The College of Education The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio by

David Nathan Cohen, B.A., M.A

* * * * * *

The Ohio State University 1975

Approved by

Reading Committee:

Donald R. Bateman Franklin Buchanan Chairman, Dissertation Frederic Cadora Preparation/Presentation Committee ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The financial support that I received from the United States

Government as a Fulbright Teacher of English as a Foreign Language at the Lycee de Vientiane in the Kingdom of Laos for the academic year

1973-1974 enabled me to research this dissertation.

While recognizing the important contributions of many people in

Laos who helped me to gather and to integrate information for this study,

I note here the singular assistance of Mr. Norman Green, Chief of the

Education Division of USAID/LAOS. He willingly opened USAID/EDUCATION materials to my review, answered many questions, and, through his com­ prehensive understanding of both past and present USAID/EDUCATION projects, brought me to a working level of well-informedness on the subject of education in Laos.

Portions of this manuscript were read by many educators. I am especially appreciative of the revisions suggested by my colleagues in

Laos who read Chapters 1-3: Mr. Harold Jones, Fulbright Teacher at the

Lycee de Vientiane; Dr. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh of the Ecole Superieure de Pedagogie; Madame Pinhkham Simmalavong, Director of the English Sec­ tion at Dong Dok; Mr. Howard Pullan, VSO teacher at the Lycee de

Vientiane; Mr. Philip Rudge, British Council Expert in the Education

Department of the English Section at Dong Dok; and Mr. Alun Rees, also a British Council Expert at Dong Dok. This dissertation reflects not only their input but also that of many other Colombo Plan, Fulbright,

ii IVS, and VSO teachers in Laos, as well as that of teachers in the

United States who have also commented upon portions of the manuscript.

In this latter group, I include particularly the members of my disserta­ tion committee, chaired by Professor Don Bateman, whose individual and collective constructive criticism has shaped this study from its in­ ception.

However the valued assistance of others is apportioned, I alone must accept ultimate responsibility for both the arrangement and inter­ pretation of all data and for any faults or errors contained in the presentation.

iii VITA

December 16, 1946 .... Born - Columbus, Ohio

1968 ...... B.A. in Chinese, with Distinction in History The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1970 ...... M.A. in English, specializing in TESOL The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1970-1971 ...... Lecturer, Department of English The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1971-1972 ...... Instructor, Department of English & Speech Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois

1972-1973 ...... Instructor, Department of Communication Skills Columbus Technical Institute, Columbus, Ohio

1973-1974 ...... Professor of English Lycee de Vientiane, Vientiane, Laos

1974-1975 ...... Instructor in English Language House, International Esfahan, Iran

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Foreign Language Education Professor Frank Otto

Minor Field: Linguistics Professor George Landon

Minor Field: TESOL Pedagogy Professor George Landon

iv DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Dr. and Mrs.

Benjamin Cohen; my grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Cohen and Mr. and

Mrs. Samuel Meizlish; and my godparents, Dr. and Mrs. A. S. Kohn; who have always encouraged me in my studies and who have provided unre­ mitting moral and financial support during the long period of my elementary and secondary schooling and undergraduate and graduate training.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

VITA iv

DEDICATION v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS viii

PREFACE x

Chapter

I. THE SETTING ...... 1

Laos Education in Laos Secondary Education The Lycee System

II. THE LYCEE DE VIENTIANE ...... 45

History Physical Description Organization Curricula Staff Profile Student Profile

III. LANGUAGES AND THE LYCEE ...... 66

The Politics of the English Language in Laos The English Language Program Evolution Formulation, 1973-1974 History

vi IV. THE CLASSES

Premiere Premiere A (First Language) Premiere B, Sections 1 & 2 (Second Language) Premiere D, Section 4 (First Language) Recommendations Terminale Terminale A (First Language) Terminale B (Second Language) Terminale D, Section 4 (First Language) Recommendations

V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ......

At the Lycee de Vientiane Beyond the Lycee de Vientiane Recommendations to the MOE Recommendations to the Administration of the Lycee de Vientiane

BIBLIOGRAPHY I ......

Selected Readings on Laos

BIBLIOGRAPHY II ......

Readings and Documents on Education in Laos LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

AACTE American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education

AID Agency for International Development

ENI Ecole Normale d'Instituteurs

ENV Ecole Normale de Vientiane *

ESP Ecole Superieure de Pedagogie

IRDA Institut Royal de Droits et d'Administration

IVS International Voluntary Services

LAA Lao-American Association

MOE Ministry of Education

PL Pathet Lao

RELC Regional English Language Centre

RLG Royal Lao Government

SEAMEO South East Asian Ministers of Education Organization

SEAREP South East Asian Regional English Project

TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization

USAID United States Agency for International Development **

* The ENV is sometimes designated as the ENVT.

** USAID has come to stand for all the bureaucracy which generates and executes the aid programs of the United States Government's Mission to Laos.

viii USIS United States Information Service

USOM United States Operations Mission ***

VSO Voluntary Service Overseas *****

*** USOM was the title of the U.S. Mission to Laos from at least 1951 (****) through the beginning of the Kennedy administration. Although superseded by USAID in Laos, USOM continues under that title in neighboring Thailand.

**** Ras Oliver Johnson. "A Study of Education in Laos." p. 62.

***** Formerly, British Volunteers were subcategorized as either Gradu­ ate Volunteers (GVSO's) or Regular Volunteers (VSO's). This distinction is no longer maintained. All Volunteers are designated as VSO's.

ix PREFACE

This dissertation was initially prepared with data gathered from mid-September, 1973, through mid-July, 1974. A five-day "flying visit" to Vientiane in late March, 1975, enabled me to secure some additional data and, more importantly, to submit this manuscript to Lao and Western colleagues, whose revisions have been included herein.

I have presented the most reliable data available to me. Realiz­ ing, however, that some of the information may even yet be inaccurate,

I welcome the opportunity to amend this dissertation by incorporating corrections submitted by any Reader with access to such verifiable counter-information.

David Nathan Cohen Columbus, Ohio November, 1975

x CHAPTER I

THE SETTING

LAOS

The kingdom of Laos is a former French colony which formed part of French Indochina. After being given nominal independence by France on March 11, 1949, and full independence after the signing of the Geneva

Accords in 1954,^ the country was intermittently ravaged by third- country-supported internecine full-scale and guerrilla warfare for almost o twenty years. The resolution of that conflict has recently resulted in a coalition government formed of representatives of the United States- o 4 backed Royal Lao GovernmentJ and the North Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao.

The more than 3,000,000 people^ of this landlocked developing country are spread over 91,000 square miles,® with an average of thirty-three persons per square mile, rising to an average of 180 persons per square mile in the Mekong River plains along the Thai border.^ O "Following centuries-old patterns, the vast majority of the people of Laos are subsistence wet-rice farmers living in tiny villages along the Mekong and its tributaries or, in the case of the hilltribes, dry-rice farmers leading a semi-nomadic life based on slash-and-burn cultivation in the highlands."^ The median age of the population is around twenty with a life expectancy of thirty to thirty-five.Half of the population is Lao, the descendants of those ancestors who fled from China and established the Kingdom of Lan Xang in 1 3 5 3 . The main

1 2 19 18 14“15 groups are the Hmoung, Black Thai, Lu, Yao, and Kha. In addi­ tion, 30-50,000 Chinese, 1-2,000 Indians,^ many Francophilic Vietnamese, and a number of foreigners of European origin monopolize the commercial sector by default since, until the present time, the Lao have not sought out the laying-up-of-worldly-goods through long-term commerical ventures designed to substantially enhance one's material well-being and social prominence.1^ 18 With a 2-2.5% population growth per year and an average annual 19 income of $75, poverty is a way of life. But the Lao are not plodding farmer folk eking out a marginal existence. They live life fully and with a lively appreciation of "play" in its broadest sense. Because of the sense of community promoted by the dominant and official state re­ ligion, Theravada (i.e. Hinayana) Buddhism, and the sense of oneness with the environment fostered by the pervasive animism which this Buddhism overlays,^® the extended family system^1 which characterizes Southeast

Asia is a powerful centrifugal force in contemporary Lao society. People are content to have a full ricebowl for today and to accept fatalistically 22 the destiny meted out by the Wheel of Life. Given this socio-economic mind-set, it is not surprising that for the past twenty years, while a devastating civil war has seen over 100,000 of the 700,000 males in the 23 20-35 age-group soldiering in one army or another, the 95% of the popu-

9 / lation which is rural, living in over 9,000 separate villages, has been led into the mid-twentieth century by the social and political elite of the 5% of the population which is urban, living in the provincial capi­ tals and major market towns. Before undertaking a discussion of education in Laos, let me call

attention to the references listed in Bibliography One, which readings provide an in-depth review of the history, peoples, and cultures of Laos.

Data found there may conflict with what is written in this study, for in-country sources (when and where they exist in unflawed translation from French or Lao) are often in conflict, and out-of-country sources are in many cases inadequate, outdated, or non-existent.^ In all doubt­ ful cases, I have made the best ’'guesstimate" for which the available data allows.

Education in Laos

A review of the history of education in Laos presents the follow­ ing three natural divisions: pre-French Protectorate, the period of the

French Protectorate (1893-1945), and post-French Protectorate. The latter part of this most recent period can be subdivided into further examina­ tions of the respective educational efforts of the RLG and the PL.

Fuller narrative description of the whole topic of the history of educa­ tion in Laos can be found in Dr. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh’s dissertation,

Chapter 2; Dr. Bernard Wilder’s dissertation, Chapter 3; and Ms. Marjorie

Emling’s thesis, Chapters 3 and 4. ) fi The introduction of Buddhism to Laos by King Fa Ngum in 1358 is a convenient starting-point for a general overview of education in

Laos in the pre-French Protectorate period. During this time, education was centered in the village wat (i.e. Buddhist temple), where monks 27 trained in reading and writing the Pali script of the Buddhist sutras

(i.e. canons) taught Buddhist morality, emphasizing spiritual training as the principal study subject. After the occupation of Laos by the French in 1893 and the fixing of the frontiers of Laos by the Franco-Siamese Treaties of 1893 and 1904, education in Laos developed along the lines of a French model, designed to serve and to assist foreign rule. In the years 1893-1905, French administrators were mostly interested in the training of auxiliary ad­ ministrators and interpreters.^ The first Franco-Lao school, offering instruction up to the third grade, was established in Vientiane in

May, 1905.^ From 1905-1917, the French administrators began to adapt

French methods and Western knowledge to the Indochinese milieu and even 31 utilized Lao rather than French in an effort to bring m o r e Lao into the administrative process.

Western-style education in Indochina generally dates from 1917 with the establishment of the Inspectorate General of Public Education for Indochina, supplanted by the Directorate of Public Instruction in

OO 1920. What this educational superstructure meant for Laos was that, as a French area of influence, Laos was to have an official six-year 33 primary school. Prior to this time, in 1915, Laos already had ten

"unofficial" less-than-six-year primary schools with a school population

Q / of 260 students, but this period from 1917-1930 saw a concerted French effort to recruit the best French and indigenous students to instruct 35 the elite of Indochinese youth in primary and secondary schooling.

The first official groupe scolaire (i.e. six-year primary school) was established in 1921. In accordance with the provisions of an April,

1924, French ministerial arrete (i.e. decree) each pays (i.e. division) of Indochina was to establish a local Service of Education, headed by a qualified professeur assisted by a Chief Inspector, under whose aegis 5

local Directors of Education were to adapt directives for elementary

through secondary schooling to local needs. Only the University of

Hanoi and the lycees (i.e. full secondary schools) were to be directly

administered by the French Directorate of Public Instruction; all other

educational administration was placed under the immediate control of 37 local authorities with the advice of the Directorate. The first

secondary school in Laos, now called the Lycee de Vientiane, was proba- 38 bly opened in 1921, although this date is open to question. The first 39 vocational school opened in 1923 in Vientiane, and the first teacher-

training school, in which teachers for three-class (i.e. grades 1-3) primary schools received instruction, opened in 1928.^ The teaching staffs in these early years were mainly French instituteurs and insti- tutrices (i.e. elementary schoolmasters) with the assistance of some

Annamite (i.e. Vietnamese) schoolmasters.^

The period 1930-1940 saw the elimination of inadequate teachers, as the French administrators continued the policy of training an elite to assist them in their colonial duties. Elementary school enrollment, which stood at 7,035 spread over seventy elementary schools in 1933,^ took an upturn in the late 1930’s after a period of gradual decline mostly because, after 1933, the French administrators instituted the practice of granting an elementary school certificate based on a school- 43 leaving examination, which certificate entitled the student to try for entrance into a secondary school. The number of elementary school 44 graduates who received this certificate was 227 in 1933, 105 in 1934, and 45 in 1937.^ Thus, by 1938, the elementary school system had ex- 46 panded to a full six years of primary schooling, with a complete first 6

cycle (Grades 1-3) and second cycle (Grades 4-6), Also, the establish­ ment of ecoles de village (i.e. village schools) in 1939 provided a boost in Kingdom-wide elementary school enrollment from 6,700 in 1939

to 14,700 in 1946.47

Those students who did graduate from an elementary school were AQ competing for a miniscule number of annual openings at the only sec- \ 49 ondary school, the College Pavie (as it had come to be called by 1941) in Vientiane, which offered a continuation of schooling in the mode of traditional education'’® for grades 7-10 (i.e. first cycle). At this time in French Indochina, second-cycle secondary education for students from Laos was only available in Hanoi, Saigon, or Phnom Penh, so first- cycle graduates who passed the grade ten leaving-examination and who wanted to continue their education had to have the money to go to another pays of Indochina and the training to pass a second-cycle entrance- examination. These conditions strongly discouraged Lao-speaking Lao from even beginning the first cycle of secondary school in a French- medium institution and especially from continuing their education in a

French-medium school away from their families and friends. "In the decade of the 1930's, only 52 Lao completed education at the Lycee (sic)

Pavie in Vientiane, the only secondary school in the country, while 96

c -i Vietnamese graduated from there in the same decade." For many reasons, in terms of educational opportunities in the schools and career oppor­ tunities in the French bureaucracy the Lao were constantly edged out by 52 the Vietnamese.

The period 1940-1945 saw France pre-occupied with World War II, but the educational system in Laos grew steadily, with a 1940-1941 7 primary school enrollment of 7,062"*^ growing to 24,057 in 1946-1947.^

The graduates of this schooling contended for about 200 places at the

College Pavie,^ the survivors of which four-year traditional education were, in theory, eligible to sit for second-cycle entrance-examinations outside of Laos. As has been suggested, this system was not devised to promote the growth and development of a Lao intelligentsia. Rather, the period of the French Protectorate, ending in 1945, saw the limit of Lao educational opportunity set at the end of the first cycle of secondary education, at most, for the very few excellent students. It remained for the post-French Protectorate period to see the establishment of second-cycle secondary education in Laos. One recent researcher has summed up this era as follows:

"The fatalistic indifference by the French and the local "elite" to the needs of the masses during the French occupation; the over-development of the Europeanized system of education for the privileged of the present time; and the ever-present fear of the "elite," a residual toxicity from their outmoded "protector" that the masses might be educated away from their control; all of these have had a part in postponing the day when a determined attack would be made on the problem of illiteracy of the masses.

1945 was a watershed year for education in Laos. Prior to this date, all primary schooling was in French, effectively restricting access to the educational system to the children of the political and social elite. However, the next fifteen years, up through the middle 1960's, saw the Laoization^ of the entire primary system (i.e. both first and second cycles, Grades 1-3 and 4-6), although a strong French influence 58 persisted. The use of Lao as the medium of instruction in the primary schools was accompanied by a rapid rise in both the number and enrollment of these schools. From 187 elementary schools serving 14,700 students in 1946, the figures grew to 1,137 schools serving 63,950 students in

1956 and to 2,232 schools serving 121,053 students in 1 9 6 3 . For a country with an adult literacy rate estimated between 20-33%,^® this great increase in primary school enrollment would appear to augur well for the general development of the Kingdom of Laos. But these statis­ tics are deceptive. More than half of the first-grade-age children attend classes, but somewhere around 50% of them drop out after the first grade.^ From 1957-1967, of every 100 pupils who began first 62 grade, only fifteen to nineteen finished sixth grade. Currently,

Laos maintains four types of elementary schools, almost all of which are c. q supplied with Lao subject-matter textbooks through USAID: groupes scolaires. multi-room schools offering instruction from grades one through six; village schools, one-room schools offering instruction from grades one through three; pagoda schools, wat-centered schools where

Buddhist monks teach grades one through three;^ and private schools, independent operations which usually offer instruction up to the third grade.^ After sixth grade, students must pass a leaving-examination leading to the Certificat d 1Etudes Primaires (CEP). To enter a secondary school, an applicant must have successfully completed his CEP and have passed a competitive entrance-examination. Until the growth of the secondary system in the mid-1960's, 87-90% of the students who had com­ pleted their primary schooling were refused admission due to lack of space and qualified teachers. ^ The situation has much improved in the last eight to ten years, thanks to substantial American, French, British, and Australian aid to education at the secondary and teacher-training levels. 9

First-cycle secondary education In Laos until 1945 was confined

to the College Pavie in Vientiane. But by 1947, three other colleges

were opened in the major market towns of Pakse, Savannakhet, and Luang

Prabang. The second cycle (i.e. grades 11-13), begun at the College

Pavie in 1946, transformed the college into a lycee. Admission to

these four secondary schools was highly selective in the first decade

after World War II, with only fifty out of 210 applicants accepted in

1952 and only eighty out of 527 applicants accepted in 1955.^® Until

1953, second-cycle graduates had to go to Saigon or Hanoi for their

final set of leaving-examinations, the French Baccalaureat. Since 1953,

the "BacM has been regularly given in Laos.^ Although five of the

twenty-two secondary schools in Laos offered second-cycle instruction up to Premiere (i.e. Grade 12), as late as the 1972-73 academic year

only the Lycee de Vientiane offered Terminale (i.e. Grade 13), which

leads to the Baccalaureat and possible entree into foreign university- level studies. Now, all three provincial lycees and the Fa Ngum school

in Vientiane have initiated Terminale,^ thus effectively breaking the

last bottleneck at the apex of the secondary system and giving average

Lao students a real chance of graduating from secondary school.

In the period 1945-1963, secondary school enrollment rose appre­ ciably, from 200 in 1945 to 652 in 1955 to 2,396 in 1959 to 3,601 in 1965.^ Whereas, by 1945, only seventy Lao had received the Brevet d*Etudes du Premier Cycle (BEPC), marking the end of first-cycle 72 studies, by the academic year 1966-1967, Laos could record 4,165 stu­ dents spread throughout four French-style lycees and ten Lao colleges.

Kingdom-wide, the first cycle of secondary education had established 10

Itself. But the second cycle at the four lycees had only 323 students in Seconde (i.e. Grade 11), 170 in Premiere, and 123 in Terminale,^ of which only eighty-two of the 123 in Terminale (all at the Lycee de

Vientiane) earned the French Baccalaureat, their educational certifica­ tion for a ticket to foreign study (mostly in France), either pn scholar­ ship or family funds.^ What has most served to open up the second cycle to Lao students since the mid-1960's and to allow the second cycle to establish itself as a viable possibility for a majority of qualified first-cycle graduates has been a combination of increased admissions to the lycees and the growth of the Fa Ngum Comprehensive High School system, an American aid project made possible through a USAID contract with the University of Hawaii. Of all the donor-country aid to education in Laos, that of the United States, through the Education Division of

USAID/LAOS, has most affected the general populace of the Kingdom. Some of the more outstanding statistics reflecting the extent of this assis­ tance are as follows

Total Aid to Education in 1962: $ 13,593,000 (1,268,000,000 kip)

Total Aid to Education in 1972: $1,268,000,000 (11,675,895,000 kip)

Elementary Classrooms: 4,700 out of 6,000 units (78%)

Secondary Schools: 4 out of 22 schools (18%)

Teacher Training Schools: 9 out of 9 schools (100%)

Student Enrollment In USAID-assisted Schools: 233,970 out of 242,440 students (96%)

Administrative Offices and Warehouses: 20

Total Number of Textbooks Printed: 3,682,564

U.S. and Third-Country Training for Teachers and Administra­ tors: 968 participants'^ 11

According to a 1967 document, English Language Programs of the

Agency for International Development, published by the U.S. Department

of State, the three major projects in Laos were SEAREP, which initiated 70 teacher-training and language instruction at Dong Dok;'° IVS, which

divided its efforts between teacher-training and language instruction

at Dong Dok and other ENI’s and rural development;^ and the Hawaii

Team’s ten-year project to develop the Fa Ngum Comprehensive Secondary

OA School system. Since the mid-1960’s, American aid to education has

broadened to include a Department of State-sponsored Fulbright Lecturer

assigned to teach educational psychology and to assist in the student-

teaching program in the Pedagogy Department of the English Section at

Dong Dok and a team of similarly sponsored Fulbright Teachers throughout

the Kingdom's four lycees and the English Section to teach English and, 81 in Terminale, American Civilization.

Another significant donor country in education is France, which has for twenty years, pursuant to a series of agreements reached in the meetings of the Franco-Lao Joint Commission of Cultural Cooperation, provided up to 300 instructors per year for Lao secondary and teacher- 82 training schools. The most recent meeting determined that France would

increase her aid to education in Laos by 100%. Exactly what this in­ creased aid will entail was unspecified, but it will probably take the

09 form of additional teachers and educational planners. J Another promi­ nent donor country, Great Britain, provides two experts from the

British Council, one of whom currently heads the Pedagogy Department of the English Section at Dong Dok. England also provides VSO's, volun­ teers who teach English at the four lycees and in the various departments 12

comprising the English Section at Dong Dok. Finally, Australia supplies

subject-matter specialists to Dong Dok through the Colombo Plan. The

above-mentioned countries, as well as the Soviet Union and North Vietnam,

also maintain wide-ranging scholarship programs to encourage Lao students

to pursue university-level studies in their respective capitals and

major cities.

The teacher-training schools referred to earlier in the chapter

are the chief long-term hope for quality secondary-level instruction in

Lao schools. As recently as 1955, "Laos had only one small teacher

training school located in Vientiane with a capacity of about 100 stu­

dents."®^ After the 1962 Education Reform Act, one-year ENI's (i.e.

regional teacher-training centers) were established in Vientiane,®-*

Luang Prabang, and Pakse.®® Additional ENl's were later set up in

Sam Thong,®^ Vang Vieng, Savannakhet, and Ban Keun.®® These initial QQ one-year programs have developed into two- and four-year programs017 whose graduates teach either first- or second-cycle classes in the 90 primary schools, depending on their training. Some first-cycle vil­

lage schools, however, are staffed by Centre Rural de lfEducation Com- munautaire (CREC) teachers who have less than an ENI-level education but whose services are temporarily needed to augment the teacher corps 91 for village schools.

The primary teacher-training institution in Laos, the Ecole

Superieure de Pedagogie, also called at various times The National Educa- 92 tion Center, The College of Education, KM-9, and Dong Saphanmeuk

(Dong Dok),^® is a component of Sisavang Vong University.^ The ESP

trains language and subject-matter teachers in each of its three 13 sections (Lao, French, and English) in accordance with the "centers of interest" concept forwarded by Royal Decree 248, the 1962 Education

Reform Act, an approach "... based on problem solving which engages students in discussion, inquiry, and discovery"^ through the method of tying together intellectual and manual work.^ However, the curriculum, which is supposed to impart to prospective teachers basic knowledge which is of real and practical use in a developing country has, like the faculty and the grading system, undergone such yearly, and even semes- trial, revision that large numbers of teachers have been graduated who are under-prepared both pedagogically and psychically to fulfil the Q7 leadership role ascribed to them by the 1962 Education Reform Act.

Statistically, however, Lao teacher-training schools are now producing more and finer trained elementary and secondary teachers than ever before.^® Most of the secondary teachers come from the French and

English Sections of the ESP.

However, before examining the ESP in general and the English sec­ tion in particular, it should be noted that the brightest primary school graduates do not usually go to teacher-training schools. Rather, they prefer to sit for the lycee first-cycle entrance-examination or to try to enter a private college for the first cycle of secondary education.

Students desiring to learn a trade or marketable skill try to enter either a two-year craft school or a four- or seven-year vocational- technical school. The college graduates and first-cycle lycee graduates prefer either to try to secure a position in the government bureaucracy or to sit for the lycee second-cycle entrance-examination, of which the reward for passing is the opportunity for a complete second-cycle 14

education and, ultimately, a chance at a foreign scholarship for uni-

QQ versity study abroad. Historically, only after a student has realized

that he is not of sufficient intellectual or motivational capacity to achieve academically or vocationally elsewhere does he apply to the

ENI's or to the ESP, which, by administrative fiat, must take a certain number of incoming students each year, regardless of the scores on carefully constructed entrance examinations. Ministerial Decree 139/ED of February 12, 1973 (abrogating Ministerial Decree 1002/ED of December

11, 1963), as developed by Ministerial Decree 496/ED of June 15, 1973

(abrogating Ministerial Decree 437/ED of June 8, 1972), provides for the recruitment of first-cycle ESP students from the ranks of both novice and experienced (i.e. two years in the classroom) holders of the Brevet de Fin d*Etudes Normales (BFEN) and secondary school graduates holding the Baccalaureat de l'Enseignement Secondaire (BES), the Lao Bacca­ laureat. Those first-cycle ESP students who graduate receive the Brevet d*Aptitude a L'Enseignement Secondaire du Premiere Cycle (BAESPC) and are expected to teach in the first cycle of Lao secondary schools for ten years as a form of national service in return for the monthly stu­ dent stipend which they were awarded while students at the ESP. The same decree also mandates that second-cycle ESP graduates, selected from among both recently graduated and in-service (i.e. two years in the classroom) BAESPC-holders and graduates of foreign universities or higher education institutions holding the DiplSme Universitaire d*Etudes

Scientifiques (DUES) or the DiplSme Universitaire d ’Etudes Litteraires

(DUEL), receive the Brevet d ’Aptitude a l'Enseignement Secondaire (BAES) and, like their first-cycle colleagues are expected to teach for ten 15 years, but in the second cycle of Lao secondary schools. The fact that

Laos needs well-trained Lao teachers instructing subject-matter courses in Lao at all levels of the educational system is indisputable, but, despite this elaborate recruitment mechanism, a sufficiency of quali­ fied teachers has still not been achieved.

Western observers as long as fifteen years ago noted the rela­ tionship between quality education and socio-economic development.

"Despite encouraging advances, it is apparent that the Laotian school system is inadequate in terms of present national goals and aspirations. . . (Because) the larger and long-range problems of Laotian education are closely tied to the whole socioeconomic problem. The social demand for broad educational opportunity does not exist, because the economic does not as yet provide the impetus to social mobility. And for the economic system to ad­ vance to the point where the advantages of such social mobility are apparent, a more broadly educated population is one of the most important prerequisites."100

After the promulgation of the 1962 Education Reform Act, emphasis in education was placed on preparing Lao teachers to teach in Lao through­ out the educational system with the intent of phasing out all foreign teachers, except for some foreign-language instructors, thus forwarding the policy referred to as Laoization, the replacement of foreign lan­ guages by Lao as the medium of instruction. A mid-1960's USAID-sponsored study determined that Laos would need to train 1,250 new teachers by

1980, based on a total school population of 28,000, about four per cent

(4%) of those persons eligible to be enrolled in academic programs at all levels of the educational system.A 1965 Royal Lao Government document estimates a total student enrollment by 1980 or 22,533 students in public, private, and religious schools, with an estimated 1,126 teachers needed to staff all the educational facilities.These 16 predictions were essayed in advance of the RLG's decision to permit

USAID's Hawaii Team to develop the Fa Ngum Comprehensive High School

System beginning in 1966, a determination which necessitates the preparation of even more teachers than called for by the earlier pro­ jections.

Added to this complex equation of how many teachers to train is the question of replacing donor-country teachers currently instructing in Lao schools, some of whom are in administrative or supervisory roles, most of whom are engaged in subject-matter teaching. The 1966 criti­ cisms of Lao and American observers that "... there are no qualified 103 Laotian teachers or inspectors at the secondary level" and that "The

Ministry of Education . . . is a long way from being able to assume its proper leadership role in its own structure"!^ are no longer wholly valid. The increased staffing of primary schools by ENI graduates and secondary schools by ESP graduates has vitiated the assertion that

". . . in addition to a mounting shortage of teachers at all grade levels, there is a progressive increase in the number of non-qualified teachers entering the school structure."105 ^ contemporary Lao re­ searcher has well documented the decline in the percentage of French and other foreign-national teachers and administrators, but, as his data shows, their size is still large in terms of absolute number.

Whereas the ENI's are now almost entirely Lao-staffed, the ENV is still about fifty per cent (50%) foreign-staffed and the ESP is mostly foreign-staffed."*-^ Too many foreign teachers clearly retard the im­ plementation of full Laoization, but the policy decision of the MOE and its French and American advisors is to retain as many foreign 17 teachers as possible during the build-up of a pool of Lao teachers and only then to phase out the still-substantial foreign presence, with

1980 as the target date for Lao self-sufficiency in teacher-preparation.

Currently, Lao teachers are generally young and inexperienced teachers, 108 mostly ESP graduates from disadvantaged families. Those foreign teachers who are in Laos serve under almost exclusively Lao educational administrators. These teachers have received mixed evaluations,^® but, by any standard, their contributions have been vitally important in enabling Lao secondary and teacher-training schools to move toward self-sufficiency in teacher education and subject-matter staffing.

The 1980 target date will also see the use of Lao throughout the secondary system. Beginning with the 1974-75 academic year, Sixieme B, a one-year course of study designed to strengthen the students' French language ability and general background, thereby adding an additional year to the first cycle of secondary education for most Lao students, will be eliminated, with Lao being implemented as the medium of in­ struction for all incoming Sixieme students. Thereafter, the plan calls for the use of Lao as the language of instruction to grow by one grade per year: to Cinquieme in 1975-76, Quatrieme in 1976-1977, etc. This streamlining of the secondary curriculum is an important development in the strengthening of the Lao secondary education system. Lao secondary students need no longer spend an extra year in a pre-seventh grade to get ready to study in a foreign language. They will be able to be taught by Lao-speaking Lao teachers throughout their secondary studies.

The next step is to introduce Lao as the language of instruction at the ESP and other units of Sisavang Vong University. The success of 18

Laoization In the secondary schools will undoubtedly spur its imple­ mentation at this higher level of education and, hopefully, encourage university-level students to pursue advanced studies in their own

country in their own language. The ESP should especially benefit from

Laoization by attracting more highly motivated students who can contri­ bute to their country's growth and development by spreading general knowledge and specialized instruction throughout the Kingdom by their

instructional efforts. However, Laoization alone will not raise the

caliber of students choosing teaching as a profession. Traditionally,

the role of teacher has been an honored one, but the economic and social

reality attending teaching as a career in contemporary Laos strongly militates against the recruitment of top-level students. "Teaching is not a very popular profession in Laos . . . first, teaching is viewed as a static job providing little opportunity to advance to the top; and second, teaching does not ensure a desirable level of material well­ being for teachers. !,m For a more detailed presentation of the whole general topic of the history and development of teacher-training schools in Laos, the Reader is referred to Chapter 4 of Dr. Bounlieng

Phommasouvanh’s dissertation.

From the beginning, the ESP was the recipient of substantial donor-country aid. United States assistance began in 1956 with the development (i.e. planning) of the ESP, followed by its construction 11? beginning in February, 1958. The USAID-supported English Section, created in 1959^~* to prepare Lao teachers of English and other second­ ary school subjects,was added to the French government-supported

French Section, designed to prepare Lao teachers of French and other 19

secondary school subjects, when a contract was let to SEAREP of The

I -I C University of Michigan. Subsequently, the English Section has been

staffed by USAID IVS teachers, with substantial assistance from American

Fulbright Lecturers and other contract personnel, British VSO teachers,

and Colombo Plan teachers and advisors, including a resident British

Council Expert.Currently, the Lao faculty of the English Section

are increasing in numbers and are expected to replace IVS teachers as

they are phased out over the next few years. Encouraging, also, is the

rise of the Lao Section of the ESP, where studies in Lao linguistics

and literature, headed by USAID linguist James Chamberlain and supple­

mented by the independent language studies of Hawaii Team linguist

Arthur Crisfield for the Fa Ngum Schools, complement the standard Lao

language and subject-matter courses, With increasing Kingdom-wide

Laoization, the growth of the Lao Section seems assured, even to the

extent of its ultimately becoming the cornerstone of a unified Lao

College of Education and the site of a proposed National Language/Lin- 117 guistic Institute which would work with the Committee on Functional

Literacy, established in 1968, and the long-standing Academie Lao to

standardize the Lao lexicon, spelling system, and Romanized phoneticiza-

tion. Full Laoization of the secondary system by 1980 will bring with

it many benefits for Lao students and teachers, and these positive

results will probably give rise to as yet unforeseen additional sanguine

developments for Lao education in general and the ESP in particular.

Thus far in this elaborate examination of education in the period following 1945, attention has been focused on the accomplish­ ments of the RLG, the "Vientiane Side" of the new coalition government. 20

Would that an equally detailed treatment could be provided of the edu­

cational system of the Pathet Lao, the other "Side" of the new govern­

ment. But hard data is scarce. Jacques Decornoy's article "Where is

America?" in the August 15, 1968 issue of the Far Eastern Economic

Review provides an impressionistic account of some aspects of the PL

educational system. Edwin T. McKeithen’s 1969 USAID study "Life Under

the Pathet Lao in the Xieng Khouang Ville Area" dealt more with the

philosophy underpinning the PL educational effort. While trying to

eradicate the influences of Buddhism, the PL are attempting to replace 118 it with a new ethic: service to the state. Local PL community

development advisors, whose prime responsibility is to check on the

villagers* industriousness and political reliability, head Khana Puk

Luk, literally "Awakening Groups," which forward the concept of egali­

tarian, multi-purpose social organizations wherein villagers can prac­

tice the "Four Togethers" policy: eat together, work together, discuss 119 together, and assist each other together. This structure seems to

be the PL version of the North Vietnamese-modified Chinese Communist

People's Liberation Army model for literacy instruction, self-criticism,

and service to the state. A 1971 Rand Corporation study by Paul F.

Langer, Education in the Communist Zone of Laos, is even more precise.

For the PL, the general tasks of education are to convey knowledge and

1 on skills and to foment a revolutionary spirit in the pupils. u Knowledge

is basic: literacy and agricultural techniques which can be put to

1 22 immediate use. Living through a decade of American bombing and constant guerrilla and full-unit combat against CIA-supported and

Special Forces-advised mercenary armies has demonstrated to the 21

PL-controlled population the virtues of an educational policy which

aims at stimulating competition and teaching the importance of disci­

pline through the means of mutual and self-criticism.^ 3 When PL

territory is opened up to Western observers, we will know a lot more

about the PL educational system, reportedly headquartered in Sam Neua

and possessed of a full complement of elementary, secondary, and

teacher-training components.

Secondary Education

The long preceding section on "Education in Laos" has defined

in some detail the scope of the educational efforts currently being

forwarded throughout the Kingdom. In this section, attention is directed at only one component of that structure, secondary education.

In the following presentation, it should be stressed that secondary education, like elementary education and teacher training, is sub­ stantially underwritten by donor-country assistance.12^ As far as the

United States assistance to secondary education is concerned, the de­ velopment of the Fa Ngum Comprehensive High School System is the chief 125 aid project. Assistance to the ESP comes in the form of IVS teachers contracted to USAID and a Department of State-sponsored Fulbright

Lecturer. Fulbright Teachers contracted to the Department of State have also been teaching English and American Civilization in the four lycees of the Kingdom. In addition, other educational contract per­ sonnel are in-country from time to time for short- or long-term assign­ ments, attached either to USAID or to an agency of the Lao government. 22

Much of this activity is directed toward upgrading secondary education, traditionally the weakest unit in the educational system of developing countries.

"... deficiencies in secondary education are even more serious than in primary; in part because governments have given first priority to the development of universities. There is strong political pressure, for primary education and universities are symbols of prestige and grandeur. Secondary education, upon which the real success of both primary and higher education is based, is commonly given the lowest priority."'1'

Secondary education in Laos encompassed twenty-four secondary schools for the 1973-1974 academic year: four lycees, five Fa Ngums, fourteen colleges, a n d one college Lao. For 1974-1975, five addi­ tional colleges Lao (i.e. first-cycle Lao secondary schools) will be added to the system.-^8 Other current components of the secondary system include three lycees techniques (see footnote 39 for details); four ENI's (see preceding section for an elaborated discussion); four two-year Cours Acceleres (i.e. Normal Schools), with one additional unit to be added in 1974-1975 to prepare even more elementary school teachers; one Fine Arts School; one Dance School; one Home Economics School

(grades 7-8 only); four two-year Crafts Schools, alluded to earlier in the preceding section; parts of the Medical School and the Law School;

The Agricultural School at Dong Dok; The Public Works School; and the

1 O Q PTT (i.e. Poste, Telephone, et Telegraphe) School. Lao students, as against non-Lao minority students (i.e. French, Vietnamese, and

Chinese), constituted more than ninety per cent (90%) of the total enrollment in public secondary schools, up from eighty-three per cent

(83%) in 1962-1963 and eighty-five per cent (85%) in 1966-1967.130 23

As for private secondary schools, especially those offering only the

first cycle (i.e. colleges), they now enroll close to 4,000 pupils or

about one-third of the total student population of both private and

public secondary schools. Competition on the secondary school 3*2 entrance-examination is still extremely keen. More males than 133 females pass the examination and, embarrassing for the MOE, candi­

dates from private elementary schools have traditionally passed in

higher numbers than their counterparts from public elementary s c h o o l s . ^34

With a low student-teacher ratio of 22:1, the system is capable of de­

livering quality education, but the very large class size of about 34:1 135 must be reduced if this goal is to be fully realized. The best

rationale for changing the traditional orientation of secondary educa­

tion has been expressed as follows:

"Its purpose should be to provide a fundamental and broad education, including adequate exposure to science and mathematics, for students planning to take jobs directly; to become technicians or school teachers; or enter the universities. Therefore, the emphasis should be on multi­ purpose secondary schools, with the various choices for specialization, whose major function would be to produce well-educated people who can later be trained either in employment or in higher education institutions for a wide variety of occupations in the high-level manpower cate­ gory. This is certainly the most economical means of increasing both the quantity, quality, and flexibility of secondary schools."136

The Reader desirous of an elaborated discussion of the history and development of public secondary schools in Laos is referred to

Chapter 3 of Dr. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh's dissertation. The Lycee System

The four lycees of the Kingdom of Laos describe a . . group- paced, group-prescribed instructional system."137 In four-year first cycle, consisting of Sixieme, Cinqui^me, Quatrieme, and Troisieme, students undertake a general-studies curriculum leading to a second- cycle "major" in which they specialize. The initial entrance- examination and the annual end-of-year written examinations in major subjects and oral examinations in minor subjects are supposed to elimi­ nate the weak students. A student may repeat a year if his moyenne. the average of all grades in all subjects divided by the number of subjects times the coefficient (i.e. relative worth) ascribed to each subject, i ^8 is below the accepted standard for passing, but if he must repeat 1 a second time, the student is asked to leave the school. The second cycle of the lycees consists of Seconde, Premiere, and Terminale.

Entrance is obtained by presenting an appropriate certificate of first- cycle education and then by successfully passing a second-cycle entrance- examination.A student then selects a major field of study (A-Letters

B-Economics; C-Mathematics; D-Natural Sciences) and pursues a standard­ ized, narrow program, graduation from which leads either to a career in public service or foreign university study.

Much more about the lycee system will be detailed in the examina­ tion of the Lycee de Vientiane, which follows in Chapter 2. However, a few additional observations at this time might sharpen the image of a lycee education in Laos. To begin with, the students wear a type of uniform, although uniforms are no longer mandated by school rules, as promulgated by the MOE. Girls usually wear dark skirts and light 25

blouses, and boys usually wear dark slacks and no- or open-collar white

shirts. The classrooms are thin-walled and, until recently, possessed

of unreliable electric lights and overhead fans. Although the cement

floors are usually swept daily, airborne dust covers everything,

especially student tables and benches, which outnumber Western-style

individual desks and backed chairs. Until the 1974-1975 academic year,

when Lao is supposed to begin being used as the language of instruction

in Sixieme, all subjects, except for some foreign languages, were

taught in French. The textbooks, originally prepared for French high

school students in France, are both linguistically and culturally in­

appropriate for Lao students in Laos. But until the MOE, in collabora­

tion with donor countries, can get Lao textbooks written and printed

i / q for the lycees, French textbooks offer the best alternative. Except

for a choice of which languages to study as a "first" or "second"

foreign language, the students have very little leeway on course selec­

tion and no opportunity for Western-style "enrichment" subjects.

Teachers are generally autonomous, there being no system of academic

departments within the lycee. Generally, students respect, but do not

revere, teachers. The faculty receives minimal in-service education from the MOE, although USAID- and SEAMEO-supported programs are annually sponsored by the MOE in various subject-matter areas.

Before passing on to Chapter 2 and its in-depth description of the Lycee de Vientiane, this entire section on Laos and education in

Laos, particularly the secondary system and the lycee component, can be well and fairly closed with the following still-appropriate criti­ cisms of a mid-1960's Lao educator, whose words are included herein 26 neither to disparage nor to despair but in the spirit of constructive criticism against which real progress can be measured.

"Laotian educational administration has all the charac­ teristic features inherent in centralization. A trained bureaucracy located at Vientiane has dictated a stand­ ardized and uniform educational policy for the entire country. Therefore, every school is very much like every other school in the same category, with some slight differences in the efficiency with which they prepare their students for the annual examinations. In fact, these examinations have dominated the educational proc­ esses of the schools and turned them into machines. The examinations have acquired this power over the system because they lead the way to the coveted national certificates, which in turn open the way to government posts and to higher education."144

and

"... the present centralized system stands condemned because it has not ministered to the vast rural popula­ tion and because it has established educational "examina­ tion factories" instead of facilities that produce a free- thinking, independent, resourceful student body. If one of the legitimate aims of education is the development of individual initiative, freedom, and personality based on a sense of social duty and obligation, then the policy of educational centralization in Laos has contributed to stifling the educational process and preventing the adapta­ tion of education to the visible needs of the rural com­ munity and of the nation."145 CHAPTER I

FOOTNOTES

^■C. Earle Hoshall. "Developing a College of Education in Laos." p. 8 .

^The Reader who is interested in the history of this conflict is referred to Bibliography One, where entries preceded with an asterisk (*) are noted as recommended reading.

8The Royal Lao Government is a constitutional monarchy headed by a hereditary monarch, currently King Savang Vatthana, who reigns in the Royal Capital of Luang Prabang, and a coalition government-appointed Prime Minister, currently Prince Souvanna Phouma, who exercises real political power (shared with the forty-two member, Luang Prabang-based National Political Council) in the Administrative Capital of Vientiane.

^Pathet Lao, which means "Land of Lao," is the short-form designa­ tion of the Neo Lao Hak Sat (NLHS), the Lao Patriotic Front, which is the super-nationalistic offshoot of the post-World War II Lao Issara (Free Lao) movement, which was to Laos as the Viet Minh were to Vietnam. For convenience, "Pathet Lao" is used to describe the Lao Communist System— including the Phak Pasason Lao, the People's Party of Laos (i.e. the Communist Party of Laos)— and its components. For historical background on the evolution of the Pathet Lao, the Reader is referred to Chapter Three ("The Growth of the Lao Revolutionary Movement and the Vietnamese Role") of Langer & Zazloff's North Vietnam and the Pathet Lao - Partners in the Struggle for Laos.

^Liliane Nhouyvanisvong. "The Sociology of Rural Education in Laos." p. 59.

^Bernard Wilder. An Examination of the Phenomenon of the Literacy Skills of Unskilled Males in Laos, p. 45.

^Thipphaawong Bounnong. An Analysis of the Social and Educational Systems of Laos in View of Establishing Teacher Education in Agricul­ ture for Elementary School Teachers, p. 33.

8 Ibid. Page 2 of the Abstract cites a figure of 93%.

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Developmental Books Activities and Needs in Laos. p . 4.

10Ibid., p. 2 .

27 28

n ibld., p. 1 .

^The most recent article to appear is W. E. Garrett's "No Place to Run: the Hmoung of Laos" in the January, 1974, National Geographic, pp. 78-111. See also Don Schanch's M r . Pop for a rendering of the life and times of the extraordinary "Pop" Buell, who has worked for years among the Hmoung. Thipphaawong Bounnong, Op. Cit., pp. 34-35, reports that the Hmoung are to be found in northern Laos from Yunnan south to Phou Khao Kouai, thirty-seven miles north of Vientiane, but that they are concentrated mainly in the province of Xieng Khouang.

•^According to Thipphaawong Bounnong, Op. Cit., pp. 34-35, both the Yao and Hmoung tribes evidence strong patriarchal influences in family and village organization, perhaps resulting from their common origin in China, whence many of them migrated to Laos in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Yao are found mostly in southwestern Sam Neua, around Nam Tha, and to a lesser extent in the Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng areas.

^ Ibid.. p. 34, notes as follows: "Kha is the general name ap­ plied to the very diverse group of indigenous inhabitants who occupy most of the mountainous areas in the central and southern parts of Laos. These people lack both a writing system and formalized political organiza­ tions beyond the village level."

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op.. Cit.. p. 2. These groups are collectively referred to as "mountain tribes." Their villages, accord­ ing to Halpern in Economy and Society of Laos, p. 6 , are located in mountainous terrain or on steep hillsides at an elevation of 3,000- 4,500 feet above sea level. Dr. Lawrence J. Levy's Report No. 12, Part 2, Attachment No. 2, of May, 1973 (dated June 14, 1973), repro­ duces and updates the "Minority Peoples in Laos" chart found in the Peter Kunstadter-edited article in Southeast Asian Tribes. Minorities. and Nations, Volume I, Part V, pp. 255-258.

■^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. O p . Cit., p. 2.

l^For a superbly detailed examination of this phenomenon of the lack of an indigenous Southeast Asian (Protestant) Work Ethic, the Reader is referred to Gunnar Myrdal's Asian Dilemma.

l®Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit., p. 2 and Liliane Nhouyvanisvong, Op. Cit., p. 59.

■^Liliane Nhouyvanisvong. O p . Cit.. p. 59.

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. O p . Cit.. p. 3.

^The average size of the nuclear family in Laos has been esti­ mated at 5-6. Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. 0£. Cit., p. 2. 29

00 The Lao phrase bo pen nvang. translated along a continuum of "Don’t do today what you can do tomorrow" to "So What?" by way of "Not to worry" and "Don’t pay no (never) mind" typifies a deeply felt Lao attitude that any activity or consequence beyond that of the present moment is not worth worrying about because, when all is said and done, now is what is, and what will be, will be anyway. In short, why be con­ cerned about something that hasn't happened yet which, if it has already happened, is beyond the point of changing? 23 Liliane Nhouyvanisvong. Op.. Cit., p. 59.

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit., p. 2.

^According to Thipphaawong Bounnong, 0£. Cit., p. iii, the best United States-based sources of information on Laos are as follows: The Cornell University Library; The Library of Congress; International Voluntary Services, Inc., of Washington, D.C.; The Lao Desk, U.S. De­ partment of State; and The University of Michigan Library.

^Bernard Wilder. Op. Cit., p. 45.

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser, Op. Cit., pp. 2-3, note that Laotian Thai (i.e. Lao) is a language of the Southwestern Thai branch peoples of Sino-Tibetan stock. The Lao alphabet, which came into existence around the thirteenth century, is the same as Thai and is written in several styles/forms. There is no standard spelling and no one gen­ erally accepted system for transcribing the Lao alphabet into Latin letters.

^®Marjorie Emling. The Education System in Laos During the French Protectorate. 1893 to 1945. p . 4.

^ Ibid., p. 31. "Few Laotians ever showed an interest in working in the French administration and those positions which were open to "natives" were often filled by Vietnamese."

^Thipphaawong Bounnong. Op. Cit., p. 72.

31"Lao" is used throughout this dissertation to refer to both the language and the people of Laos. Lao people do not like the word "Laotian" because of its resemblance to the French phrase lao chien, meaning "Lao dog," a colonial-era epithet not yet forgotten (nor for­ given) by the Lao.

^Marjorie Emling. Op. Cit., p. 72. OO Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit., pp. 76-77.

^ R a s Oliver Johnson. "A Study of Education in Laos." p. 26. Bernard Wilder. Op. Cit.. p. 63. 30

^ F o r "Indochinese" here, understand "Vietnamese."

-^Thipphaawong Bounnoung. O p . Cit.. p. 72. 37 Marjorie Emling. 0p_. Cit.. p. 8 . 38 Thipphaawong Bounnong. 0j>. Cit. , p. 73. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, The Preparation of Teachers and Its Role in the Laosization of Public Secondary Schools in Laos, p. 76, cites 1922 as the opening date, with the school bearing the name Ecole Primaire Superieure. This entire issue will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Two. 39 A brief review of the history of vocational education in Laos, based on Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, O p . Cit., pp. 77-78; Thipphaawong Bounnong, 0p_. Cit.. pp. 92-93; and Bernard Wilder, 0^. Cit., pp. 70-71; evidences these high points. In Vientiane, the Professional School of 1923, an informal apprenticeship school, became a one-year Atelier Ecole (i.e. Workshop School) in 1938-1939, was renamed the Apprenticeship School in 1945, the Technical School in 1953, and in 1955 or 1957, be­ came a part of the Lycee de Vientiane, which it remained until 1962. Currently, this three-year technical school and the Kingdom's two other major vocational schools constitute a formal part of the secondary school system and are called lycfees techniques, offering high school-level courses in electricity, cabinet-making and carpentry, automobile me­ chanics, masonry and building, general mechanics, and business adminis­ tration. These two other vocational schools are the Technical School of Savannakhet, founded in 1955-1956, and the Lao-German Technical School of Vientiane, founded in 1963. Laos also has a silversmith school in Khong, a weaving school in Pakse, and an Atelier Ecole in Savannakhet, all established in 1947. Vocational training is also offered in the Fa Ngum Comprehensive High Schools, which system will be discussed later in the presentation.

^^Marjorie Emling. Op. Cit.. p. 37. Emling notes on p. 55 that this eighteen-to-twenty-four-month course provided for thirty- to forty- five-day refresher courses as a sort of fifth year at the College Pavie, an earlier designation of the Lycee de Vientiane before it became a full lvc6e . While different sources disagree as to the starting-date of teacher-training schools and the varying durations of their respective course offerings, it is clear from Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, 0£. Cit., pp. 173 and 211; C. Earle Hoshall, Op_. Cit., p. 9; and Francis H. Vittetow, "Teacher Training in Laos: The Fountainhead of Social and Economic Reform," p. 11, that the two-year teacher-training school that opened in 1942 was the direct antecedent of the twenty-two student, four-year teacher-training school, the Ecole Normale de Vientiane (ENV), that opened in 1949 as the first "modern" teacher-training school in Laos. Previously, according to Francis H. Vittetow, Ibid., "From 1922 to 1942, elementary teachers were trained for one year or less at certain demonstration schools in the country." Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Op. Cit., p. 172, notes from an earlier period (quoted from LeBar and Suddhard, Laos. Its People. Its Country. Its Culture, p. 79) that 31

(Footnote 40 Continued) "The first effort made by the French to train Laotian teachers was initiated in 1909 when a teacher-training program was organized in Vientiane to retrain Buddhist monks for the secular educational system. Three additional similar schools were introduced in Luang Prabang, Savannakhet, and Pakse in 1911." This scheme was revived with somewhat greater success in 1931. Much more will be de­ tailed about teacher-training schools later in this chapter.

^Thipphaawong Bounnong. Op. Cit., p. 73.

^Bernard Wilder. 0^. Cit., p. 63.

A3Ibid., pp. 63-64.

AAIncludes graduates of previous years.

A3Bernard Wilder. O p . Cit., pp. 63-64.

A^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit., p. 77. The definition of "Schooling" in this paper is the one given in the Forward (pp. iii-iv) of Non-Formal Alternatives to Schooling, published in 1971 by the Center for International Education of the University of Massachusetts School of Education in Amherst, Massachusetts.

" ’Schooling1 . . . refers to a traditional mode of educa­ tion based upon a defined power relationship between pupil and teacher, designed to maintain custodial care of the young and to transmit major cultural values to them, and institutionalized through a state monopoly of educational resources, required certification, and obligatory attend­ ance. As it has grown, the content of schooling has become increasingly irrelevant while the certification it provides has been increasingly viewed as indispensable."

A^Ibid. There seems to be some distinction made between "ele­ mentary school enrollment" and "primary school enrollment." The figure for the former of 14,700 in 1946 is contrasted four pages later (p. 81) with a fugure of 24,057 for the latter. The second figure is confirmed by Bernard Wilder, Op. Cit., p. 63, who notes these students distri­ buted throughout 509 "elementary schools."

A®Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Op. Cit., p. 77, notes that in 1942, enrollment for all four grades at the College Pavie was 130, of whom only about one-third were Lao.

A9Ibid. 32

^^The definition of "traditional education" in this paper is the one given on pp. 62-63 of USAID's Educational Technology and Developing Countries: A Handbook (Draft Copy), distributed from Washington, D.C. in 1972.

"Traditional education . . . impressed a knowledgeable observer as follows: . . . the typical . . . room had been a dreary place, both visually and academically. Aside from a single blackboard, its walls were generally bare, save for an occasional calendar . . . or map.

Invariably seated in rows, students were expected to listen while the teacher lectured or read from a textbook. When they were not listening, students copied dictations or resumes. If the teacher asked questions, they were usually "memory questions". . . Students were almost never prompted to venture an opinion, to participate in discussions, or even to ask questions of the teacher.

Because of the scarcity of textbooks and school libraries, the teacher was the students' sole source of information. Students passively absorbed this information and were ex­ pected to regurgitate it verbatim on examinations.

Little attempt was made to relate classroom learning to the students' environment and experience or to their inter­ ests and needs. Knowledge was treated as a fixed body of concepts and facts to be memorized; the sole arbiter and dispenser of knowledge was the teacher."

One reason for the inclusion of these paragraphs is to acquaint the Reader with the parameters of the academic mind-set brought by the students of the Lycee de Vientiane to their English classes. In a basically aural-oral elementary language program, where substantial student participation is mandatory, and an intermediate-to-advanced language program where student-teacher dialogue is the principal in­ structional mode, the attitudes and classroom behavior patterns en­ gendered by traditional education present the TEFL teacher with a methodological and psycholinguistic Gordian Knot of significant pro­ portions. How to attempt to unravel this inter-related set of language- learning hindrances is both the theoretical justification and operative rationale behind the different pedagogical strategems described in Chapters 4-5, the "applied" portion of this dissertation.

->^Hugh Toye. Laos - Buffer State or Battleground? p. 45.

^^Marjorie Emling. 0£. Cit., p. 43

-^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. O p . Cit., p. 81.

5 4 Ibid., p. 86 33

■’•’Bernard Wilder. Op. Cit.. p. 64.

-^Thipphaawong Bounnong. Op. Cit.. pp. 5-6.

^Laoization, also referred to as "Laosization" and "Laotianiza- tion," encompasses all aspects of the educational master plan whereby Lao is to be made the medium of instruction for all courses in all Lao schools, except for some foreign-language classes. The plan calls for all schools to be run by Lao administrators and to be staffed entirely by Lao, except for some foreign-language teachers. The return to Laos of Lao trained in educational administration and subject-matter courses in France, The United States, Thailand, Australia, and Singapore has spurred the process, already accelerated in a time of decreasing donor- country aid to education and a revived nationalism under the (Provi­ sional) Government of National Union.

■^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit., p. 22.

-^Ras Oliver Johnson. Op. Cit., p. 24, Table 14 and p. 26, Table 16. Phonekeo Khamphao, ed. Rapport Statistique de 1 ^Enseignement Primaire (1964). Harry A. Little. "Information on Schools of Laos, 1963." Thipphaawong Bounnong. 0^. Cit., p. 84. Thipphaawong Bounnong, Op. Cit., p. 107 notes further that only 3% of these 121,053 elementary school students ever reached secondary school.

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit.. p. 3.

^ I b i d . This datum is confirmed by Marjorie Emling, 0jk Cit., p. 32: "From 1956-1965, the decrease in enrollment between grades one and two averaged more than 50% a year for both sexes."

62Ibid., p. 83.

^^For a detailed account of the textbook aid provided by USAID/ EDUCATION in the mid-1960's, see Francis H. Vittetow, "One Year and One Million Books Later."

^According to Phonekeo Khamphao in his article "Literacy in Laos" in the Bulletin of the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Asia, pp. 47-48, this expansion of pagoda schools in the period 1951- 1969 was the first major effort to promote a Kingdom-wide literacy pro­ gram in Laos.

^Thipphaawong Bounnong. Op.. Cit., p. 12.

^Royal Lao Government. "Laos, Secondary Education." p. 1.

^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 77. The College Pavie was renamed the Lycee Pavie in 1947. Subsequently, Lycee Pavie was amended to Lycee de Vientiane. 34

Thipphaawong Bounnong. 0£. Cit., pp. 88-89.

^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. 0j>. Cit., p. 77, Other sources indi­ cate that although the second cycle was in full operation by 1953, the starting-date for the administration of the French Baccalaureat in Laos may have been as late as 1956 or even 1958.

7^Ibid,, p. 78.

7^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. O^. Cit.. p. 8 6 . 77 Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Oj>. Cit., p. 77. 7 ^ Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. 0£. Cit.. p. 8 6 .

74 Ibid., p. 34.

7^Ibid., p. 8 8 . Up until 1939, only seven Lao students had worked for university degrees in various fields in Hanoi and France, according to Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Ojj. Cit., p. 77. Since Laos had no university-level institution until 1958 when Royal Decree 164 was promulgated, establishing Sisavang Vong University in Vientiane, monied Lao first-cycle graduates until 1946 and second-cycle graduates until 1958 had to go overseas for additional educational training.

7^U.S. Assistance to the Royal Lao Government, 1962-1972. pp. 16-18.

^According to Francis H. Vittetow, Teacher Training in Laos: The Fountainhead of Social and Economic Reform, p. 19, The United States helped the Lao MOE in the period 1960-1966 to send sixteen persons to The United States, thirty-three to Thailand, and one to the Philippines for various courses of from four weeks to four years designed to pro­ vide training to meet obvious educational leadership needs in Laos. 78 The pertinent data on this project, drawn from p. 49 of this document, are as follows.

The Project was initially funded from the President’s Fund for Asian Economic Development.

Contractor: University of Michigan Signature Date of Contract: August, 1958 Signature Date of Extension: August 11, 1961 Expiration Date of Contract: June 30, 1964 Total Dollar Amount of Contract: $ 1,778,000 Contract Funding by Fiscal Years: FY 1958-1961 $ 1,740,819 FY 1962-1963 $ 20,745 FY 1964 $ 16,436 35

79lVS effort in rural development ceased in the late 1960's after the PL had killed four Volunteers over a three-year period for alleged American-sponsored counterinsurgency activity. From eight IVS team members in 1959 (Louis W. Normington. Teacher Education and AID, p. 14), the number rose to thirty-three in 1966 (Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit.. p 72). During the 1973-1974 academic year, about thirty-five IVS'era were in Laos, many teaching in the English Section at Dong Dok, some teaching in various Fa Ngum schools, and a few others in programs such as home economics, nutrition, forestry and fisheries, and veterans rehabilitation.

®^This American-sponsored comprehensive high school system was established to provide an alternative to the heavily French-influenced academic lycee system and the Lao-administered technical-vocational school system referred to earlier in the chapter. Six Fa Ngum schools are projected, five of which have already been constructed and are func­ tioning in Vientiane, Phone Hong, Luang Prabang, Savannakhet, and Pakse. The sixth Fa Ngum school is to be in Xieng Khouang. These schools, most of which, it is planned, will eventually become two-cycle secondary schools, use Lao as the medium of instruction, except in foreign-language classes. Possessed of relevant curricula and good physical facilities, they have a first-cycle completion time of 4.28 years, compared with the college cum lvcge average of 5.52 years, according to Bounlieng Phommasouvang, Op. Cit., p. 93. This means that the average student at a Fa Ngum school finishes his first-cycle studies in his own language in more than a year less time than in a foreign language (i.e. French), thereby reducing reduplicated effort at all levels of the secondary system. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Op. Cit.. p. 99, Table 14, estimates that the six Fa Ngum schools are expected to grow from an enrollment of 1,395 in 1973 to 3,735 in 1985, seriously challenging the primacy of the lycees as the principal institution of secondary education in the Kingdom. Secondary education is discussed at length further in this chapter.

®-*-This curriculum is not the choice of the teachers, who are American. Rather, the course of study is dictated by the requirements for the French Baccalaureat, which is devised at Montpelier, France, and administered in French-medium schools in former French areas of influence through a local French Cultural Mission and the national MOE.

82C . Earle Hoshall. Op. Cit., pp. 9 and 15.

^According to Educational Technology and the Developing Coun­ tries : A Handbook (Draft Copy), p. 21, "One of the features of external financial assistance is that it usually takes the form, not of money, but of scholarships, technical specialists, or capital equipment." Laos, which has had most of its education budget underwritten by donor- country aid to education, has traditionally relied upon a wealth of scholarships sponsored by various agencies of the many countries which maintain a presence in Laos, a heavy infusion of foreign teachers, and the ongoing foreign capital-sustained construction of new educational 36

(Footnote 83 Continued) facilities. However, increasing Laoization under the new government will most probably result in increased Lao responsi­ bility and initiative in the direction of their own educational affairs, thus effectively limiting foreign influence.

^Francis H. Vittetow. 0£. jCit., p. 2.

®^This new USAID-sponsored ENI in Vientiane supplanted the 1949- era teacher-training institution. Ultimately, the ENI, Vientiane, was "established" as the ENV by Ministerial Decree 140/ED of February 12, 1973.

Thipphaawong Bounnong. 0j>. Cit., p. 96. C. Earle Hoshall. Op. Cit., p. 10.

®^Later removed to the site of Fa Ngum, Vientiane, for military security reasons. With the implementation of the provisions of the Cease-Fire Accords of 1973 and the formation of a Provisional Government of National Union in 1974, the school has been moved back to Sam Thong.

^Francis H. Vittetow. 0j>. Cit. , p. 2. C. Earle Hoshall. 0£. Cit., pp. 10-11.

The plan for the future growth of ENI’s can be seen in the pro­ jected development of the ENV, as per Ministerial Decree 140/ED of February 12, 1973. Public and private secondary school graduates hold­ ing the CEP are to be granted the Brevet d'Aptitude a 1*Enseignement Primaire (BAEP) upon the successful completion of four years of training, at which point they are expected to go out and teach throughout the first cycle of elementary schools. Second-cycle ENV graduates, drawn from the ranks of both newly minted and classroom-tested (for at least two years) BAEP-holders, graduates of the first cycle of public or private secondary schools, and lycee students who have passed the Seconde entrance-examination, are to be granted the Brevet de Fin d*Etudes Normales (BFEN) upon the successful completion of their three-year course of study, at which time they are expected to go out and teach in the second cycle of elementary schools.

^^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. OjD. Cit. , p. 89. C. Earle Hoshall. Op. Cit., p. 12. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op.. Cit., p. 178.

9^-c. Earle Hoshall. Op. Cit., pp. 11-12. An early statistical breakdown comes from Francis H. Vittetow, "One Year and One Million Books Later," p. 9, where the author notes that as of 1965, 1,073 of the teachers of grades 1-6 had less than six years of formal schooling, 2,495 had no more than six years of education, and approximately 500 had more than six years of formal schooling.

92"KM-9" denotes Kilometer 9, a fitting designation since the educational complex is located nine kilometers outside of Vientiane, 37

9^ESP and Dong Dok are used interchangeably to refer to the site of the educational complex at KM-9. More properly, the tripartite ESP now also encompasses the second cycle of the ENV, as per Ministerial Decree 139/ED of February 12, 1973.

94sisavang Vong University, created by Royal Decree 164 of June 30, 1958, is not yet a complete physical reality. Parts of the Univer­ sity, such as the Medical School and the ESP, have developed independ­ ently. The ESP was established as a part of Sisavang Vong University by Presidential Decree 123/PC of March 31, 1959.

^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 250.

^Francis H. Vittetow, "Teacher Training in Laos: The Fountain- head of Social and Economic Reform," p. 23, understands the basic premise of teacher training in Laos to be based on ". . . learning what the young teacher will have to actually teach according to the methods he will have to use and materials at his disposal."

^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 249, notes that the role of the teacher as expressed in The 1962 Education Reform Act ". . . i s that of an advisor to the student in teaching and of a participant in the social and economic development of the nation."

9®By far the most comprehensive attempt to systematize a longi­ tudinal examination of Lao educational development is Lucius Butler's Lao Educational Statistics: Selected Statistical Tables Dealing with the Royal Lao Government Ministry of Education for the Period Between 1962 and 1972 (Information Draft Copy), produced in Vientiane by USAID/ EDUCATION in 1973. Section H., pp. 77-90, details the statistical pro­ file of this more-than-decade-long, USAID-supported teacher-training effort. Constantino's chart on p. 12 of Francis H. Vittetow, Op. Cit., provides yet another eyeball overview of the growth of the teacher- training program in Laos, 1965-1971 (projected).

99C. Earle Hoshall, Oja. Cit., p. 11 reports that in 1965 only four Lao with (foreign) college degrees had returned to Laos and were teaching in Lao schools. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 118.

lOOprank LeBar and Adrienne Suddhard, eds. Laos, Its People, Its Society, Its Culture, p. 87. Quoted in Barnett, Brown, and Kaser, Op. Cit., pp. 3-4.

101"Training of High Ranking Officials."

102"Laos, Secondary Education: Plan for the Training of Teachers; Structure and Programs (First Cycle)." p. 2.

103Thipphaawong Bounnong. 0£. Cit., p. 80.

■^Francis H. Vittetow. Oja. Cit., p. 20. 38

1Q5 Ibid.. p. 13.

lO^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 103. See p. 102, Table 17, for full details.

1 0 7Ibid., p. 184.

*08Ibid., p. 108, Table 19. This same source notes on p. 107 that, as of 1971-1972, 73.2% of Lao teachers are ESP graduates having only the equivalent of a Western high school education.

IQ^Ibid.t p. 102, Table 17. According to this course, 93% of the administrative personnel in 1971-1972 were Lao, and the percentage has risen appreciably since that time.

llOlbid., pp. 104-106. As for the French teachers, ". . .their professional and educational qualifications . . . are generally low," and ". . .they could not, despite their open-mindedness, adjust them­ selves to the local conditions due to lack of proper professional and cultural training." In sum, their reported poor teacher-student rapport and some cultural and language barriers all combined to ". . . create a classroom situation more difficult to handle educationally." American IVS and British VSO teachers come in for high marks, although "they often lack professional qualifications." This source notes that these teachers tend to have good rapport with their students. "Their rela­ tionship continues beyond the classroom; this helps eliminate an arti­ ficial barrier in learning situations."

■^^Thipphaawong Bounnong. Op. Cit., p. 235. Given these nega­ tive attitudes, it is encouraging to learn from this same source, p. 213, that teacher-training schools had attained a Kingdom-wide en­ rollment of 4,031 students for the 1972-1973 academic year.

■^C. Earle Hoshall. 0£. Cit., p. 9. Francis H. Vittetow. Op. Cit., p. 11.

^%ounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 197.

^•■^Francis H. Vittetow. Op. Cit. , p. 2.

■^^Thipphaawong Bounnong, Op. Cit., pp. 98-101 reports that up to the early 1960's, most of the courses at Dong Dok were taught by French professors in French, further disadvantaging the resigned-to- teaching young Lao students who had to learn French before they could do specialized (i.e. professional) courses. The 1963-1964 school year saw the teacher-training program headed by Mr. Souphan Blanchard de la Brosse, an official of the Lao MOE, assisted by two directors of educa­ tion, one Lao and one French, and by an international teaching staff comprising thirty-seven French professors and envigilators, sixteen IVS teachers, three Thai, two British, and about fifteen Lao instructors. The faculty member in charge of the English Program was from SEAREP, assisted by IVS teachers. 39

(Footnote 115 Continued) Francis H. Vittetow, Op. Cit., p. 11 places student enrollment at the ESP at 1,660 for the 1965-1966 academic year, noting on p. 19 that, with a faculty staffed by twenty-five Lao, fifteen IVS Americans, five con­ tract Americans, forty-five French, three Canadians, one Thai, one Indian, three British, and one Vietnamese, "The Lao educator is out­ numbered, and probably educationally out-maneuvered, in his own coun­ try ..." As recounted in this section of the chapter, this condition no longer exists to such an extent.

Barnett, Brown, and Kaser, 0]3. Cit., p. 88 report an enrollment of 1,525 at the ESP for the 1966-1967 academic year. By this time, the English Program was headed by an IVS teacher, SEAREP’s contract having expired. USAID had built the physical plant and staffed part of the facility, although other donor countries, notably France, Great Britain, and Australia, had made significant contributions. France continued to supply teachers and advisors, while English-speaking countries provided not only instructional personnel but also library books and other language-learning-related materials. By 1966, Barnett, Brown, and Kaser, Op. Cit., were able to report (p. 38) that the best organized library of any Lao agency was that of the ESP. With holdings of 3,600 volumes— 950 French, 2,200 English, 400 Thai, and 50 Lao— this library was com­ pletely catalogued and arranged on open shelves by Dewey Classification, with about 700 circulations per month. This library has continued to grow in the intervening years under the direction of trained librarians and student assistants reporting most recently to the highly regarded Lao Director of the English Section, Mrs. Plnhkham Simmalavong.

C. Earle Hoshall, Op^. Cit. , p. 44 reports that for the 1968-1969 aca­ demic year 1,184 of the 2,466 students in seven Lao teacher-training schools were at Dong Dok (i.e. the ESP and the ENV), where they were taught by 290 of the 427 teacher-training faculty in Laos, representing at least six different nationalities. Full USAID support, wherever re­ quested by the RLG, was forthcoming during this period, as articulated on p. 2 of a February 5, 1968, document entitled "USAID and Education in Laos."

"A vigorous backing of the currently-launched Lao teacher training program would provide the most potent thrust to Lao educational progress. Full support to the ENI units in consultative and teaching personnel and equipment is urgent. Such aid must be provided with the specific re­ quirement that the schools move as rapidly as possible towards the use of Lao as the language of Instruction."

As elaborated in the body of this section of the chapter, the implemen­ tation of the policy of Laoization by the MOE has proven the worth of such a conditional-aid teacher-training program.

Until 1972, the English Program was headed by an IVS teacher, usually designated "Team Leader." From 1972-1974, the English Program was ably 40

(Footnote 115 Continued) administered by Fulbright Teacher Mark Mullbock, who revised the Intensive Course and implemented interdepart­ mental programming with the Pedagogy/Education Department, headed by Fulbright Lecturers Shipla (1971-1973) and Kazlov (1973-1974), British Council Expert Rudge, and English Methods Supervisor Parton; and the Social Studies Department, headed by Colombo Plan Department Chairman Vistarini and Social Studies Methods Supervisor Jones. During this changeover of administrative staffing from IVS "volunteer" to Fulbright et. a l . "professional" leadership, the entire English Section, under Mrs. Pinhkham's direction and at the sharp prodding of AACTE Advisor Levy, moved to upgrade generally the whole teacher-training curriculum, especially the student-teaching program initiated by Dr. Shipla and strengthened by Dr. Kazlov and Mr. Rudge. Additional information on this particular component of teacher education in Laos can be obtained from many of the sources enumerated below.

H^For an in-depth review of the English Language Program, par­ ticularly the Intensive Language Course, as well as a general review of the Social Studies Program and the Pedagogy/Education Program, including the teacher-training component, the Reader is referred to the following documents, available from the files of USAID/LAOS (includes IVS/LAOS), USIS/LAOS (includes Fulbright Reference Materials in the Fulbright Room), and the Office of the Director of the English Section of the ESP.

R. F. Blessing. "Recommendations for First Year English." (1968) Minutes of the English Section Meeting of June 2, 1970. Minutes of the English Section Meeting of November 14, 1972. Linda Dumbaugh. "Overview of the Fifth Year Intensive Course of the English Section of the Ecole Superieure de Pedagogie." (1973) Reports of English Section IVS teachers, 1963-1974. Reports of English Section Colombo Plan teachers, 1970- 1974. Reports of English Section Fulbright Teachers, 1970-1974. Reports of AACTE Curriculum/Higher Education Consultant Levy, 1971-1973.

Of special interest is the Laos "Country Report" to RELC’s Eighth Regional Seminar on "The Training and Supervision of Teachers of English as a Second or Foreign Language" held in Singapore, July 3-7, 1973.

H 7 " a Recommendation Regarding Language and Language Training."

^®Edwin T. McKeithen, "Life Under the Pathet Lao in the Xieng Khouang Ville Area," p. 20 reports that the joint functions of the PL educational system are "to change the society from the bottom up by introducing new values and patterns of thought and to provide a manpower base to meet the requirements of the state." 41

1 1 9 Ibid.. pp. 4-7.

l^Opaul F. Langer. Education In the Communist Zone of Laos. p. 9.

121ibld., quoting from the RLG’s 1967 study Recensement Demo- graphlque de la Vllle de Savannakhet, notes that 24.6% of the males and 58.0% of the females In Savannakhet are analphabetic. With the caveat that conditions in Savannakhet are better than those obtaining in most of the rest of the rural areas of Laos, it is evident that both the RLG and the PL face major tasks in literacy training. Of course, since before the 1973 cease-fire the PL controlled 80% of the countryside and about one-third of the people and received by the 1974 Accords a half­ interest in the remaining 2 0% of the land and two-thirds of the popula­ tion, the PL task would seem to be the more difficult. Hopefully, the two sides can work together in the coalition government to combat illiteracy and other major problems confronting the people of contem­ porary Laos.

1 2 2Ibid., pp. 14-15, emphasizes that other practical tasks, such as road building and porter service, also tend to develop in the student a strong sense of civic responsibility.

1 2 3lbid., p. 15.

l^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Op. Cit.. p. 133, Table 31 reports that foreign assistance contributed 86.23% of the cost of secondary education in 1965-1966 and 91.45% in 1968-1969. The percentage is undoubtedly still high.

l23Quoting from "USAID and Education in Laos," p. 2: "Accom­ plishment of the stated educational goals by USAID clearly points to the need for restriction, or better, concentration of effort; increased funding is also indicated. This concentration then must be in (1) teacher training institutions, (2 ) secondary schools of the comprehen­ sive type, and (3) elementary schools with the potential of educating a large proportion of its first grade enrollment through the sixth grade."

126Frederick Harbison and Charles A. Myers. Education, Manpower, and Economic Growth, p. 81.

l2^While it is general knowledge that the four lycees are located in Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Savannakhet, and Pakse and the five opera­ tive Fa Ngum schools are located in Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Savannakhet, Pakse, and Phone Hong, I am indebted to Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Op. Cit., p. 79, for his enumeration of the sites of the fourteen colleges: Sayaboury, Houei Sai, Paksane, Vangvieng, Samthong, Bankeun, Pakley, Khamraouane (Thakhet), Kengkok, Saravane, Attapeu, Khong, Champassak, and Kongsedone. 42

-*-2®This trend is yet another manifestation of Laoization, national linguistic self-determination. The more Lao-run schools staffed by Lao teachers instructing Lao students in Lao, the less influential the once- impressive foreign presence. As late as the 1966-1967 academic year, according to Barnett, Brown, and Kaser, Op. Cit., p. 8 6 , of almost 200 Lao secondary schools, 156 were French, thirty Lao, six American, three Canadian, and one English. Now the Lao HOE is moving toward a new, post­ colonial national education policy. The Fa Ngum system will in time be incorporated into the Lao secondary education system, further imple­ menting Laoization, thus freeing Laos from dependency on extensive United States, French, British, and Australian aid to secondary educa­ tion. At that time, Laoization can be truly said to have been a success.

129gource: Mr. Norman Green USAID/EDUCATION.

^•■^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 89.

1 3 1 Ibid., p. 81.

1 3 2 Ibid., pp. 86-87, especially Table 11. In 1967-1968, 2,297 of 9,457 passed the examination; in 1971-1972, 3,156 of 19,993 passed the examination. Against an average annual rate of increase of candidates of about 20%, the average annual rate of successful candidates is hold­ ing at around 8 %. Obviously, a great many CEP-holders are being denied access to secondary education, a condition that the colleges Lao and the Fa Ngum schools can help to alleviate. Lycees, too, are admitting more students, as educational opportunity opens up to more students and ceases to be wholly the province of the economic and social elite.

3 3 3Ibid., p. 113, Table 22 and p. 116, Table 23. As expected, girls' attendance at school diminishes as the grade level advances. Additionally, also as expected, girls from wealthy families have far greater access to education than those from disadvantaged families.

33^Ibid., p. 83. "Proportionally and numerically, the private school students out-performed the public school students, a situation most disturbing to the inspectors and school people in general." Specifically, for the 1971-1972 academic year, 886 of 6,558 public school candidates passed the secondary school entrance-examination, while 939 of 3,309 private school candidates were successful.

1 3 5 Ibid., pp. 110-1 1 1 .

l^Frederick Harbison and Charles A. Meyers. Op. Cit., p. 97.

■^^Educational Technology and Developing Countries: A Handbook (Draft Copy), p. 52.

■^®At all lyc4es, the moyenne has always been 10 out of 20. As a result of many Premiere students’ unhappiness over being held to this standard, the Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane, Mr. Deuane, in 43

(Footnote 138 Continued) consultation with officials at the MOE, de­ cided in late May, 1974, against the on-record decision of the faculty, which supposedly had "sovereign" decision-making authority in this matter, to lower the moyenne below 10/20 to 9/20, and even lower, eventually, so that so many Premiere students would not either be com­ pelled to repeat the year or to leave the Lycee de Vientiane. No one can say with assurance what the long-range effects of this decision will be on student motivation and faculty morale, but I must conclude from my observations that this decision, made by a Lao administrator in a Lao school against the strong recommendation of a mixed Lao-foreign faculty in favor of Lao students, is an important manifestation of Laoization and, as such, whatever the short term effects, they are outweighed by the precedent of an honest, though politically difficult, decision made in the perceived best interests of Lao students by a Lao school leader at the most prestigous secondary school in the Kingdom.

■^■^Bamett, Brown, and Kaser. Op.. Cit., p. 85. Thipphaawong Bounnong. Ojd. Cit., p . 8 8 .

l ^ T h e Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane at the onset of the 1973-1974 academic year, Mr. Khamsay, was the target of a student anti­ corruption campaign in November, 1973, for allegedly violating the second cycle entrance procedures by arranging the entrance of some students, children of socially and economically prominent families, in return for substantial funds. An intensive student-government-backed investigation of school records did, in fact, reveal some irregulari­ ties, though little hard proof of wrongdoing directly attributable to Mr. Khamsay. Nonetheless, inspired by the example of Thai students whose street violence had led directly to the overthrow of the Thai military oligarchy during the so-called "October Revolution" a month before, the students kept up the pressure, which ultimately resulted in Mr. Khamsay's resignation and eventual re-appointment elsewhere within the government bureaucracy. After a short interregnum, during which time the Director of Secondary Education, Mr. Phou Rassaphone, assumed the title of Acting Proviseur, a Lao physics teacher at the school, Mr. Deuane, was name Proviseur by the MOE. Continuity during this period of transition was provided by the Censeur, Mr. Charles Baudieres, an able and affable administrator much experienced in the workings of the Lao secondary education system and one of the few non- Lao in an administrative position in the school system. His departure from Laos after the 1973-1974 academic year for a lycee in Cairo re­ moves a valued and skilled person from the scene, although it does at the same time forward Laoization.

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Op. Cit., p. 87.

"'■^USAID/EDUCATION, through its Hawaii Team, has developed various secondary-level Lao subject-matter textbooks for the Fa Ngum Comprehensive High School System. When this system is ultimately in­ corporated into the Lao secondary system as a fully Lao-administered unit, perhaps the Fa Ngum textbooks will be adopted throughout the Kingdom. 44

l ^ B a c k in 1966, Francis H. Vittetow, Op. Cit., p. 14 explained the rationale for in-service education as follows: "The needs of in- service education training of non-qualified teachers is an item of major concern in the educational structure. It is generally recognized that teachers without the best possible training cannot impart the necessary knowledge to students. This process then continues when the student becomes an adult and puts into practice the meager knowledge gained in schools. This is not the best way to assist in full-scale economic and social development."

Accordingly, USAID has for the last five years supported an MOE-sponsored National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos, a three-day convocation of Lao and foreign English teachers. Further ela­ boration of this series of seminars will be presented in Chapter Three.

Also, RELC in Singapore holds short- and long-term courses in TEFL for teachers from SEAMEO member countries. Sometimes, these courses occur during the summer when school is not in session. Sometimes, the long­ term courses overlap the school year, compelling faculties to be under­ staffed while the supposed-to-be-teaching teacher is participating in the RELC course.

144Thipphaawong Bounnong. Op. Cit., pp. 78-80.

145Ibid., pp. 110-111. CHAPTER II

THE LYCEE DE VIENTIANE

HISTORY

According to a March 20, 1970, RLG MOE report entitled Lycee de

Vientiane, prepared by the Office of the Proviseur of the Lycee de

1 o ^ Vientiane, the school was founded in 1921 as a cours complementaire^ known as the Ecole Primaire Superieure.^ Some sources incorrectly attribute the founding to dates as varied as 1922,^ 1924,® 1925,^

1933,® and 1941.® Certainly, by 1941, the school had come to be called the College Pavie (after Auguste Pavie, a tum-of-the-century French explorer and administrator), offering full first-cycle instruction,^-® although for this period up to 1945-1947 when the three provincial colleges-which-would-grow-into-lycees were opened, admission "... was restricted by the French professors to no more than 200 Laotian stu­ dents in the entire school.^ The College Pavie began offering second- cycle secondary courses in 1946 and was accordingly renamed the Lycee

Pavie in 1947."^ By the 1949-1950 academic year, the second cycle was

1 O completely integrated into the pedagogical format, and the first

Baccalaureats in Laos were earned by 1953 . ^ Since that time, the school, renamed the Lycee de Vientiane in October, 1959,15 when all classes had been moved into the newly constructed buildings at the new site (see below),has grown in many ways, as will be detailed in the latter sections of this chapter.

45 46

Physical Description

The Lycee de Vientiane is located on a six-acre tract^ at the head of Lane Xang Avenue, close by the Anousavari, the Arc de Triomphe- like memorial to Lao war dead. The school has approximately seventy classrooms in thirteen one- and two-story buildings arranged in quad­ rangle style. A two-story Administration Building fronting on Lane

Xang Avenue is the most impressive structure. Other salient physical features include a student snack bar (plus three snack stands on the grounds), a ping-pong-table-equipped student recreation room, a recently installed language laboratory, and, for the first time, a student library, which resulted from the next-door Bibliotheque Nationale's transfering its holdings to a couple of remodeled and expanded classrooms.

But for all these facilities, the Lycee de Vientiane remains a trying place to teach. Concrete floors and covered malls reduce the dirt problem somewhat, but wind-blown dust and leaf ash easily enter the classrooms through (almost always open or broken) louvered glass windows and ill-fitting wooden doors. Students and teachers alike perspire heavily in the humid, crowded rooms, where the overhead fans have been generally unusable due to lack of electricity, a situation now remedied by the construction of an entirely new local power system and an exten­ sive rewiring of the school. So now the fans should operate, as should the few bare-bulb or fluorescent lights, which means that late after- 18 noon classes will no longer have to be conducted in a twilight haze.

Additionally, thin walls, sometimes with good-sized holes in them, allow sound to carry easily between classrooms, which themselves, with their 47 rickety tables and benches, could all use a thorough cleaning, replas­ tering, and repainting.

Briefly, the pleasant good-feeling engendered by the tree-shaded, green-quadrangled, concrete-walkwayed grounds (which become very muddy in rainstorms) is much diminished by the poorly equipped and maintained classroom buildings. As the classroom pool is augmented with the phasing out of the Petit Lycee, the Administration has the opportunity to up­ grade the physical facilities through an extensive remodeling and repair program that cannot help but raise faculty and student morale. It re­ mains to be seen whether such a course of action will ensue.

Organization

The Lycee de Vientiane was headed by a Lao Proviseur, Mr. Deuane, for the main part of the 1973-1974 academic year. He is directly re­ sponsible to the Director of Secondary Education in the MOE for the efficient operation of the school. He also oversees the performance of his assistants, the Censeur and the Surveillant-General. The French

Censeur, Mr. Baudieres, is the Operations Officer of the school. Within his purview are all matters pertaining to academic affairs. As Director of Studies, he has ultimate responsibility for curriculum development, textbook selection, and student and staff scheduling. Also, as number two administrator, he must thoroughly understand the operation of the school so that he can take over in the absence of the Proviseur

The French Surveillant-General, Mr. Durieux, keeps all attendance records and supervises the duties of his all-Lao staff, which includes secre­ taries, guards, and maintenance personnel. This Triumverate, assisted 48 by an Econome (i.e. Business Manager), have traditionally operated the school in as close a manner to that which used to obtain in France as possible. In this regard, the Lycee de Vientiane is both organization­ ally and culturally at odds with other elements of the Lao secondary school system.

As for the teachers, they are not organized into chairmen-led departments. Each teacher operates autonomously, bound only by the re­ quirement to present the material which will be covered on the various end-of-year examinations. The testing and grading systems were for­ mally explained to the Faculty of English by the Censeur at a December

5, 1973, meeting in the Conference Room of the Administration Building.

At that meeting, we were informed that, by Ministerial Decree, we had to assign one devoir a la maison (i.e. homework) and one (written) devoir surveille (i.e. supervised class test) per class per month. End-of- term averages were to be determined by weighting homework assignments with a coefficient of 1 and class tests with a coefficient of 4. End- of-year grades were to be determined by a complex formula which yielded a movenne. an average grade in all subjects. After a review of teacher- inscribed class records and individual student records, conseils des classes (i.e. class councils) consisting of all teachers of all subjects for each grade were to certify the dismissal of all students with a moyenne of 8/20 or less and the passing of all students with a moyenne 21 of 10/20 or more. Students with a moyenne between 8/20 and 10/20 were to be discussed on a case-by-case basis, ending in a vote to grant or to deny permission to repeat the academic year. In addition, we were at this meeting sternly enjoined to assist the Administration in the orderly operation of the school by demanding of all late students an official green late slip signed by either the Censeur or the Surveillant-

General and to keep the Daily Attendance Notebook and the Daily Record of Assignments Notebook up-to-date so that they could be regularly stamped with the seal of the Lycee de Vientiane by the Censeur*s Office so as to be properly certified and ready for MOE inspection at any time.

As noted earlier in Chapter I, students who pass the Sixieme

(i.e. first-cycle) entrance-examination pursue a general curriculum for four years. If they then pass the Troisieme leaving-examination, the

Brevet d*Etudes du Premier Cycle (BEPC) and the Seconde (i.e. second- cycle) entrance-examination, they select a major-based curriculum for the three-year second cycle, at the end of which time they can sit for the Lao or French Baccalaureat, or both, passage of which almost always guarantees a foreign scholarship for overseas university study. A de­ tailed breakdown of the exact student distribution for the 1973-1974 academic year is included in the "Student Profile" section of this chapter. A closer examination of the curricula is set forth in the next major section of this chapter.

There is one additional fact worthy of note here. As of the

1974-1975 academic year, the Petit Lycee, grades Onzieme to Septieme, will have been phased out of the Lycee de Vientiane. From 1969-1970 to 1973-1974, the number of sections in the Petit Lycee dropped regu-

22 larly from thirteen to ten to seven to five to three. The reasons for this decline are many, but chief among them is the founding of a

French-style primary school, the George Marguier School of Wattay, in

OQ 1968, on the grounds of the Mission Militaire Francaise (MMF) near 50

Wattay Airport by disgruntled French parents who believed the standards

of the Lycee de Vientiane to be declining. Also, the burgeoning en­

rollment of secondary students, particularly, until 1973-1974, Terminale

students from the provincial lycees, militated against any effort to

"save" the Petit Lycee, since additional classrooms and instructor posi­

tions were regularly becoming available to meet secondary-level needs.

More data on instructors will be noted in the "Staff Profile" section,

the penultimate unit of this chapter.

Curricula

As noted earlier in the presentation, first-cycle students pursue a general-studies curriculum as preparation for more specialized second-

cycle coursework. Their passage from grade level to grade level is con­

ditional upon meeting the moyenne, which is primarily based on a series

of end-of-term and end-of-year examinations. By the time that a student has passed the first-cycle leaving-examination, (s)he has been exposed

to a wide range of academic subjects, from physics, chemistry, and mathematics through Lao, French, civics, and Oriental Culture to eco­ nomics, world history, geography, and a foreign language. For these first-cycle years, French language and literature constitutes 33% of the curriculum; Math-Science, 23.5%; Lao and civics, 10.4%; and English, o / 10.4%. These four subject-matter areas clearly form the core of

first-cycle instruction. Of the primary positions of French language and literature and Math-Science, a contemporary Lao researcher has written:

"The French language, which is taught with perfection and care during their schooling, will not be very useful to 51

them in the communities they go back to and in the job market. Mathematics and sciences . . . are conceived of as instruments that help to develop the abilities to reason and intellectual power in general with little application to the youth's everyday life."25

Students who successfully cap their first-cycle education by passing both the BEPC and the Seconde entrance-examination enter Seconde, where they elect a major field which determines their particular course of study for the next three years.

Second-cycle students choose from among four distinct programs:

Letters, Series A; Economics, Series B; Mathematics, Series C; and

Natural Sciences, Series D. In these more particularistic curricula,

French language and literature make up 35.6% of the students' course- work in A, 24.1% in B, 18.4% in C, and 19.4% in D.2® Math-Science forms 15.6% of the curriculum in A, 27% in B, 39.2% in C, and 38.1% 27 in D. ' Lao, civics, and Oriental Culture occupy a sum total of 12.5%-

OQ 15.8% of the academic program, depending on the Series. ° As for

English, it demands 12.2% of the students1 attention in A, 11.5% in B, 29 and 9.3% in C and D. Students who successfully complete this second- cycle program by passing either the Lao or French Baccalaureat, or 30 both, usually go abroad for foreign university study.

This French-dominated curriculum will be heavily modified in the near future as Lao supersedes French as the medium of instruction. ALso, an increased nationalism under the new Government of National Union will probably see Lao history and Oriental Culture augmented at the expense of language and literature courses. The best exposition of the factors contributing to the current inefficiency of the Lao educational system 52 in general and the lycee system in particular makes these salient points, in a kind of prescription for national educational progress:

1. The curricula are too French-oriented and irrelevant to the needs of the students. 2. The teachers are unqualified and the teaching methods are poor. 3. The school year is too short with too many holidays. 4. The use of French as the medium of instruction is a problem for Laotian students. 5. Failure or repetition leads to dropout. 6. The political and military conditions are unfavorable. 7. The socio-economic and family backgrounds of the majority of the students are unfavorable. 8. The lack of curricular articulation between primary education and secondary education presents a serious problem to the students.31

Conditions 1 and 4 will be remedied through the increasing Laoiza­ tion of the secondary school system. Condition 6 has already been countered by the 1973 Cease-Fire Accords and the 1974 neutralization of

Vientiane and Luang Prabang as a prelude to the formation of the Pro­ visional Government of National Union, the predecessor of any future coalition government. Condition 2 is being alleviated by the work of foreign teachers and foreign-trained Lao educators at the ENI and ESP levels, particularly in the English Section at Dong Dok. Conditions

3, 5, 7, and 8 are all MOE-correctable, with the aid of other agencies of the Lao government, advised and assisted by such donor-country counsel as is requested, proferred, and accepted.

This short review of the curricula of the Lycee de Vientiane and its standing with regards to national MOE policy leads naturally to a consideration of the people, teachers and students, who come together in this arrangement for the purposes of education. The con­ cluding two sections of this chapter reflect this concern. 53

Staff Profile

The following table illustrates the gradual Laoization of the

teaching corps of the Lycee de Vientiane over the last fifteen years.

TABLE l32

School Year Total Lao Non-Lao

1961-1962 64 8 56 1962-1963 80 5 75 1963-1964 81 7 74 1964-1965 80 9 71 1965-1966 86 10 76 1966-1967 99 (33) 15 84 1967-1968 102 16 86 1968-1969 100 18 82 1969-1970 103 18 85 1970-1971 104 20 84 1971-1972 105 26 79 1972-1973 113 39 74 1973-1974 122 50 72 1974-1975 111 52 59

As the Petit Lycee has been phased out and as the English and

French Sections of the ESP have begun to generate Lao subject-matter

teachers, the infusion of Lao teachers into the secondary system in general and into its most prestigious component, the Lycee de Vientiane,

in particular has rapidly accelerated. Also, donor countries are phasedly withdrawing many of their teachers from Laos as competent Lao move into the education system. The trend towards increased Lao classroom staffing is now well-established and shows no signs of early abatement. 54

The last complete academic year for which exact figures were reliably compiled and published was 1972-1973. A detailed breakdown of the faculty for that year is noted below.

TABLE 234

22 Lao males and 14 Lao females (plus 3 male Lao Moniteurs) 39 Lao 45 French males and 21 French females 66 French 1 English male and 3 English females 4 English 2 U.S.A. males and 1 U.S.A. female 3 U.S.A. 1 U.S.S.R. female 1 U.S.S.R. 113 Teachers

Of this number, 71 males and 37 females were in the Grand Lycee and 2 males and 3 females were in the Petit Lycee.33 As opposed to this limited data on the faculty, student statistics were relatively easier to unearth, as reflected in the next, and concluding, section of this chapter. 55

Student Profile

The following table illustrates the growth of the Lycee de

Vientiane over the last twenty years.

TABLE 3

School Year Total Males Females Classes^

1955-1956 898 (38) N/A (39) N/A 32 1956-1957 1,063 N/A N/A 40 1957-1958 1,377 N/A N/A 49 1958-1959 1,687 N/A N/A 49 1959-1960 1,923 N/A N/A 50 1960-1961 1,955 1,363 592 54 1961-1962 2,209 N/A (40) N/A 56 1962-1963 2,844 (41) 1,968 849 66 1963-1964 2.615 1,794 766 66 1964-1965 2,598 1,774 787 65 1965-1966 2,535 N/A (42) N/A 68 1966-1967 2,546 (43) 1,758 797 74 1967-1968 2,552 1,803 749 76 1968-1969 2,619 1,813 806 75 1969-1970 2,676 1,839 837 78 1970-1971 2,730 1,868 862 79 1971-1972 2,847 (44) 1,952 895 78 1972-1973 2,957 1,968 989 80 1973-1974 2,901 2,008 893 78 1974-1975 2,820 1,963 857 78

By the 1972-1973 academic year, some trends had become quite apparent.^ Spread over the twenty-four second-cycle classes and sixty-one first-cycle classes,^ males outnumbered females two to one

(1,860 to 901). Many more Lao males were enrolled than Lao females, as was the case, to a lesser degree, with Vietnamese males and females.

Only among the French students were more females enrolled than males.

Evidence of increasing Laoization is provided by statistics which note that the percentage of Lao in the Grand Lycee rose from 77.3% in 1962 to a government-mandated 95% in 1974, while the percentage of non-Lao 56 students dropped from 22.7% in 1962 (mostly French and Vietnamese;

10.9% and 10.4% respectively) to a government-mandated 5% in 1974.^

A more thorough breakdown of all the students enrolled for the

1973-1974 academic year reflects the above-noted trends. The 2,763 students are divided by nationality and sex as noted below.

TABLE 4'48

Nationality Total Male Female

Lao 2,334 1,678 656 Vietnamese 211 131 80 French 181 85 96 Others* 37 24 13

Grand Totals 2,763 1,918 845

*Included herein are students from the Federal Republic of Germany, Pakistan, Japan, China, Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, and Poland.

An even more detailed sex and nationality delineation on a class- by-class basis yields the following precise grade level profiles.

TABLE 549

Class Sections LM LF FM FF VM VF 0M OF Total

Terminale 9 198 38 19 13 16 11 7 2 299 (50) Premiere 8 163 55 6 22 17 10 4 1 278 Seconde 8 204 68 7 5 12 4 3 0 303 Troisieme 10 208 89 15 23 27 17 3 1 383 Quatrieme 11 226 110 21 16 29 20 4 2 428 Cinquieme 11 255 109 7 10 20 12 1 3 417 Sixieme A 11 257 117 10 6 10 6 2 3 410 (51) Sixieme B 7 175 69 0 0 0 0 1 0 245 Septieme _3 49 33 _7 __7 __2 _4 _1 _0 103

Grand Totalsi 78 1,735 688 92 102 133 84 26 12 2,872 (52)

LM = Lao Males VM = Vietnamese Males LF = Lao Females VF = Vietnamese Females FM = French Males 0M = Other Males FF = French Females OF = Other Females 57

The pyramid nature of lycee-style education and its function in relation to the larger society stands clearly revealed in the preceding table. The yearly skimming-off of the lowest-ranking students at all levels through comprehensive examinations is designed to sustain an elitist educational institution by graduating only the best-prepared students. The following table, which sets forth examination results for the last year for which they were available (1971-1972) during my tenure at the school, graphically illustrates the parameters of the elite-promoting process.

TABLE 653

Successful Name of Examination Candidates Candidates Percentage

Sixieme Entrance 1,708 353 20.7% B.E.P.C. * 374 213 56.9% D.E.P.C. ** 261 208 79.7% French Baccalaureat 267 151 56.5% Lao Baccalaureat (54) 201 86 42.8%

* Brevet d'Etudes du Premier Cycle, the French first-cycle leaving-examination ** Diplome d fEtudes du Premier Cycle, the Lao first-cycle leaving-examination N.B. No results were available for the Seconde Entrance Examination for this year.

Rapport de Rentree, 1974-1975, a document in the Office of the

Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane which I read during my March, 1975, data-gathering visit to Vientiane, provides fuller information on the winnowing function of the examination process, as effected during the

1974-1975 academic year. 58

TABLE 7

Name of Examination Candidates Passed Percentage

Sixieme Entrance 1,363 296 21.7% B.E.P.C.E.N. 381 292 76.6% D.E.P.C.E.N. 279 253 90.7% French Baccalaureat (55) 306 130 42.5% Lao Baccalaureat (56) 240 96 40.0%

More particularly, the March, 1975, visit introduced me to other data which also profiles this selective mechanism for all sections of the classes which I taught during the 1973-1974 academic year.

TABLE 857

Class Transition Candidates Passed Failed Percentage

Premiere A To Terminale 35 34 1 97.1% Premiere B To Terminale 64 60 4 93.7% Premiere C To Terminale 34 30 4 88.2% Premiere D To Terminale 146 138 8 94.5%

Terminale A French Baccalaureat 33 27 6 81.8% Terminale B French Baccalaureat 42 30 12 71.4% Terminale C French Baccalaureat 45 21 24 46.6% Terminale D French Baccalaureat 170 60 110 35.2%

Terminale A Lao Baccalaureat 26 8 18 30.8% Terminale B Lao Baccalaureat 33 14 19 42.4% Terminale C Lao Baccalaureat 38 13 25 34.2% Terminale D Lao Baccalaureat 143 61 72 42.7%

Lycee de Vientiane, Op. Cit., pp. 15-17, provides examination results for the period 1962-1969, but data for 1969-1974, as noted above, must be gathered piecemeal, mostly from the Office of the

Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane and the MOE. I present in Chapter 4 whatever other relevant historical information on these classes that I have been able to pull together from several diverse sources. This detailed profile of the Lycee de Vientiane comprises an extended introduction to the English Language Program itself and to the teachers and students who participated in it. Such is the focus in the next chapter. CHAPTER II

FOOTNOTES

•^Steven and Leissa Gordon, Instructors in English with Language House, International, in Esfahan, Iran, in late 1974, translated the Historique section of this document from French to English for me. I am grateful for their assistance.

^Lycee de Vientiane. Office of the Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane, p. 1.

3Ibid.

^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. The Preparation of Teachers and Its Role in the Laosization of Public Secondary Schools in Laos, p. 76.

5Ibid.

^Marjorie Emling. The Education System in Laos During the French Protectorate, 1893 to 1945. p. 51.

^Frank M. LeBar and Adrienne Suddhard, eds. Laos, Its People, Its Society, Its Culture, p. 80. Barnett, Brown, and Kaser. Develop­ mental Book Activities and Needs in Laos, p. 77.

^Marjorie Emling. Op. Cit., p. 51. Education, a publication of Le Rectorat d'Academie de Saigon in 1950, also fixes this date.

9C. Earle Hoshall. "Developing a College of Education in Laos."

•^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit., p. 77.

■^Thipphaawong Bounnong. An Analysis of the Social and Educa­ tional Systems of Laos in View of Establishing Teacher Education in Agriculture for Elementary School Teachers, p. 87.

^•^Ibid., p. 73, gives a date of 1949. Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Op. Cit., p. 77; Marjorie Emling, Op. Cit., p. 51; and Lycee de Vientiane. Op. Cit., p. 2, all support the 1947 date.

■^Marjorie Emling, Op. Cit., p. 51.

60 61

^ Thipphaawong Bounnong, Ojk Cit., p. 73, reports that it was not until 1952 that the Lycee Pavie was authorized to grant a diploma, which I take to be the secondary school, second-cycle leaving-certificate, the French Baccalaureat. This datum dovetails nicely with the account of Bounlieng Phommasouvanh, Op. Cit., p. 77, that the Baccalaureat has been "given" regularly in Laos since 1953. However, Marjorie Emling, Op. Cit., p. 51, cites the date of 1949 as the year of the earning of the first Baccalaureats by students in Laos, as does Lycee de Vientiane, Op. Cit., p. 2. See also Chapter I, Footnote 69.

^ Lycee de Vientiane. Op. Cit., p. 8.

-^I b i d ., p. 1 } notes that the plans for the new lycee were drawn up by the Mission Francaise d'Aide Economique et Technique and imple­ mented by the RLG through the local French Cultural Mission. Later physical improvements in 1961, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1969, and 1974 were carried out by the MOE and affiliated donor-country-aided government departments, such as the Department of Public Works.

17Ibid.

^Michael D. Parton, former VSO teacher at the Lycee de Vientiane and later English Methods Supervisor at the English Section at Dong Dok, notes in his November, 1972, IVS Report:

"Inevitably, comparisons spring to my mind between the Lycee and the English Section at Dong Dok: One is a product of French aid and the other of American; one is designed to give a secondary education identical to that taught in France, the other to provide Laotian teachers of English; one is large and impersonal, the other small and homely; one has classes averaging thirty-five, the other averaging perhaps twenty; one has virtually no equipment, the other is well equipped in hardware and has electricity."

"^Mr. Baudieres, who, as noted in Footnote 140 of Chapter I, was scheduled to leave Laos in July, 1974, was admirably well qualified for this post, having previously served for seven years as Proviseur of the Lycee de Pakse prior to his appointment as Censeur of the Lycee de Vientiane during the stepped-up Laoization campaign of the early 1970's.

9 fi In the Lao-and French-medium-of-instruction colleges, a Lao Director cum Censeur is the chief administrative officer, assisted by a Lao Surveillant-General cum Econome. In the Lao-medium-of-instruction Fa Ngum schools, a U.S.-trained Lao Director is assisted by a Lao Director of Studies and a Lao Business Manager. In colleges and Fa Ngum schools, the emphasis is on education in Lao for Lao to meet the prac­ tical needs of contemporary Laos, not, as the lycees, in French for mostly Lao to pursue university studies overseas. 62 91 As noted in Footnote 138 of Chapter I, this standard was not observed when it came time for Conseils des Classes to assign final grades in May-June, 1974.

22Wall Chart. Office of the Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane. My March, 1975, visit to Vientiane revealed that one Septieme class of 31 students continued to function during the 1974-1975 academic year. The 1975-1976 academic year will probably see the end of the Petit Lycee.

22Lvcee de Vientiane. Op. Cit., p. 11. As of the 1974-1975 academic year a first cycle has been established at this school, sub­ stantially reducing the French student population at the Lycee de Vientiane.

2^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op. Cit. , p. 141.

25Ibid., p. 145.

26Ibid., p. 142.

28Ibid.

29Ibid.

88Exact statistics on the success rates of candidates for some examinations during 1971-1972 are presented in Table 6 of the concluding section of this chapter.

8^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. Op.. Cit.. p. 91. Also quoted in the MOE's Report to the National Assembly for 1972, p. 69.

^2These data are derived from Lycee de Vientiane, Op. Cit.. p. 14, and from Wall Charts in the Office of the Proviseur and the Office of the Surveillant-General of the Lycee de Vientiane.

88In "Teacher Training in Laos: Overview and Goals," p. 22, Ralph H. Hall reports only seventy-nine teachers on the faculty of the Grand Lycee, as opposed to a figure of eighty-one given in Lycee de Vientiane, Op. Cit., p. 13. This type of reporting difference is ex­ tremely common in the sources utilized for this dissertation. For the record, Hall reports these teachers to be grouped by nationality as follows: 11 Lao, 2 U.S., 62 French, and 4 Other.

^^Rapport de Rentree, 1972-1973. Office of the Censeur of the Lycee de Vientiane. Table 6. Figures for 1973-1974 have been compiled but not yet officially released by the MOE for reasons of "official secrecy," I was told, when I attempted to secure specific totals for various teacher and student subgroups. 63

35Ibid.

JUUnless noted otherwise, these statistics are drawn from Lycee de Vientiane, Op. Cit., pp. 8-13, or from Wall Charts in the Office of the Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane.

3?A11 data listed under "Total," "Males," "Females," and "Classes" include both Grand and Petit Lycee students.

^®Ras Oliver Johnson, "A Study of Education in Laos," p. 13, Table 3, cites a Grand Lycee enrollment of 584 for this academic year, a figure ten fewer than that reported in Lycee de Vientiane, Op. Cit., p. 8.

breakdown by sex for these years from 1955-1956 to 1959-1960 was unaccountably Not Available (N/A) from any published source nor from internal Lycee de Vientiane documents to which I was permitted access.

^Data on the Petit Lycee for 1961-1962 is unexplainedly omitted from my sources. However, it is reported that 1,000 males and 298 females were enrolled in the Grand Lycee for this academic year.

^•In this and a few other instances, the male and female totals do not always tally with the grand total, which is almost always higher. This discrepancy, probably the result of reporting techniques, is caused by the fact that grand totals were counted on November 15 of the academic year and only later, after some students had either left school or been admitted late, was an exact class-by-class accounting undertaken. Of course, human error in the calculation, recopying, publication, and transmission of these data probably also explains the slight discrep­ ancies of the type noted in this section of the chapter.

^ A breakdown by sex for the Petit Lycee for this academic year is inexplicably omitted from my sources. However, it is reported that a total of 864 students were enrolled in the Petit Lycee for this aca­ demic year. Additionally, it is reported that 1,262 males and 381 females comprised the Grand Lycee the same year.

^Barnett, Brown, and Kaser, Developmental Book Activities and Needs in Laos, p. 86, note the primacy of the Lycee de Vientiane within the secondary system by calling attention to the fact that in this year the Grand Lycee enrolled 1,745 students, or 42% of the total secondary enrollment in the Kingdom.

^Lucius Butler, in one of his many papers on secondary education in Laos, reports a Grand Lycee enrollment of 2,584 for this year. Another researcher, working from Butler's extensive data, could probably draw a rather detailed longitudinal profile of the Lycee de Vientiane vis a_ vis all other units of the Lao secondary system, but such an analysis is considerably beyond the more limited scope of the presentation offered in this dissertation. 64

^Unless otherwise noted, all data in this paragraph is drawn from Rapport de Rentree. 1972-1973. Op. Cit.. mostly Table 1.

4®These figures yield a total of eighty-five secondary classes, while Table 3 of this section gives a total of only eighty classes for the entire school, including five Petit Lycee classes. Both sources acknowledge twenty-four second-cycle classes, with a difference of ten (sixty-one versus fifty-one) in first-cycle classes. Here is probably some careless copying error resulting from number fatigue. I support the lower figure of fifty-one and note here again that most statistics on Laos in general and on education in Laos in particular evidence such types of need-to-be-reconciled inconsistencies.

^ Lycee de Vientiane. Op. Cit., p. 11.

4®This data is derived from Wall Charts in the Office of the Surveillant-General of the Lycee de Vientiane.

49Ibid.

-^This total figure, based on its components, should be 304. The difference is accounted for by the late admission to Terminale of a small number of students evacuated from the Lycee Descartes in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to the Lycee de Vientiane in Vientiane for reasons of personal safety at the time of the Khmer Rouge heavy shelling of Phnom Penh during the dry-season offensive of late 1973-early 1974. Evidently, these stu­ dents were included in the class-by-class tabulation, but the November 15 figure was not updated.

■^This total figure, based on its components, should be 411. Some minor arithmetical error has evidently been made somewhere in the initial or revised tabulation of this data.

*^This grand total should be as recorded, based on the horizontal grand total components. Verification of this figure is confirmed by amended vertical total components. This grand total figure, less the 103 students enrolled in the Petit Lycee, yields a Grand Lycee enrollment of 2,769, different from that reported in Table 4 of this section by the constant of six students. Accordingly, these differing grand total figures both accurately reflect the real student enrollment for 1973- 1974, but at different points in the tabulation process. Any other statistical anomalies between this table and Table 4 are very likely attributable to the factors noted in Footnote 41 of this chapter.

~*~*Rapport de Rentree. 1972-1973. Op. Cit., Table III.

-*4Created and instituted in 1968, according to Lycee de Vientiane, Op. Cit., p. 6, this Lao school-leaving examination is probably the product of resurgement Lao nationalism which demanded parity with the foreign (i.e. French) school-leaving examination. 65

The exact figures from this source, which are not in accord with those listed in Table 8 (derived from a different source), are as follows:

Class Candidates Passed Percentage Terminale A 36 19 52.7% Terminale B 43 30 69.8% Terminale C 50 21 42.0% Terminale D 177 60 33.9%

■^A detailed breakdown of this figure is included in Table 8.

c *7 Rapport de Fin D'Annee. Office of the Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane, p. 4, Table 4 (Premiere classes) and p. 5 (French Baccalaureat). CHAPTER III

LANGUAGES AND THE LYCEE

THE POLITICS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN LAOS

French and Lao are the two official languages of the Kingdom of

Laos. English, however, achieved sudden prominence from the mid-1960's through the early 1970’s due to both the manifold social welfare pro­ grams of USAID/LAOS in the economic and urban/rural development spheres and the "secret war" counter-insurgency activities of the Central In­ telligence Agency in the political and military spheres. English- speaking Lao could earn high salaries as employees of branches of the

U.S. Mission to Laos and its affiliated organizations, so English rapidly became prized for its economic value in the local job market.

Accordingly, it was studied and utilized by Lao at all levels of society.

Household servants, shopkeepers, entertainers, other service personnel, civil servants, and military officials employed English as productively as possible in pursuit of their career activities. This surge toward

English language study and usage did not go unnoticed by the students of the Lycee de Vientiane.

The more than 50% of the students of the Lycee de Vientiane who studied English as a first or second foreign language during the 1973-

1974 academic year came to value English, but for different reasons than their parents did. English became a good language to know not so much for reading the newspapers, magazines, or USIS library books or

66 67 to listen to the Voice of America as to gain entry to the world of

American and British "rock" and "pop" music which flourished in local discotheques and to make friends whose affiliations could be linguis­ tically cemented. At school, most students spoke Lao, French, or

Vietnamese among themselves. English was reserved almost 100% for classroom use, except in the cases of a few exceptional students who occasionally did engage in (usually teacher-initiated) conversations before or after class. For all of its extra-school attractiveness,

English was a minor, if somewhat popular, academic subject, just one of a number of foreign language options, which carried a low coefficient, and, hence, little weight, in the moyenne-tallying process, especially for Series C and D students. In the face of this low academic esteem, however, the teachers of the English faculty created and maintained a remarkably cohesive and pedagogically efficacious program of language instruction. That program is the topic of the next section of this chapter.

The English Language Program

Prior to the introduction of American, British, and Canadian

English-speaking teachers as professeurs d'anglais at the Lycee de

Vientiane in the middle 1960's,1 English was taught exclusively by native French speakers. By the 1973-1974 academic year, after a decade of extensive donor-country aid to secondary education, this situation no longer obtained.

Of the eleven teachers of English for 1973-1974, only two were

French, and they taught on a part-time basis. Mr. Roche instructed one 68

class of Quatrieme, and Mr. Planton from the French Cultural Center

handled French-English translation for the Terminale A sections. Of

the remaining nine teachers, two did not finish the year. Mr Phonesy,

an ESP graduate, was sent by the MOE in January, 1974, to a nine-month

TEFL course at RELC in Singapore, and Mrs. Pierre, a local-hire Singa­

pore Chinese, resigned at about the same time to resume domestic duties.

That leaves the core seven: four U.S. State Department-sponsored

Fulbright teachers, two Lao teachers, and one British VSO teacher.

Ms. Lyn Kistler, Ms. Eve McAlister, Mr. John Thome, and myself were

the Fulbrighters, Mr. Douang Nophalay, an ESP graudate, and Ms. Chiamchit

Sadettan, a Lao graduate of Chiengmai University in Thailand, comprised

the Lao staff. Mr. Howard Pullan was our sole VSO teacher, there having

been a reduction of three VSO personnel from Great Britain's 1972-1973

contribution of four teachers to the English faculty.

We were expected to teach approximately 1,700 students who chose

to study English as either a first or a second foreign language. In

theory, all Cinquieme students were to receive four hours of instruction per week; Quatrieme, four hours; Troisieme, four hours; Seconde, three hours; Premiere A, four hours; Premiere B, C, and D, three hours; 69

Terminale A and B, four hours; and Terminale C and D, three hours.

The practice differed from the theory, as the following table indi- 3 cates.

TABLE 1

Class Enrollment Sections Weekly Instruction

Cinquieme 417 10 3 or 4 hours, depending on the class Quatrieme 428 11 3 or 4 hours, depending on the class Troisi&me 382 9 4 hours Seconde 197 5 1 to 3 hours, depending on the Series Premiere 154 5 3 or 4 hours, depending on the Series Terminale 135 6 2 to 4 hours, depending on the Series

The shift from French- to English-speaking teachers is reflected in the changing textbook selections for English-language instruction.

From L'Anglais par 1*illustration and its companion texts, which were used through the late 1960's, the dominant series has emerged, after a transitional period of heavy use of Situational English, Parts 1, 2, and 3, as the four-volume Longman's New Concept Series by L. G.

Alexander: First Things First for Cinquieme and Quatrieme, Practice and Progress for Troisieme, Developing Skills for Seconde, and Fluency in English for Premiere.^ In Terminale, the USIS-supplied Heritage of

Freedom series has been used, supplemented in 1973-1974 by Tewksbury's

The Great Experiment (Ladder Series), other USIS-supplied texts and handouts, and IVS/Dong Dok teacher Don Hamm's excellent "History of the

United States from the Settlement of North America Through the American 70

Civil War." In addition, extensive use was made of supplemental readers, namely various series of the Longman's Structural Readers and the LAA- supplied Ladder Edition Series.

For purposes of historical perspective, I include in the follow­ ing pages the reports of the Lycee de Vientiane to the first five

National In-Service Seminars on English Language Teaching in Laos, sponsored by the MOE from 1970 to 1974. Taken together, these reports provide a fairly close delineation of the growth and development of the

English Language Program of the Lycee de Vientiane over the last five years.

******

Report on the Lycee de Vientiane Presented at the First National In-

Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos held in Vientiane,

January 15-17, 1970. Reported by Miss Gilliam Wildsmith.

Classes: rather large (numbers from 30 to 43)

Textbooks: The series "L'Anglais par L'lllustration," "L'Anglais

par L'Action," and "L'Anglais par la Litterature"

are used.

The English VSO teachers do not find the first two of this series very suitable for use with Lao students, and in some instances have sub­ stituted Situational English. The unsuitability of these books is partly due to the dated and unexciting subject matter and to the remoteness of the cultural content.

The classrooms are not ideal; sounds carry easily from one room to the next making it difficult to practice oral work. 71

Classes contain large numbers of repeaters, however streaming

according to ability in English has some advantages.

The variety of accents of teachers of three nationalities creates

some difficulties for the students.

There is a good deal of uncertainty among the teachers about the

form of the Brevet examination and they would appreciate a clear state­

ment from the Ministry of Education.

The weaker classes of 3eme annee are a problem; at present the

students must study English, but need not take the exam. They have

little interest as they see no purpose, and they find it difficult.

******

Report on the Lycee de Vientiane Presented at the Second National In-

Service Seminar on "The Problems of English Language Teaching in Laos"

held in Vientiane, January 5-7, 1971. Written by Marilyn Graham, GVSO.

English in the Vientiane Lycee is taught by 1 full-time French

teacher, 1 part-time French teacher, A Fulbright scholars and 4 GVSO's

from Britain. Students begin in 5e (except for 1 class of French stu­

dents each year, who begin in 6e and are thus always a year ahead) and most follow through to Terminale. Most of these students take English

in the Baccalaureat.

We have recently changed the books used and now in almost all

classes English is taught by the Direct Method (only in the Seconde and

Premiere classes are a few sentences of translation from French given).

In 5e, the new 1st year course is used with "Situational English"

Book 2 supplementing it. 72

In 4e, the new 1st year course and "Situational English" Book 3.

In 3e, the new 1st year course and "Developing Skills" in the

stronger classes, and "Practice and Progress" in the weaker classes.

In 2nde, "Anglais par Litterature" is used in the better classes,

"Practice and Progress" in the others mainly in the science section

(some students have by now had one more year of English than others).

In lere "Developing Skills" and "Fluency in English" are used, but teachers find the change to abstract ideas from narrative passages rather too great and would welcome suggestions for further texts at this level.

In Terminale "USA Self-Portrait" is used but teachers are not en­ tirely satisfied with this book either and would again welcome suggestions for a textbook.

Almost all classes use Longman's supplementary readers either once a week in class or at home and tested in class. They are very popular with the students.

Examination (the forms of which are chosen by the teachers except those coming from France) questions have for 5e and 4e a system of fill- ins and multiple choice with comprehension, part of which is oral. For

3e, the DEPC or BEPC is given by the Lycee teachers and for the last two years has been entirely oral. A passage is read by the candidate, who is then asked questions about it and few extra general questions.

In the 2nde and lere, the exams are written, usually comprehension and an essay, with a few sentences of translation on grammar points. In

Terminale, the Baccalaureat, which is either oral or oral and written, is given by the Lycee teachers. 73

The internal exams at the end of the year are given to all the

classes parallelly to help streaming for the next year. We have found

this has worked with considerable success. In addition to the exams,

we must give a "devoir surveille" to each class every month and must

submit marks once a fortnight.

The size of the classes has recently increased (sometimes up to

38) due to students coming to Vientiane from the provinces. This is

particularly difficult in the upper classes.

The number of classes has also increased. Some teachers have 6

classes, which we think is excessive, for it means that some 4e and 3e

classes only have three hours of English a week, whereas others follow­

ing the same course have 4.

We do not foresee the present situation being alleviated; on the

contrary, rather worsening in the next year or so. Unless more English

teachers are employed in the Lycee, the present teachers' load will not be lessened.

On the whole, the teachers of English in the Lycee have considera­ ble freedom in course matters and examining, and there does in fact not

seem to be any pressing problem, except for the questions of the size of classes and number of classes.

******

Report on the Lycee de Vientiane Presented at the Third National In-

Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos held in Vientiane,

February 7-9, 1972. Written by Michael Parton, GVSO.

When the academic year started at the Lycee de Vientiane in

October, after a 5 months' break, we found ourselves with 1,715 students 74

Caking English with only 8 full-time English and American English Lan­ guage teachers and a part-time French teacher. Miss Payitch, who had taught English for a number of years, had left and no replacement had been provided. For 6 weeks seven classes had no English at all, but by the end of November a Lao teacher was found for them. He has taught these classes 3 hours a week each, but as he is about to depart for a course at RELC in Singapore, he has been replaced by another Lao teacher just back from there.

This leaves our teaching strength at ten with all classes covered, but there is a real need for at least 1 more full-time teacher, maybe even 2 or 3. Seven classes in 5eme and 4eme have 3 hours each whereas it is normally 4. Two classes in Premiere and Terminale have so many students that they urgently need dividing. The Proviseur has been made aware of these problems and of the solutions suggested for them by the

English Department and we are awaiting the decision of the Director of

Secondary Education.

At the beginning of the year the teachers agreed to use the Long­ man's "Alexander" series from Cinquieme to Premiere. Previously,

Situational English Books I, II, and III had been used for the first two years. First Things First was considered to contain sufficient material for two years and so 5eme began at Lesson 1, and after giving the test half way through the book, it was decided to begin at Lesson 73 in 4eme. For Terminale the Heritage of Freedom series has been approved and is used in conjunction with A Brief History of the United States. 75

There is one class of mostly French students who begin English in 6eme, i.e. one year earlier than the majority of pupils at the Lycee.

They are using L 1Anglais par 1*illustration and its use has been justi­ fied by the fact that most of these students will be returning to France soon where they will find this book in use.

Readers are used throughout the school, mainly the different Long­ man’s Series but also some of the Ladder Series. In addition to text­ books and readers, teachers use pronunciation drills, dialogues, games, songs, group work, discussions, debates, and films to make their classes more varied, comprehensive, and interesting, and to try to make the students aware of English and American culture in this French-medium school.

We offer, then, an extensive, well-balanced and progressive course to the pupils and one that has been tested and continually im­ proved upon for a number of years. With eight native speakers we are as well equipped as any school in the Kingdom to provide informative, lively and varied help to people training to become teachers. But when the Dong Dok teaching practices came round, we did not entertain a single student-teacher, although, I believe, certain difficulties were experienced at Fa Ngum accommodating them all. Perhaps the English

Department of the Lycee could assist them next year. We would welcome comment from the ESP.

I should like to turn my attention for a moment to public examina­ tions. This is something which both the previous Seminars dealt with in discussions and recommendations. Last year at the Lycee de Vientiane 76 both the French and Lao Brevet were conducted completely in English by native speakers. For the benefit of other establishments still tied to translation and use of French in the BEPC I should like to quote this extract from Circulaire No. 71-170 of 10th, May 1971 from the French

Ministry of Education:

"Si l'on recourt a la traduction, superflue pour candi- dats honnetes planche de salut pour les plus faibles, elle ne portera que sur une partie du text et on s'attachera d'abord a la qualite de 1'expression fran^aise, dont le natural est propre a reveler une untelligence du texte depassant le mot a mot pour atteindre le sens du message."

The first line and a half makes it quite clear that translation is unnecessary for the average candidate and is only the last hope for the very weakest.

As regards the Baccalaureat the officer in charge of the English section of the French Baccalaureat at the Mission Culturelle Fran^aise has already been approached to see if it will be possible to allow native speakers to give the oral part of the exam. We are still awaiting his reply but hope it will be favorable. The English teachers would like the Lao Baccalaureat to be completely in English since it is not governed by French Government regulations.

Last year 4 students went on to the East-West Center of the Uni­ versity of Hawaii, 3 to the University of Hawaii itself through USAID scholarships and a further 3 to Australian secondary schools from where they will have the opportunity to go to Australian universities. From a school where all classes except Lao and English are given in French this is a creditable achievement, yet it is one on which we feel we could improve if there were more scholarships. There are just not 77 enough of these. Also at the Lycee there are substantial numbers of good students who are Chinese and Vietnamese, none of whom qualify for a grant, these going exclusively to Laotian students. In the present year, 17 people are preparing for scholarships to the United States, for which they are receiving special instruction at the moment. We wish them well.

******

Report on the Lycee de Vientiane Presented at the Fourth National In-

Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos held in Vientiane,

February 7-9, 1973. Written by Sylvester Morris, Fulbright Teacher.

The academic year began at the Lycee de Vientiane with one less native speaking teacher of English due to a reduction of Fulbright teachers to Laos. On the first day of the term, the administration did not know how many English teachers the school had, and made no demand to the Ministry of Education for Lao teachers of English for the in­ creased number of pupils

English is becoming less and less important at the Lycee, partic­ ularly in the second cycle. English teachers were never consulted on the restreaming of English classes and the Lao/English option in Seconde and Premiere. Any headway we have made has been due to our pushing, and not Lycee cooperation.

By the third week of school all English classes had finally begun.

At present, there are seven native speaking and to Lao English teachers who are teaching full time. Two French teachers are teaching English part-time. There are 1,621 students studying English. 78

Last year we adopted Longman’s 'Alexander' series from Cinquieme

to Premiere. We continue to use it this year.

The problem facing the teachers from Quatrieme to Premiere is the

restreaming of classes. Some teachers have classes in which there are at least two or three different levels. For example, in a Quatrieme

class you might have one group of students who have finished ’First

Things First’ and another group who have finished only 75 lessons, and so forth. The teacher of Seconde says that the standard of the students differs enormously. The solution suggested by the Administration was to have some teachers teach supplementary classes in the evening for those students who could afford to pay. The reason for this was because the

French parents had complained about their children being held back by the restreaming.

The Science and Mathematics students in Seconde and Premiere were told that since they needed only one language for the Baccalaureat, they should study only one language during the school year, rather than two as had been done in the past. In these classes, as well as in Terminale,

Lao students were told that they had to take Lao for the Lao Baccalaureat.

The schedule was arranged in such a way that it was virtually impossible for most students to take Lao and English even though they wanted both languages. A lot of Lao students are still very keen to take English and some have said that they want to get scholarships to English speaking countries. There were even some Lao students in Terminale who are candi­ dates for scholarships to the United States. A complaint was made to the United States Cultural Attache about this problem. He talked to the

Proviseur and these students were permitted to take English. Why should 79 the Lao in those sections be denied the right to study English if they want to? The native speakers came here principally to teach the Lao.

The Heritage of Freedom series is still the basic text used in the Terminale classes, all of which were taught last year and are being taught this year by native speakers. In spite of this, the French

Cultural Mission refused to let native speakers administer the oral por­ tion of the English exam for the French Baccalaureat. They said that it was a private French exam, which was not connected with the Ministry of

Education. The four American Fulbrighters therefore refused to take part in the French BEPC since it too was a private exam not connected with the Ministry of Education. It was hoped that the VSO’s would sup­ port the protest, but they were strongly advised against this. In the end, French were used to help administer the English exams on both the

French BEPC and the French Baccalaureat, while the American teachers assisted with the Lao Brevet and the Lao Baccalaureat. It is our belief that native teachers should be used as much as possible to administer the oral sections of the English exams.

We were pleased to participate in the Dong Dok student teaching program. Although there was again some administrative confusion at the beginning, two teachers are now working with Cinquieme and Quatrieme classes.

******

Report on English Language Teaching at the Lycee de Vientiane for the

Fifth National English Language Teachers’ Seminar, March 25-29, 1974.

By John F. Thorne. (Fulbright Teacher) STUDENTS AND CLASSES

Approximately 1700 students study English at the Lycee de

Vientiane: 417 study at the Cinquieme level, 428 at the Quatrieme level

382 at the Troisieme level, 197 at the Seconde level, approximately 154 at the Premiere level, and 135 study English at the Terminale level.

Cinquieme and Quatrieme classes run from 35-40 students per class students at these levels are scheduled for four class hours per week, although at present three Cinquieme classes and four Quatrieme classes have only three class hours per week, as there is an English teacher shortage at the Lycee. There are ten sections of Cinquieme English classes and eleven sections of Quatrieme classes.

Troisieme classes range from 40-50 students per class; all

Troisieme students have four English class hours per week; the students are divided into nine sections.

Seconde classes run from approximately 30 to approximately 45 students per class. Most Seconde classes have three class hours of

English per week. One class, however, an "A" section, is split. All students of this class meet together for one hour per week. In addi­ tion, the students in this class who have chosen English as their first foreign language have two additional hours per week; thus these students have a total of three class hours of English, whereas the students who have selected English as a second foreign language have only one class hour per week. There are five sections of Seconde students studying

English. 81

Premiere classes contain from fifteen to 35 students; one class

of students meets for four class hours per week, while the other four

classes have only three hours. There are five sections of Premiere.

Finally, the six sections of Terminale involved in English study

contain from eighteen to 32 students each; one section is scheduled for

two class hours of English per week, one is scheduled for four, and the

remaining four classes have three hours each.

There is no streaming of students according to English language

ability in the Lycee; however, students in some levels of study are

placed according to other criteria. All students in the Second Cycle

(that is, students in the Seconde, Premiere and Terminale levels) are

separated according to their programs of study, as follows:

"A" sections - philosophy, language, literature and the arts

"B" sections - economics

"C" sections - mathematics and physical sciences

"D" sections - biological sciences

These four sections are further divided as to whether the students con­

cerned are studying English as a first or second "foreign language"

(French, the general medium of instruction at the Lycee, is not considered

a "foreign language.")

In addition to the above mentioned placement of students, another

type of selection appears to have been made in some instances, at least at the Troisieme level. One Troisieme class appears to be made up of

the best Lao students at the Troisieme level; another is almost entirely made up of ethnic French, Vietnamese, and Chinese students; and the stu­ dents of a third Troisieme class all appear to be very mediocre. 82

TEACHING STAFF

There are, at present, seven full-time English teachers at the

Lycee. Mr. Douang Nophalay and Miss Chiamchit Sadettan are Lao

nationals; Mr. Howard Pullan is a British VSO volunteer; and Miss Lynn

Kistler, Miss Eve McAlister, Mr. David Cohen and Mr. John T h o m e are

all Fulbright teachers from the United States. Cinquieme classes are

taught by Mr. Douang and Mr. Thorne; Quatrieme by Miss Chiamchit, Mr.

Douang and Mr. Thome; Troisieme by Miss Kistler, Miss McAlister and

Mr. Pullan; and Premiere and Terminale are both taught by Miss McAlister and Mr. Cohen. At the beginning of the 1973-1974 academic year there were two additional English teachers (not including Mr. Thome, who did not arrive in Laos and begin teaching until the beginning of December); these were Mr. Phongsy, a Lao national, and Mrs. Pierre, originally from

Singapore but now a local resident. Mr. Phongsy was awarded a scholar­ ship to continue his studies in Singapore; he left in January and is expected back next Fall. Mrs. Pierre resigned at about the same time.

At present their classes (all at the Cinquieme and Quatrieme levels) are being taught by student teachers from Dong Dok. It is not certain who will take these classes when the student teachers leave at the end of

April. No doubt we will think of something.

TEXTBOOKS AND OTHER TEACHING MATERIALS

The basic text for the Cinquieme and Quatrieme level students is

First Things First (Alexander), supplemented by readers, chiefly of the

Longman's Structural Readers Series. For Quatrieme, Practice and Progress

(Alexander) is the basic text; in Seconde Miss Kistler and Mr. Pullan 83

use Practice and Progress, while Miss McAlister uses Developing Skills

(Alexander); in Premiere, Fluency in English (Alexander) is used, sup­

plemented by handouts, Ladder Series readers at the 2,000 and 3,000 word

level, and occasional USIS films; in Terminale the texts are U.S.A.:

It's Geography and Growth; Heritage of Freedom, Volume I; and The Great

Experiment, supplemented by USIS handouts and occasional films.

In Vientiane we are fortunate to have access to many textbooks and reference books; these are chiefly available at the Fulbright

Teachers' room at USIS and at the materials library at Dong Dok. In

addition, the Lycee possesses a number of copies of various readers, mostly of the Ladder Series and Longman's Series. However, the number

of textbooks in the local bookstores is not adequate to supply the needs

of the students, and it has been suggested that the Ministry of Education and/or the teachers make known to the bookstores what texts are to be used in the schools. Another possibility would be for the Ministry it­ self to order the books, perhaps in less expensive Thai editions; in this manner the local booksellers' profits could be eliminated and the texts could be made available to the students at a more reasonable price.

More exercise books for teachers should also be imported or produced by the government printing office at a nominal charge.

TEACHING PROBLEMS

Perhaps the major teaching problems in the Lycee are large class size and the lack of streaming. The great variety of students' abilities in a class of 40-50 students makes it impossible for the teacher to deal with the individual problems of the students. Other problems include 84 lack of interest in learning English among the students and cheating, which is common. In connection with the problem of lack of interest in learning English among the students, Miss McAlister has suggested that the study of foreign languages (other than French) be made optional for the "C" sections in Premiere and Terminale (as "C" sections have selected a course of study concentrating heavily on mathematics and physical sciences; see above).

Another problem as mentioned above, is the lack of sufficient copies of textbooks available on the local market; this is compounded by the fact that many students are unwilling to buy, or cannot afford to buy, the texts which are available. In many Lycee English classes, about half of the students share textbooks with their seat mates.

SPECIAL TECHNIQUES USED BY SOME TEACHERS

In his Premiere and Terminale classes Mr. Cohen has had considera­ ble success with a schedule of private conferences with his students.

This involves a private "minimally teacher-directed free conversation" between himself and one to three students at a time other than their regular class hours. Although this is ungraded, it is mandatory for each of his students at least once during the course. He feels the feedback he has received from his students in this way has helped him to modify his teaching style in a positive direction. He comments:

"In addition, the students seem to appreciate being re­ garded as individuals rather than, as seems to be a tradition at the Lycee, as ciphers, and their openness and general friendliness in conference has been carried back to the classroom, with positive results for my instructional efforts." 85

Miss McAlister mentions the following methods which she has used:

"To allow large classes using Fluency in English and story comprehension to have more speaking practice I have used a printed question and answer form that the students use with their partners. One asks, using the paper. The other answers without the paper; then (the situation is) reversed. The teacher walks around lis­ tening to the students (10 minutes) followed by a work­ sheet on vocabulary."

"For Terminale, free dialogues and controlled debates where the vocabulary has been discussed before are useful. Movies tend to entertain rather than teach because the English is too fast and above the students1 level. A few USIS films can be used to illustrate points in U.S. History and American Civilization."

She also suggests that "more work on reading comprehension think­ ing in terms of future university work (would be beneficial)," as well as "more substitution drills for large classes."

B.E.P.C. AND DIPLOME EXAMINATION PROCEDURES

The B.E.P.C. and Diplome examinations given at the Lycee are largely oral and are graded according to pronunciation and intonation, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary and reading comprehension. The examina­ tion procedure is as follows: the students are assembled and given a passage to read (3-5 minutes); they are not permitted to use dictionaries.

Then the students are individually asked to read the passage to the examiner, and they are questioned orally on what they have read. Finally there is a general conversation concerning the passage.

NEW FACILITIES

We are fortunate at the Lycee de Vientiane in that we will soon have a language laboratory built at the school. We have also requested 86

that reading rooms be made available to the students; last year such a

room was available, but unfortunately it was later converted into a

student restaurant.

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

Some English teachers at the Lycee have noted the lack of organi­

zation among the English teaching staff and proposed the organization

of an English Department. Although the Lycee in general is not organized

on a departmental basis, this need not affect us, and we hope to get to work on this project after the seminar is finished.

Having discussed the English Language Program both as it fits

into the Lycee de Vientiane's total academic program and as it functions as an independent entity, the dissertation in the next chapter is con­

cerned with the functioning of the six classes which I instructed in

English for the 1973-1974 academic year. CHAPTER III

FOOTNOTES

^Lycee de Vientiane. Office of the Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane, p. 14.

^Bounlieng Phommasouvanh. The Preparation of Teachers and Its Role in the Laosization of Public Secondary Schools in Laos, p. 143, Table 3.

■^Data in Table 1 are drawn from John Thome's "Report on English Language Teaching at the Lycee de Vientiane for the Fifth National English Language Teachers' Seminar," p. 1. This report is presented in full later in this section of Chapter 3.

^Unattributable mimeographed chart found in a tangle of seemingly discarded papers in one of the three wooden book lockers in the Teachers Room of the Administration Building of the Lycee de Vientiane in Septem­ ber, 1973.

87 CHAPTER IV

THE CLASSES

PREMIERE

Premiere A (First Language)

Like all the English classes I instructed at the Lycee de

Vientiane during the 1973-1974 academic year, Premiere A was unstreamed by either ability or age. The thirty-five students in the class in­ cluded sixteen Lao males, five Lao females, two French males, six

French females, one Cambodian male, one Belgian male, three Vietnamese males, and one Vietnamese female. The text for this class, as for all

Premiere classes, was L. G. Alexander's Fluency in English. We met four hours per week: Monday, 4:00-5:00; Wednesday, 10:30-11:30; Thursday,

3:00-4:00; and Friday, 7:30-8:30.^

All classroom instruction was in English, but this Direct Method was not employed to promote only audio-lingual ends. Classroom work cen­ tered around the textbook, which stressed reading and writing skills.

To supplement the lesson-a-week core curriculum (i.e. Fluency in English), and mostly because this was a four-hours-per-week Series A class, we occasionally class-read various of the Longman's Series readers and, more significantly, USIS-supplied short readings on Americana, since most of these Premiere A students would graduate to Terminale A, whose subject matter was American Civilization. Authors whose biographies were read and discussed included Melville, Whitman, Poe, and Steinbeck. In

88 89 addition, I stressed written work in this class more than in any other, asking the students to prepare compositions structured along the lines of various rhetorical models I supplied them. Fluency in English, USIS and teacher-prepared handouts, student compositions, and films provided most of the topics for classroom discussions, which were very unneces­ sary to prompt, as this was a lively class. In fact, it sometimes be­ came imperative to limit the contributions of individual highly voluble responders to allow less verbally aggressive students the opportunity to participate.

By the end of the first third of the academic year, I had become sufficiently familiar with how to use the textbook that I was able to get away from its rigidity by instituting other English-language-learning activities. In January, 1974, I initiated the film program and the con­ ference program, both of which are discussed at length in Chapter 5.

For the remainder of the academic year, I loosely followed the tightly controlled format of the textbook, although I did omit chapters I con­ sidered culturally inappropriate. Increasingly, however, I utilized teacher-typed, USIS-dittoed handouts on American English slang, literary analysis, grammar, and various types of drills. This whole instructional package was designed to promote audio-lingual skills in teacher-directed, student-student discussion, thus balancing out nicely the heavy emphasis on grammar and vocabulary forwarded by the textbook.

All the teachers at the Lycee de Vientiane could select their own methodologies, and so I was able to tailor my presentations on a class- by-class basis. For Premiere A, I regularly utilized the top half-dozen students as stimulators for extended discussion based on open-ended 90

questions, which followed the yes-no, either-or, and question-word,

content-oriented questions that tested student comprehension of our

readings. Such discussions often lasted two or three class periods, and every student who desired to speak was heard. Even the back-and- forth traffic from the next-door student toilets did not significantly detract from the sometimes very intense discussions. I tried to moder­ ate, rather than to participate, but sometimes I would offer my own opinion, clearly labeled as such, almost always in direct response to an individual student's specific question regarding the topic of the day. I consider this class to have been proof that a particular student- teacher dynamic, founded on initial rapport and sustained by mutual re­ spect, can engender a particularly pedagogically positive comfortable-

O ness in which substantial "experimental" teaching can be openly essayed and responded to, without jeopardizing a high standard of effective in­ struction within an established program of language study.

To sum up, Premiere A was a class in which existed a good balance between the listening-speaking and reading-writing skills. More in this class than in any other, classroom discussion flourished and prompted idea-exchange. The teacher-as-facilitator in such a class risks losing some of the professional distance recommended by TEFL methodologists but stands to gain a feeling of vital fulfillment both as a person and as a teacher. When viewed in contrast to my relationships with the other classes that I taught, my response to Premiere A seems less a mystic transcendence, however, and more simply a remarkable interpersonal happening in a TEFL environment. 91

Premiere B, Sections 1 & 2 (Second Language)

The thirty-two students of Premiere B, Sections 1 & 2, included

twelve Lao males, sixteen Lao females, one French female, one Viet­

namese male, and two Vietnamese females. Fluency in English was the

text for our thrice-weekly class, which met Monday, 8:30-9:30; Tuesday,

8:30-9:30; and Thursday, 4:00-5:00.

As with all Premiere classes, reading and writing skills were

stressed through the use of the readings in the textbook. A few com­ positions, on such topics as "Describe Your Previous English Classes"

and "Why it is Good to be Young/Old," were occasionally assigned as homework, but, as this was an "English as a Second Foreign Language" class, I determined early on to de-emphasize rhetoric. We did use

USIS handouts, sets of Longman's Readers, and teacher-prepared work­ sheets from time to time, but reading and writing was otherwise con­ fined to the textbook readings and related exercises. Because this class was a Series B (i.e. Science Economique) class, I wanted to use a USIS-supplied book of readings on economics, but the selections were too lexically and syntactically demanding, compelling me to withdraw the texts from class without achieving my goal of effectively con- textualizing language learning.

To accompany the film and conference programs which were in­ stituted in January, 1974, additional techniques were employed to develop the listening and speaking skills. Discussions of classroom readings and films were supplemented by two-minute, prepared-at-home talks on subjects of student interest. In this class, too, we studied the lyrics to popular (i.e. rock) songs, played "Hangman," and had a 92

spelling bee, the prize for which was an understandable Ladder Edition

Series Book on economics. Repeated administrative reshuffling of class­

room assignments, including a too long stay in Room 68 Bis, an above­

ground, mosquito-infested dungeon, did not inconvenience us greatly,

and, wherever we were, we usually had pleasant and enjoyable class

sessions.

The main reason why this class ran so smoothly, so unstressfully, was, I believe, because it was so overwhelmingly ethnically Lao. As noted earlier in the chapter, classes were not streamed either by ability

or age, but some classes did reflect obvious attempts at ethnic grouping, and this was one of them. Premiere B was more "naturally Lao" than any

other class I taught during my year at the Lycee de Vientiane, even to

the presence of some especially hard-working and talented Hmoung and provincial students, whose in-conference recountings of village life in wartime rural Laos enlightened me far more than some university-level

treatises on the topic of the human consequences of Wars of National

Liberation.

Although English as a Second Foreign Language carried a low co­ efficient in the moyenne-determining scheme, the students of Premiere B, for the most part, came to class prepared to participate, and oftentimes their performance, especially in dialogues and drills, was up to the standard of classes in which I "pushed" English a lot harder. While I was more academically demanding in these other classes, in retrospect

I must faithfully report that the progress of the less rigorously in­ structed Premiere B students was nonetheless very personally satisfying.

These students were not denied any of the skills I brought to the class; 93

I simply didn't impose the "hard sell" on these well-behaved and respect­

ful students, whose relaxed and accepting approach to life in general

and English in particular afforded me the opportunity to respond with

a new— for me— methodology, the non-whirlwind approach. I can happily

verify that this manner of teaching allowed instruction to occur and

learning to happen without appreciable loss of student interest and with

a beneficial lessening of teacher intensity.

Premiere D, Section 4 (First Language)

The thirty-five students of Premiere D, Section 4, included fif­

teen Lao males, three Lao females, one French male, six French females,

one Cambodian male, one Cambodian female, five Vietnamese males, and

three Vietnamese females. Our class text was Fluency in English. Our

schedule, however, for reasons noted below, was the most irregular of any class that I taught that year. Moreover, the too many class periods lost to scheduled and unscheduled holidays, administration-called meet­ ings, and the testing needs of other courses all contributed to a sub­ stantial loss of class contact hours of English language instruction.

At the beginning of the 1973-1974 academic year, we were sche­ duled to meet three hours per week: Monday, 5:00-6:00; Wednesday,

7:30-8:30; and Thursday, 5:00-6:00. By mid-November, it was only too clear that such a distribution of class hours was wholly impractical for the task of teaching and learning English. Physically exhausted, psychically drained, hungry students in an enshadowed late afternoon classroom were not of the inclination either to study for or to partici­ pate in their sixth or seventh consecutive class of the day. In an 94

effort to secure a scheduling variance, the chef de classe (i.e. class

leader) and I approached the Censeur, who approved a change to Wednes­

day, 8:00-9:00, and Friday, 2:00-4:00. I hoped to be able to utilize

this two-hour, end-of-week time block for student discussions based on

the textbook, science-oriented USIS handouts (e.g. biographies of

Audubon and Franklin), and films, believing that the continuity afforded

by back-to-back classes would provide an enhanced learning environment.

In this expectation, as described below, I was but partially rewarded.

Finally, in May, 1974, our class schedule was modified yet again, this

time to meet the instructional needs of another professeur whose subject had priority. We concluded the year meeting on Wednesday, 8:00-9:00

and 10:00-11:00, and Friday, 2:00-3:00. Throughout this shifting of

class times, we retained the same classroom all year long, a circumstance which imparted a limited stability to our temporal peregrinations. Also with us all year were the loud female attendants of the right-outside- the-window student snack stand who periodically distracted all of us, but this nuisance was, at worst, but a minor, if betimes inconvenient, disruptive influence.

In Premiere D, Section 4, I taught straight from Fluency in

English, basing some few homework assignments or compositions on text- derived topics. But I concentrated mostly on building the reading and speaking skills of these Series D students. To supplement such class­ room activities as dictations, written grammar exercises, and assorted structural drills, I assigned readings from both selected Longman’s

Series readers and Ladder Edition Series readers at the 2,000 and 3,000 word level. At one point, in an attempt to raise flagging student 95 interest, I almost bought and brought to class thirty-five copies of

Young Love, a popular American comic book. But this plan was never implemented due to the need to keep pace with the other Premiere classes.

Student discussion, too, was curtailed in order to ensure coverage of the textbook commensurate with that of the other sections. To take the place of "free" discussions, I instituted a series of two-minute, prepared-as-homework student talks on specific "thinking" topics, such as "Western Science is/is not Superior to Eastern Wisdom," but such presentations by so many students, in addition to consuming large chunks of class time, were usually not the group-discussion stimulators that I had hoped they would prove to be. Accordingly, in order to avoid the general boredom engendered by assembly-line, "canned" speeches, I dis­ continued this activity in mid-March, 1974.

A few words may be devoted here to the oft-referred-to textbook for Premiere classes, Fluency in English, and how we used it. A typical lesson would include the following elements: teacher modeling of the reading passage, choral and/or individual student repetition of the

* reading passage, teacher presentation of the grammar points, student drilling of the grammar points, vocabulary study, and teacher-student, short-answer questions and responses based on the contents of the reading passage. From this last activity, it was usually not too difficult to promote a teacher-moderated student discussion related, if only tan- gentially, to one aspect or another of the reading passage. Other elements which were occasionally injected into the class hour included dictations of the reading passages, pronunciation drills, discrimination drills, and limited student-student discussion of topics of general interest. 96

Premiere D, Section 4, was a challenge to teach. In spite of the markedly different academic orientations of the natural-scientists-

to-be and myself, the students were generally attentive in class and willing to devote as much effort to the study, if not mastery, of

English as did not detract from their science-oriented courses. While the boisterousness and pulchritude of some singular male and female students, respectively, constituted year-long distractions for both other students and myself, even these conditions, in addition to the aforementioned reschedulings and missed class hours, were not able to keep us from fulfilling the requirements of our academic timetable.

The students of Premiere D, Section 4, finished the year having covered the same number of lessons in Fluency in English as the other Premiere classes, although not with the same amount of written and oral work on a per-lesson basis. Also, we did not have the same amount of extra­

textbook discussion. In all, the class was not so enjoyable as some of

the other classes that I taught at the Lycee de Vientiane during the

1973-1974 academic year, but I believe that those students who were genuinely interested in improving their English were able to benefit from class. As for the other students, three hours of English a week were aimed at them, and I know, based on feedback from the student con­ ferences, that most of the students recognized, in varying degrees, the utility of English for students of natural science and were at least minimally motivated to try to improve their English. Looking backward,

this class came closest to approximating my conception of a "typical" lvcee EFL class, although it had numerous atypical aspects to it. 97

Recommendations for Premiere

1. If Fluency in English continues to be the text, it should be sup­ plemented by numerous handouts and exercise sheets to practice the grammar points presented in each lesson.

2. However, I suggest that Fluency in English be discontinued and some other general text— perhaps Language and Life in the U.S.A. (2nd edition) by Doty and Ross (Harper & Row, 1968)— adopted in its place.

3. The U.S.A.: Readings in ESL by Bigelow and Harris might also be used as a general text to prepare students for the American Civilization- oriented coursework in their upcoming Terminale classes.

4. Highlights of American Literature, Volumes I, II, and III, as USIS publication, might be especially well-received by the Premiere A class.

5. Exercises from Jacobs and Rosenbaum^ Grammar 1,2,3,4 might appeal to the rule-conditioned and rule-ordered students of Premiere C and D, and, to a much lesser extent, Premiere B.

TERMINALE

Terminale A (First Language)

As with the Premiere classes, the Terminale classes were also unstreamed either by ability or age.^ The eighteen students in Terminale

A included three Lao males, three Lao females, three French males, six

French females, one Cambodian female, one Vietnamese male, and one

Vietnamese female. The primary text for this class, as for all Ter­ minale classes, was the USIS Heritage of Freedom series, supplemented by U.S.A.: It's Geography and Growth, a USIS publication, and the Ladder

Edition Series reader The Great Experiment by Tewksbury. In addition, we also used a historical synopsis prepared by Mr. Don Hamm, an IVS teacher in the Social Studies Department of the English Section at Dong

Dok, entitled "History of the United States from the Settlement of North

America through the American Civil War." 98

The coursework for Terminale A, as with the other Terminale classes, began with an overview of American geography, which study led to a consideration of American history. Initially, the emphasis was on reading and writing, whereby close readings of textbook assignments were followed up with occasional essays (entitled, for example, "The Role of

Geography in National Development"), USIS biographies of famous Ameri­ cans, and teacher-prepared, USIS-dittoed handouts on such varied topics as the Sayings of Franklin, the states and their capitals, and reprints of Americana-centered newspaper articles. Terminale A was noted on the academic timetable as "Philo," philosophy, and, through the use of short literary excerpts from the works of major British and American authors,

I tried to construct a companion curriculum to supplement the geography- history component. Essaying a thematic approach through at -home and in- class short readings around broad topics such as Nature of Social Change,

Government, Cultural Relativism, etc., I had the expectation that these

Series A students would respond to the provocative ideas of the printed page with concerted classroom discussion. Just why this two-pronged program was less than mostly successful and how it was modified to pro­ mote at least a modicum of intellectual ferment is the concern of the succeeding paragraphs.

My apprehension of the lycee system was that the Terminale stu­ dents represented the best and the brightest, those who had survived a more-than-decade-long intellectual honing, a sort of academic survival of the fittest in which the weak were eliminated by a demanding examina­ tion system and the strong were tested anew by even more rigorous academic tasks. Accordingly, my initial response to all my Terminale 99

classes was one of great expectations. A non-scientist, I felt closer

to the students of Terminale A, with whom I believed I shared an orien­

tation to and appreciation of the humanist philosophical tradition, than

to the economics- and natural science-oriented students of Terminale B

and D. By the end of the first trimester, however, I knew that the place­

ment of most of the students in Terminale A was dictated less by ardent

zeal for the concerns of philosophy than by their intellectual and/or

personal discomfort at confronting the more difficult academic demands

of economics, mathematics, or natural sciences. Far from being even

moderately motivated literati, these students, I came to realize, con­

stituted the "Other" category of the four-tracked second-cycle curricu­

lum. Given this understanding, I began to remold the class in January,

1974, to meet more directly the real needs of the class. For the re­ mainder of the academic year, the students and I labored under the bur­

dens of a too high absentee rate; too many class contact hours lost to

student strikes, holidays, and schedule conflicts; a reshuffling of

classroom assignments, with an overlong stay in Room 68 Bis; and the

loss of my idealism. However, out of these circumstances emerged a co­ herent program of study which, if it was not all that I had hoped it would be, was certainly more than the general student disinclination for

high academic performance had prepared them to expect.

During our two class hours per week-*— Tuesday, 10:30-11:30 and

Wednesday, 8:30-9:30— I attempted to build student performance in spoken

English through two-day reading/writing-and-discussion units. Sometimes, we talked about the USIS films or readings; at other times, we reviewed

current events or subjects derived from points made in individual student 100 conferences, which began in January, 1974. At all times, the general goal was articulate self-expression in English, with a dose of logical reasoning for cause-effect argumentation. To give balance, I experi­ mented with different rhetorical models, such as compositions of de­ scription or narration. I tried a few in-class "free writing" assign­ ments, but they did not prove to be the intellect-liberating catalysts

I had sought. The most successful composition, from the point of view of a more-than-partially-developed, gotta-do-it-for-class assignment, was on the topic "What I Will Do After Terminale." We got plenty of discussion mileage out of this topic, too, in addition to some rather thoughtful life-plans. As the need arose, I also presented aspects of vocabulary study (i.e. prefixes and suffixes), grammar, pronunciation, and even general linguistics, particularly in the area of dialectology.

For the most part, however, the last two-thirds of the academic year was spent less in examining text-centered data than in encouraging the stu­ dents to speak and write English in as "open" a classroom as circumstances permitted.

While the class was frustrating to teach most of the time, I be­ lieve that no one who so desired was significantly denied a wide lati­ tude of freedom of expression in either written or oral work, especially after January, 1974. Two hours per week, however, on two consecutive mid-week days, is just not enough contact time to establish and maintain an ongoing and self-renewing program of instruction. Professionally, I am glad for the experience I gained in instructing these mostly reluctant- to-study Series A students, and I can only hope that my efforts at 101 upgrading their English-language skills proved as beneficial to the minority in this class as to the majority in some other classes.

Terminale B (Second Language)

Terminale B, like my Premiere B class, was heavily Lao. The twenty-five students included eleven Lao males, eleven Lao females, one

Cambodian male, one Vietnamese male, and one Vietnamese female. Our texts were the same as those in Terminale A, although we met more often, three times a week: Monday, 7:30-8:30; Tuesday, 9:30-10:30; and Friday,

8:30-9:30. Although this class, like others, suffered from time lost to holidays, strikes, and the testing demands of other classes, the students and I enjoyed a year-long positive association, eminently well-suited to promoting language instruction, that made this class truly pleasurable.

On the surface, this class was conducted the same as the other two

Terminale classes I taught. We read about and discussed the geography and history of the United States, using the same books and handouts as the other sections of Terminale. I even distributed some of thel,Philo" literary excerpts (by such authors as E. M. Forster and T. H. Huxley) to these Series B students to inspire general discussion, and they enjoyed them. In fact, the students participated enthusiastically in almost all class activities, from tightly controlled pronunciation drills and dic­ tations through in-class readings of geography and history handouts to at-home preparation of various kinds of worksheets.^ Student performance on class tests and compositions, however, indicated more of a capacity for the memorization of facts than for the expressive utilization of written and spoken English. Accordingly, in order to give more practice 102 in communicative prose, I determined upon a program of class discussion of various topics by which students could practice articulating specific points of view, which attempts at lucid self-expression would, I hoped, transfer to future writing assignments.

Especially after the film and conference programs were initiated in January, 1974, classroom discussion, that is to say, student-student oral communication, occupied an increasingly larger portion of the class hours. Usually, a student's question to me— either text-directed, such as the meaning of a particular word or phrase, or non-text-directed, such as the use of American English slang or the merits of certain popular singers— would start the idea-exchange. Once in a while, a teacher-typed,

USIS-dittoed handout (usually the reprint of a newspaper article) pro­ duced the same effect. The ever-popular composition entitled "What I

Will Do After Terminale" was especially productive of extended discussion.

In short, this group of lively students evidenced a steady rate of high participation throughout the academic year in almost all kinds of language-learning activities.

Curiously enough, I lectured more to this class than to any other, but my text-derived lectures did not bore these students. Rather, they listened and responded intelligently, sometimes developing an elaborate treatment of topics of a serious philosophical nature. For example, a large block of time was spent during the second trimester in a detailed examination of two important documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Basing my lectures on the theme that "Governors govern by the consent of the Governed," I traced the development of the principles of American government from Magna Carta 103

to the English Bill of Rights through Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu

to the American Bill of Rights and the doctrine of Separation of Powers.

Far from offering an apology for American democracy (for these students were much too knowledgeable concerning the consequences of both in­

country and nearby wars of national liberation to be fooled by propaganda-

in-the-guise-of-history), my goal was to elicit "thinking" responses re­

flective of concerned intellectual effort. I wanted them to question, not to accept, what I said. Although this end was not wholly achieved,

I got enough response to sustain this topic for several weeks.

Certainly, these students were no academic lightweights. Their performance on the French and Lao Baccalaureats at the end of the year precludes any such interpretation.^ Rather, their sometimes limited response to my passionate exposition of humanitarian liberalism was more reflective of the realpolitik of Lao-American relations in a post-war environment than was my own idealistic fervor. As the events of April-

May, 1975, were to prove, Americans can get evacuated from besieged areas, while local nationals are usually not so fortunate. I can now better understand that some students who could have responded chose not to do so at length, if at all, out of the desire not to become too closely identified with the American presence, when such affiliation could prove a devastating socio-economic liability in the post-American political reality which historical necessity dictated was not far off.

The political questions aside, the language-learning tasks con­ tinued apace. As with Premiere B, I benefited as much, if not more, from exposure to the students1 refreshing insouciance as X hope that they did from my genuinely non-hardnosed approach to English. I do know that 104

I very much enjoyed teaching these students and almost always received an emotional boost from our class hours, a response which, as noted in the preceding and succeeding sections, did not regularly attend my in­ structional efforts with other classes.

Terminale D, Section 4 (First Language)

Although the students of Terminale D, Section 4, were considered to be competent in matters scientific, their intellectual force was usually not evident in their preparation for and participation in our

English classes. Heavily Francophilic, these thirty-one Series D students, who comprised thirteen Lao males, one Lao female, nine French males, three French females, one Chinese male, one Cambodian male, two

Vietnamese males, and one Vietnamese female, met for three hours per week in the same room all academic year: Monday, 3:00-4:00; Tuesday,

7:30-8:30; and Wednesday, 9:30-10:30.® Our texts and handouts were the same as those employed in all other Terminale English classes. However, the geography-history format did not "reach" most of the students, and the many class hours lost to student strikes, holidays, and special Q testing for Terminale students further disrupted my efforts at sustained instruction. Generally speaking, these students were minimally interested in English, with the noteworthy exception of four or five genuinely "in­ volved" students,"^ and, although I tried teaching to this interested minority, the lackadasical attitude of the majority often contrived to defeat these efforts.

I made no attempt to construct a significantly revised program of instruction. After January, 1974, the conference and film programs did 105 arouse some additional interest, which manifested itself in more lively classroom discussions. Out of these student-teacher and student-student exchanges, I was able from time to time to develop various pronunciation drills, supplementary dialogues, and vocabulary exercises, but, for the most part, such language-learning activities took second place to textbook-related exercises based, more often than not, on handouts of former lvcee teachers found in the Fulbright Materials File at USIS. I did seek to inject some "thinking" activity through discussions of topics that I hoped would promote idea-exchange. For example, a comparison of the language of the national anthems of France and the United States yielded thoughtful consideration of the rhetoric of revolution and various aspects of nationalism exemplified in explicit and implicit values exalted by selected nation-states. Still, this type of "deep" intellec­ tual concern was the exception, not the rule. Another attempt to get the students to use English communicatively, this time through composi­ tions, produced generally uninspired prose, although the discussion of

"What I Want to be Doing in Ten Years" did allow some of the more reti­ cent students to express themselves at length. In an attempt to compel the students to confront their ideas in English, I also assigned some three- and five-minute non-stop writing exercises, but this technique was not positively received, for a variety of reasons, and I abandoned it, after verifying its inappropriateness.

Terminale D, Section 4, was more of a "Service English" class than any other that I taught during the 1973-1974 academic year. No matter what variation of proven pedagogy or presence that I utilized, the end response was the same: a seemingly uncaring putting-in-of-time. This 106

is not to say that some students did not absorb some knowledge about

American Civilization and the English language. Nor is this general

assessment of demonstrated unconcern meant to disparage the efforts of

the few students who did perform well academically. Our class was com­

posed of some very affable students, young adults whose personal attri­

butes were considerable; it is to be regretted that so many of them

chose to distinguish themselves by not exerting anywhere near their full

range of language-learning competency ir English. I wanted to offer here evidence of these students' overall academic ability by including

a report of their performance on the French and Lao Baccalaureats, as I have done elsewhere for their peers in other Terminale classes. Records examined at the French Cultural Center and the Lao MOE, however, yielded not a single name on the "Successful Candidates" lists. Furthermore, my desire to compare these students with their fellow-academics was thwarted by the stunning discovery that all class records for Terminale

D, Section 4 students for the 1973-1974 academic year (and some indi­ vidual student records for the period of their entire secondary educa­ tion) were stolen in a December 1, 1974, break-in and robbery of the administrative offices of the Lycee de Vientiane by an undefined number of unknown persons. Therefore, in the foregoing account, I have relied on my personal notes, which are based on impressions garnered during dozens of hours of classroom instruction, to assess the relative academic merits of these particularly difficult-to-evaluate students.

Finally, despite my inability to create and to maintain a high level of student interest, all the material to be covered was presented.

In fact, there were, of course, some few class hours which were 107 extraordinarily successful, when the student-teacher dynamic was such as to generate meaningful give-and-take communication in English, both on textual as well as extra-text matters of student interest. In sum,

I will be satisfied if those students who endured the year with me will be able, in their lives, to use English as much to their benefit as those students who shared the year with me.

Recommendations for Terminale

1. The Heritage of Freedom series and U.S.A.: It's Geography and Growth should be discontinued and another text— perhaps American English Rhetoric by Bander (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971)— should be adopted. The history-geography component can be retained in the form of the Ladder Series book The Great Experiment as well as by extensive supplemental handouts derived from the many reference sources in Vientiane, which are available to all Terminale classes Kingdom-wide.

2. The Don Hamm synopsis "History of the United States from the Settle­ ment of North America Through the American Civil War" could be used in all Terminale classes, whereas The Great Experiment might be used more by Terminale C and D and less by Terminale A and B.

3. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery would make an excellent reading-discussion text for Terminale A ("Philo").

4. Reading & Conversation for Intermediate and Advanced Students About the United States, Its People, Its History, Its Customs (Rockville, Maryland: Washington Educational Research Associates, Inc., 1969) is another nomination for use in Terminale A and B. Perhaps it might even be appropriate for Terminale C and D, as determined by classroom testing and student feedback. CHAPTER IV

FOOTNOTES

^Chronological grouping of students does not appear to have been a regularized practice. According to Rapport de Rentree. 1972-1973, a document supplied to me by the Office of the Censeur of the Lycee de Vientiane, Table 9 reports that the ages of the 185 Premiere males for that academic year, the last year for which complete data had been gathered and published during my tenure at the school, ranged from six­ teen to twenty-five and those of the fifty-two females from sixteen to twenty-two.

^The school day at the beginning of the 1973-1974 academic year ran from 7:30-11:30 a.m. and from 3:00-6:00 p.m. With the imposition of the Arab oil embargo during the October, 1973, Yom Kippur War, these times were modified to 8:00-12:00 noon and 2:00-4:00 p.m. All times reported in this chapter are "real" times, that is, times in force for the periods being reported. In the case of a class whose teaching hour was unchanged, 7:30-8:30 becomes 8:00-9:00, 3:00-4:00 becomes 2:00-3:00, etc., unless otherwise noted.

% n this category of "experimental," I mean borrowings by the TEFL teacher from multiple branches of linguistics and pedagogy, includ­ ing, but by no means limited to, transformational-style grammatical analyses, "cloze" techniques of composition, and the organic teaching of Sylvia Ashton-Warner. A class in which the student-teacher dynamic encourages experimentation and response thereto without fear of loss of face or a threatening of the Self provides, in my opinion, an optimum teaching/learning environment.

^Rapport de Rentree. 1972-1973. Op. Cit., Table 9, reports that the ages of the 240 Terminale males for that academic year ranged from seventeen to twenty-six and those of the 116 females from seventeen to twenty-two.

The reason for there being more students in Terminale than in Premiere (for one would reasonably expect the apex of this elitist model to have the fewest members) is the earlier-referred-to, Kingdom-wide monopoly of Terminale which the Lycee de Vientiane held until the 1973-1974 aca­ demic year.

108 109

-*We met for "Philo" only twice a week. The class was also sche­ duled to meet with M. Platon of the French Cultural Center for an addi­ tional two hours per week of French-English, English-French translation exercises to prepare these Lettres students for translation questions on the end-of-year French Baccalaureat.

Records of the Baccalaureat results obtained from the French Cultural Center during my return visit of March 21-26, 1975, indicate that three French females, two French males, three Lao females, two Lao males, and one Vietnamese female passes the French "Bac," while three French fe­ males, one Lao female, two Lao males, and one Vietnamese male either chose not to take the exam or else took it and failed.

Correspondingly, records from the Lao MOE indicate that only three Lao males sat for the Lao Baccalaureat. One student passed the exam, and two failed it.

No one in this class passed both the French and the Lao Baccalaureats.

^The Fulbrighters at the Lycee de Vientiane from 1971-1973 left behind them reams of such standardized assignments, which we 1973-1974 Fulbrighters were able to use, once we had sorted them all out. More will be noted of the creation of a Materials File in Chapter 5.

-^Records of the Baccalaureat results obtained from the French Cultural Center during my return visit of March 21-26, 1975, indicate that four Lao females, four Lao males, and one Vietnamese female passed the French "Bac," while seven Lao females, eight Lao males, and one Vietnamese male either chose not to take the exam or else took it and failed.

Correspondingly, records from the Lao MOE indicate that three Lao females and seven Lao males passed the National Baccalaureat, while eight Lao females and four Lao males failed it.

Three Lao females and three Lao males passed both examinations, an ex­ ceptional achievement. One Lao male who passed both examinations is currently studying in the United States at a Midwestern liberal arts college, while another student who passed both examinations, a Lao female (who, incidentally, ranked #1 in English in the class), currently holds an important position in a sector of the national travel industry.

®In early May, 1974, the Wednesday class was shifted to Friday, 3:00-4:00, in an administration-mandated schedule change.

^Physical education examinations and special subject-matter ex­ aminations cost us about a half-dozen class hours out of an already curtailed-by-extraordinary-events schedule. 110

•^One of these students, a Lao male, Is today a student of a well- known university in the United States. By his ability in English and his other major-field courses, he truly merits his scholarship, unlike other children of the elite whose scholarships were not always earned by academic prowess alone. His fierce determination to excel in class and to make a productive life for himself contrasts sharply with the attitudes evidenced by many other students of a similar socio-economic background.

H-Teachers in Vientiane are extremely fortunate in having access to many reference books and textbooks to draw on for ideas and exercises. The Fulbright Materials File at USIS is an excellent storehouse of TEFL handouts and worksheets and has a filing cabinet filled with exercises keyed to the Alexander Series. Also, Dong Dok has a very fine materials library, which has been developed, maintained, and expanded over the years, by David Brindley, Mark Mullbock, and Alun Rees. CHAPTER V

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

At the Lycee de Vientiane

My extra-classroom academic activities at the Lycee de Vientiane for the 1973-1974 academic year fell into two distinct categories: student-centered and colleague-centered.

Student-centered activities included selecting the textbooks for

Premiere and Terminale;1 regularly changing student seating patterns to promote varying student-teacher and student-student perspectives, de- 2 vising a grading plan to reward the student who corrects his mistakes, and instituting the film and conference programs, which are discussed below.

The film program was begun in January, 1974, after three months of intensive preparation. The dearth of audio-visual materials at the school,^ coupled with the presence at USIS of films, projectors, and a special viewing room,^ impelled me to develop a supplemental program which would enable students to build their receptive skills as well as to stimulate their productive skills. Accordingly, I observed the fol­ lowing steps, which I present here as one way in institutionalizing a film program, where the resources are available.

In October, 1973, I secured a current list of films from Mr.

Napoleon, the head of the Motion Picture Department (MOPIX) of USIS.

I then cross-checked this listing with the film file of the USIS Film

111 112

Librarian/Projectionist, Mr. Bounsou, so as to derive one list of films we definitely had, along with other data, such as their file numbers, abstracts, running times, and condition of the various prints.Then g I decided viewing frequency and exact viewing times, in order not to monopolize the facilities by "freezing out" other teachers instructing in the same time periods.^ The penultimate step was to compose a class-

Q by-class list of films that I wanted to show and to plug the choices into the viewing schedule. In order to keep all interested parties well informed, I created a Weekly Film Schedule form, eventually adopted by other teachers as well, copies of which were distributed to USIS/MOPIX, the Office of the USIS Cultural Affairs Officer, the Office of the

Censeur of the Lycee de Vientiane, and other teachers.

In this way, a regularized film program was established and ran smoothly from January to June, 1974. Although the students could not always understand all the words, due to the vocabulary utilized and the rate at which it was delivered, I believe that most of the students liked coming to the films, enjoyed the visual stimulation, and even were moved to ask questions about what they saw, judging from the post-viewing dis­ cussions which followed most showings. In this respect, I deem the pro­ gram a success, for students were inspired to use English communicatively to ask about what interested them and to listen carefully to answers to their own questions. The films were most assuredly a very worthwhile supplemental activity to traditional TEFL mimic-manipulation practices, and I strongly encourage TEFL teachers abroad to utilize films wherever possible in order to vary refreshingly both the content and the form of ongoing EFL instruction. 113

The conference program was also instituted in January, 1974.

The intent of these outside-of-class, at-school student-teacher con­ ferences was to encourage students to use English conversationally. To 9 that end, I generally asked two or three students to meet with me in the time slot designated for their class,^ usually in the student commons-cum-snack room or in the teachers' lounge, if it were empty.

The plan was to meet at least once with each student in each class^ to discuss both teacher- and student-suggested topics for approximately thirty minutes. In this way, in theory, I could meet with a maximum of thirty-six students per week. Optimum conditions never prevailed, of course, due to frequent student absences, shifting class schedules, and, especially in the early stages, experimentation with the number and kind of student conferees.

The mechanics of the conference were uncomplicated. Moving rapidly away from the universal foreign-language-learning, ritualized greeting-dialogue, students and teacher proceeded into a round-table format in which students were asked to respond individually to one or two general questions (which I knew they could answer) as a mechanism for priming the idea-exchange process. In the heart of the session, students asked me and each other specific-interest questions, each stu­ dent, in effect, moderating a mini-discussion of a topic of his own choosing. These conferences, almost always lively, despite some trial- and-error groping for suitable topics (for what was interesting to one group was not always so to another), gave students the opportunity to practice English in a real-life context, mostly, it will be admitted, in the consultative register. And because these sessions were on my own and their out-of-class time, students were not subject to omnipresent, peer-pressure, classroom constraints. My role, as noted above, was to put the students at ease and to pose the first couple of easy-response questions. After that, I minimally guided the idea-flow, stepping in only when asked a direct question or to ask a follow-up question in response to a particular student's assertion. What I learned most in these sessions was to appreciate the students' generally limited world­ view and to carry back to whole-class discussions my apperceptions as aids to the selection of appropriate lexical and semantic situalization/ contextualization. Also, students in this smaller group seemed to be more open than they were in the full-class setting, and their candid assessments of my teaching style and their learning problems provided me with the kind of constructive feedback by which I was able to amend my presentations accordingly. This conference system as I have described it, was considered by the overwhelming majority of the students to be one of the most positive aspects of the entire English Language Program, and I wholeheartedly advocate its inclusion in TEFL programs where enough unscheduled time is available for its implementation.

Colleague-centered activities included student-teacher supervision, identification and recommendation of Premiere students for LAA scholar­ ships to the Special Summer English Program and of Terminale students for USIS scholarships to United States colleges and universities, and the promotion of intra-school professional growth and idea-exchange among the whole of the Faculty of English.

Teachers of English at the Cinquieme and Quatrieme levels did most of the supervision of the Dong Dok student-teachers, but, on 115 occasion, teachers of higher levels also assisted in the practice- teaching program. My limited role was to observe one female Lao instructor-to-be on three occasions, to confer with her and her Dong Dok supervisor, and to assist her generally in the preparation of lesson plans and the choice of particular teaching techniques. I was pleased to cooperate with the Education Department and the English Methods

Supervisors from Dong Dok in this modest way, and I consider the time that I spent working with this young teacher-to-be to have been one of my most significant contributions to the growth and development of 12 secondary education in the Kingdom of Laos.

The identification and recommendation of Premiere and Terminale students for LAA and USIS scholarships involved close observation of the best Lao English students and the submitting of appropriate feedback to the Office of the USIS Cultural Affairs Officer, which made all final decisions. Fulbright teachers traditionally taught the LAA Special

S um m e r English courses throughout the Kingdom, though I never did, since

I left after completing only one academic year. As for the USIS scholar­ ships for university study in the United States, they were hotly con­ tested, as were the scholarships for foreign college-level education

i q offered by the Australian, Soviet, and other-country missions to Laos.

As to the promoting of professional growth and development among the English Faculty of the Lycee de Vientiane, this effort was carried out during before-class and after-class discussion in the Teachers'

Room and through individual insights shared among the whole teaching corps on out-of-school gatherings such as group dinners, brainstorming sessions at impromptu social functions, and, more importantly, in the 116

planning sessions for the Fifth National In-Service Seminar on English

Language Teaching in Laos, of which more is in the following section.

Because of my special interest in "The History of Education in Laos"

(see Chapter I) I initiated several data-gathering projects, two of which

were the solicitation of information from previous teachers of English

at the Lycee de Vientiane^ and a "Day One Questionnaire" for my

Premiere and Terminale classes.^ While the information gathered from

these and other mini-projects was not of real interest to my colleagues,

due to our diverse levels of interest in such matters, I have utilized

as much of this data as is appropriate in the preparation and presenta­

tion of this dissertation, where I hope that they constitute significant

"pieces of the puzzle" in the mosaic that was TEFL at the Lycee de

Vientiane during the 1973-1974 academic year.

Beyond the Lycee de Vientiane

In order to view in reasoned perspective the many bits of infor­ mation about Laos, education in Laos in general, and TEFL in Laos in particular, I found it necessary to develop several lists of various kinds, which collection projects grew in the course of ten months to constitute substantial data-hordes of potential use to fellow-teachers as well as MOE and MOE-affiliated personnel. In addition, I engaged in a number of specific TEFL related activities which, viewed as a part of

the joint efforts of all TEFL instructors in Laos, materially augmented the quality of TEFL resources in the Kingdom.

The collection projects referred to above took the form of a bibliography on Laos, which became Bibliography One; a bibliography on 117 education in Laos, which evolved into Bibliography Two; a Fulbright

Orientation Packet for new TEFL instructors, based on impressionistic and factual data secured during the course of my first six months in

Laos; and, more importantly, the first English-language listing in Laos of Lao teachers sent to RELC and their project topics, 1970-1973.

These materials were left either in the Fulbright Room or the Office of the Cultural Affairs Officer at USIS in Vientiane for the reference of any provincial or Vientiane-based TEFL teacher.

Also accessible in the Fulbright Room at USIS is a TEFL Reference

Center, whose organization and publicization was my "pet project" during the 1973-1974 academic year. In this venture, I was often and ably assisted by the USIS librarian, Mr. Thanh, whose advice helped to shaped the final form of this mini-library.^ As it was ultimately constituted, the books in the Reference Center were topic-catalogued and arranged on open shelves in the following divisions:

American History and Government (for Terminale) Composition Conversation, Dialogues, and Pronunciation General Pedagogy General Reference Grammar Readers (subdivided by publisher) Supplemental Textbooks

Another ongoing activity was to gather TEFL-related data from such multi-faceted organizations as the ENV, ESP, IVS, and LAA, as well as from individual representatives of the British Council, Colombo Plan,

USAID, USIS, and VSO, and to sort and file this information in a manner useful to both present and future TEFL teachers in Laos. The major

Fulbright and VSO contribution in this area was the creation of an 118

exercise file for the Alexander Series. This lesson-by-lesson filing

of exercises keyed to the most widely used TEFL series in the Kingdom,

coupled with the similar filing of master stencils for these exercises,

was an invaluable resource for Vientiane TEFL teachers. At the time of

the Fifth National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in

Laos in March, 1974, these Fulbright files were merged with those of the

English Section at Dong Dok to provide each Lao participant with a veritable sheaf of drills and exercises to take back to provincial

schools, where such materials would often be the only supplementary TEFL materials in the region.

As for the Seminar itself, I, like the other Fulbrighters, sat on both the Seminar Organizing Committee, which determined the program, and

the Seminar Evaluation Committee, which issued the final report and

recommended the convening of a Sixth Seminar in September, 1975. More

to the point, however, this Seminar, whose raison d ’etre was to promote

inter-school, TEFL-related idea-exchange, paired all Western TEFL

teachers with Lao counterparts to develop and present workshops on

specific TEFL areas of interest. My counterpart, Mr. Sisouk Anoulack, and I co-chaired the workshop on dialogues, which joint effort ensured

a well-prepared and lively series of sessions dealing with both the

theory and practice of teaching dialogues.^ The Seminar in general

and the workshops in particular typify the kinds of cross-cultural

educational interface which characterized the international TEFL effort

in the Kingdom of Laos during the 1973-1974 academic year. 119

Recommendations to the MQE

1. All English classes should meet four hours per week. 2. English classes should be limited to twenty-four students. 3. English language teachers should instruct a maximum of sixteen class hours per week. 4. Students in English classes should be grouped by relative ability.

Recommendations to the Administration of the Lycee de Vientiane

1. All English classes should be scheduled for morning hours. 2. An unused classroom should be reconditioned as the English Language Room, a place where students can go before, after, and between classes to practice their English language skills. 3. The English Language Materials in the Teachers’ Room should be fully catalogued and preserved from insect infestation. 4. The general maintenance program should be substantially upgraded. CHAPTER V

FOOTNOTES

•^The decision to retain Fluency in English for Premiere was, in effect a vote for the continued use of L. G. Alexander's New Concept Series throughout the Grand Lycee: First Things First in Cinquieme and Quatrieme, Developing Skills in Troisieme, Practice and Progress in Seconde, and Fluency in English in Premiere.

The decision to retain the Heritage of Freedom series and U.S.A.: It's Geography and Growth was made by all six Fulbright Teachers of American Civilization in the Kingdom of Laos at a mid-September, 1973, meeting in Vientiane. We were all new to Terminale and thought it best to continue with the texts already in use. Later in the year, we indi­ vidually de-emphasized the Heritage of Freedom series, added additional texts, and, in general, modified the program on a class-by-class basis.

^In my plan, each devoir surveille and devoir a la maison re­ ceives two grades. The first grade counts 2/3 of the final grade, and the second grade, given for correction of mistakes in the initial assignment, counts the other 1/3 of the final grade.

In this manner, a built-in rewards system benefits students who correct their mistakes and penalizes students who do not.

Examples: Initial Grade 12 12 Corrections Grade _18 00 Final Grade 14 08

^Even if the Lycee de Vientiane had possessed overhead, opaque, cineloop, slide, or film projectors, the teachers could not have used them since we had no regular supply of electricity and, even when we were "live," the electrical connections in the classrooms were so ram­ shackle as to be hazardous to the health of any user.

^As noted earlier in the presentation, the USIS building was a two-minute walk from the Lycee de Vientiane. As a result, students could easily come from and go back to their preceding and following classes within the ten-minute break between classes.

120 121

In early 1974, USIS/MOPIX received from Washington a computerized list of "Films on Post" based on a list long-since sent to Washington from Vientiane. MOPIX added to this list the film file numbers, and a copy of this "official" list, containing all the data I had months- earlier so laboriously compiled, supplanted my own listing in the Ful­ bright Room. While I certainly would have welcomed the Washington list in October, 1973, the many hours that I spent "learning" the films as I made my own list paid off in the long run when I was able to use my specialized knowledge to advise other teachers on film selection and, occasionally, on film substitution when a planned showing was for some reason or other disrupted.

^The frequency of viewing for my classes was as follows:

Premiere A: Once a week (1:4) Premiere B: Once every two weeks (1:6) Premiere D: Once every three weeks (1:6) Terminale A: Once every three weeks (1:6) Terminale B: Once every two weeks (1:6) Terminale D: Once every two weeks (1:6)

^Initially, I established both primary and secondary viewing times in order to permit maximum scheduling flexibility. This elaboration proved unnecessary, however, because other teachers just scheduled their films for hours not already claimed. The time slots that I regularly re­ served for my classes were as follows:

Premiere A: Friday, 8:00-9:00, weekly Premiere B: Monday, 9:00-10:00, every other week Premiere D: Wednesday, 8:00-9:00, every third week Terminale A: Wednesday, 9:00-10:00, every third week Terminale B: Monday, 8:00-9:00, every other week Terminale D: Tuesday, 8:00-9:00, every other week

®For Premiere, I usually presented short (i.e. eight to twenty- five minutes) films on such topics as sports, personalities, comedy, and travelogues, which lent themselves to easy discussion. Eventually, I did show some Terminale films to Premiere classes, and the students seemed to enjoy them, especially those on music and religion.

For Terminale, I began by showing all three classes various hour-long black-and-white dramatizations of American history from colonial times through the early twentieth century. Later on, I switched to shorter color films of aspects of contemporary American society (more in keeping with the American Civilization format of the course), such as music, religion, and life-styles.

□ In the beginning, I tried many different combinations of students: two males, two females, one male and one female, etc. Ultimately, I found that three students, either two males and a female or two females and a male, provided the best forum for teacher-initiated idea-exchange, 122

(Footnote 9 Continued) although, for some students, two males or two females seemed to put them more at ease.

•^To determine when I could meet with students, it was necessary to examine the schedules of all six classes and to plug their (very few) non-class hours into the non-teaching periods in my own schedule. Con­ ferences hours were eventually scheduled as follows:

Premiere A: Wednesday, 2:00-3:00 Premiere B: Monday, 11:00-12:00 Premiere D: Monday, 4:00-5:00 Terminale A: Tuesday, 3:00-4:00 Terminale B: Tuesday, 2:00-3:00 Terminale D: Tuesday, 4:00-5:00

^ T h e exact figures for each class are as follows:

Premiere A: 25 of 35 students (71%) Premiere B: 23 of 32 students (72%) Premiere D: 22 of 35 students (63%) Terminale A: 17 of 18 students (94%) Terminale B: 24 of 25 students (96%) Terminale D: 12 of 31 students (39%)

Total 123 of 176 students (70%)

^ 1 observed this instructor three times in the Spring of 1974: March 11, March 18, and April 1. The lessons for these classes were First Things First 31, 33, and 34, respectively. I include below some of the notes I made during my observations and later discussed with the student-teacher and her Dong Dok supervisor as examples of the kinds of student-teacher performance with which supervising teachers were con­ cerned.

Pronunciation: coart^coat; jess^yes; tiyeth^t.eeth; morsfrjfrnost; fust^first; clouse^clouds; aarlplane^airplane; arsk^ask; kekh^cake.

Techniques: Excellent modeling and follow-up via choral and individual repetition drills Reinforcement (Good!) and positive and forceful construc­ tive criticism Good use of stick figures and Lao equivalencies Good use of dialogues and S1-S2 drilling Simple-to-complex question-answer transformations well- done "Come on!" "Let's go!" "Class!" invocations not overdone Clear progression of statement-to-question transformations 123

(Footnote 12 Continued)

Other Points: Good enthusiasm and driving dynamism Neat personal appearance a plus Self-correction — good! Need to know students' names; "you!" not enough Good movement up-and-down the aisles; not front-fixated Beware talking to the board; project to the class Strong command presence better utilized selectively rather than all the time Suppression of student chatter by voice-raising only successful in the short run. What else to do?

1 ^ According to Mrs. Pinhkham Simmalavong's lecture "Orientation to Education in Laos" delivered to new foreign teachers at Dong Dok in late September, 1973, Lao students who wanted to study in the United States could avail themselves of the following resources in Laos to initiate such a program:

East-West Center (EWC) and International Institute of Education (HE) tests administered from time to time by USIS Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), Michigan, and American Language Institute at Georgetown University (ALIGU) tests given periodically by the LAA. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and, for secondary schooling through the American Field Service (AFS), the Secondary School Aptitude Test (SSAT), offered annually by the American School of Vientiane (ASV) at the U.S. residential compound six kilometers outside Vientiane (KM-6 ). USAID-sponsored scholarships in TEFL for both short and long courses in Thailand, Singapore, and, rarely, the continental United States.

-^This project involved creating and distributing the question­ naire to the five in-country former teachers of English at the Lycee de Vientiane. Despite my encouragement, only one former teacher elected to respond. I reproduce below the text of the questionnaire in the hope that the items might suggest a format to another researcher doing a similar project.

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AT THE LYCEE DE VIENTIANE (PRE-1973)

1. Name

2. Academic year(s) taught

3. Classes taught, by academic year(s)

4. Books used, by class and academic year(s) 124

(Footnote 14, QUESTIONNAIRE Continued)

5. Please record your opinions of the following aspects of the Lycee: a. Administration b. Facilities & Supplies c. Fellow Faculty d. Students

6 . What is your evaluation of the English Language Program you found in operation when you started teaching at the Lycee?

7. What modifications did you make in the English Language Program during your year(s) at the Lycee?

8 . What suggestions for improvement did you make? Were they imple­ mented? If not, why not?

9. What did you enjoy most about teaching English at the Lycee?

10. What did you enjoy least about teaching English at the Lycee?

"*'^This "Day One Questionnaire" for Premiere and Terminale stu­ dents was designed to profile the language background and English- language training of my students-to-be. These raw data are not precise for my classes as they were ultimately formed, but they do provide an approximation of the background and training of our students, generally, and of most of my students, in particular. ((N=lll(?)))

1. How long have you studied English? One year or less 2 Two years 5 Three years 11 Four years 40 Five years 40 Six years or more 16

2. Areyou studying English outside of class? Yes 21 No 90

If yes, where? LAA 17 Lao-English School 1 125

(Footnote 15, "Day One Questionnaire" Continued)

3. What was the last English textbook you used? Practice and Progress 42 Fluency in English 37 Developing Skills 14 Let's Learn English 3 L*Anglais par 1*illustration 2 L1Anglais par la litterature 1 L1Anglais par lfaction 1 English 900 1 Situational English, Book I 1 Basic English 1 Heritage of Freedom 1 U.S.A.: A Self-Portrait 1

4. Are you repeating this class? Yes 11 No 101

5. What other languages do you speak? French 105 Lao 82 Vietnamese 32 Thai 17 Chinese 10 Spanish 10 Cambodian 5 Russian 4 German 4 Italian 2 Tamil 1

6. What is your best language? French 38 Lao 27 Vietnamese 17 English 4 Chinese 2 Cambodian 1 German 1 Spanish 1

7. How do you rate your English? Good 8 Fair 59 Poor 39 126

■^The core of this collection came from the USIS library store­ room, where a shipment of removed-from-Cambodia TEFL Exhibit books was discovered by the 1973-1974 Fulbrighters during the course of an orientation to USIS resources.

"^The materials that we prepared for our workshop, as well as all the materials prepared for all the other workshops, were distri­ buted to all Seminar participants so that they could take back to their individual schools the entire range of TEFL techniques being implemented throughout the Kingdom. BIBLIOGRAPHY I

SELECTED READINGS ON LAOS

The books listed in this bibliography are almost all English-

language sources, Many French-language sources, as well as Dutch and

German sources, are to be found in the Bibliography of Rene de Berval's

Kingdom of Laos, the best one-volume work on Laos that I have found.

What French-language sources are cited here were either published after

Kingdom of Laos or else were not noted in that book. Hundreds of addi­

tional French- and English-language sources can be located in the

general bibliographies I have included below.

Note: Unless marked by underlining, all ESP, IVS, MOE, RLG,

UNESCO, USAID, and USOM documents are (probably) mimeographed.

"A Basic Report on the Economy of Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1966.

About Laos. Washington, D.C.: Royal Embassy of Laos, 1957.

* Adams, Nina S. and Alfred W. McCoy. Laos: War and Revolution. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

Agriculture of French Indo-China. Washington, D.C.: Department of Agriculture, 1950.

"American Cooperation with Laos: A Vital Link in the Chain of Mutual Security." Vientiane: USOM, 1959.

American Women's Club of Laos. Welcome to Laos: A Practical Guide. (rev. ed.) Vientiane: Imprimerie Nationale, 1970.

Arbuckle, Tammy. "Economy of Laos Scarred by War." The New York Times. January 20, 1967.

127 128

Banyen Phimmasone Levy. "Yesterday and Today in Laos: A Girl's Auto­ biographical Notes." Selection in Barbara S. Ward, ed., Women in the New Asia. Paris: UNESCO, 1963.

Barney, G. L. Christianity: Innovation in Meo Culture: A Case Study in Missionization. University of Minnesota Thesis, 1957.

Basic Data on the Economy of Laos. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce, 1958.

Beau, Paul. Situation de l'Indochine de 1902 a 1907. Saigon: Imprimerie Commerciale Marcellin Rey, 1908.

Berval, Rene de, ed. Kingdom of Laos. Saigon: France-Asie, 1959.

Bock, Carl. Temples and Elephants: The Narrative of a Journey of Exploration through Upper Siam and Lao. London: 1884.

Boun Than Sinavong. Agrarian Rites in Laos. Bangkok: Ninth Pacific Science Conference, 1957.

* Branfman, Fred. "Report on a Village Study in Laos." Vientiane: IVS, 1967.

______. Voices from the Plain of Jars. New York: Colophon Books, 1971.

Brimmel, J. E. Communism in Southeast Asia: A Political Analysis. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. (See especially Chapter 4.)

Broderick, A. H. Little China: The Annamese Lands. London: 1942.

_ . Little Vehicle: Cambodia and Laos. London: 1949.

* Burchett, Wilfred. Furtive War: The United States in Vietnam and Laos. Hanoi: 1963.

______. Mekong Upstream. Hanoi: 1957.

Cady, John F. Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia. Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press.

______. Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.

Carlson, Jerry S. "Moral Development of Lao Children." International Journal of Psychiatry, (Vol. 8, No. 1) 1973.

* Chalermnit Press Correspondent. Battle of Vientiane of 1960. Bangkok: Chalermnit Press, 1961. Cheplo, Nandor J. Basic Data on the Economy of Laos. Washington, D.C Department of Commerce, 1964.

Compton, Carol. "Some Lao Customs and Habits." Vientiane: IVS; March 23, 1967.

"Cooperation for Peace and Prosperity, Laos-America." Vientiane: USOM 1957.

Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization, (rev. ed.) New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971.

Dooley, Thomas A. Deliver Us From Evil. New York: Farrar & Straus, 1960.

______. The Edge of Tomorrow. New York: Farrar & Straus, 1960.

______. The Night They Burned the Mountain. New York: Farrar & Straus, 1960.

Economic Survey of Asia and the Far East. 1955-1962. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963.

Embree, John F. "Visit to Laos, French Indochina." Bulletin of the Washington Academy of Sciences. (Vol. XXXIX) 1949, pp. 149-157.

______and W. L. Thomas. Ethnic Groups of Northern Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950.

Ennis, Thomas E. French Policy and Development in Indochina. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1936.

Facts on Foreign Aid to Laos. Vientiane: USAID, 1971.

Facts on Foreign Aid to Laos. (2nd ed.) Vientiane: USAID, 1973.

Fall, Bernard B. "International Relations of Laos." Pacific Affairs, March, 1957.

. "The Pathet Lao— A 'Liberation' Party." Selection in Robert A. Scalapino, ed., The Communist Revolution in Asia, (rev. ed.) Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969.

Fink, Raymond. Information and Attitudes in Laos. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Social Science Research, 1959.

Fitzgerald, C. P. China and Southeast Asia Since 1945. Hong Kong: Longman, 1973. 130

"Foreign Aid: The Human Touch." The New York Times. (Magazine Section) April 20, 1958.

Garrett, W. E. "No Place to Run: The Hmoung of Laos." National Geo­ graphic, (Vol. 145, No. 1) January, 1974. pp. 78-111.

Gettleman, Marvin E. and Susan, and Lawrence and Carol Kaplan. Conflict in Indochina: A Reader on the Widening War in Laos and Cambodia. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Gilkey, Robert. "Laos: Politics, Elections, and Foreign Aid." Far East Survey. June, 1958.

Ginsburg, Norton S. Area Handbook on Laos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.

______. The Pattern of Asia. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1961.

Halpern, Joel Martin. Aspects of Village Life and Culture Changes in Laos. Washington, D.C.: Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs, 1958.

______. "Economic Development and American Aid in Laos." Practical Anthropology. 1959.

______. Economy and Society of Laos. (Monograph Series No. 5) New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964.

______. Government. Politics, and Social Structure in Laos. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1964.

______. Laos Profiles. (Laos Project Paper No. 18) Los Angeles: University of California, 1961.

______. The Lao Elite. Santa Monica, California: The Rand Corporation, 1960.

______. "Trade Patterns on Northern Laos," Eastern Anthropologist. 1958, No. 2.

Hickey, C. G. Area Handbook on Laos. (Human Relations Area Files Monograph No. 23) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955.

Hobbs, Cecil. Southeast Asia, 1935-1945: A Selected List of Reference Books. Washington, D.C.: 1946.

Holloway, A. H. "Basic Data for Planning a Public Health Program in the Kingdom of Laos." Vientiane: USOM, 1951. 131

Hutchinson, E. W. "Silhouettes of Indo-China: Cambodia and Laos, the Link with Siam." Asiatic Review. (Vol. XLII) 1946. pp. 87-90.

Iche, Francois. Le Status Politique et International du Laos Francais: Sa Condition Juruduque dans la Communaute du Droit des Gens. Toulouse: Imprimerie Moderne, 1935.

Indochina. A Bibliograpy of the Land and People. Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1950.

Indochina: Selected List of References. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Widener Library.

Janse, 0. R. T. The Peoples of French Indochina. (Smithsonian Insti­ tution War Background Studies No. 19) Washington, D.C.: June, 1944.

Johnson, Curtis. The Laos of North Siam. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1903.

Jullapram, Colonel Surapon. War of the Three Princes of Laos. (In Thai) Bangkok: Prae Pittaya, 1962.

Kaufman, K. H. "Lao Village Life." Vientiane: USOM, 1957.

______. "Village Life in Vientiane Province," Vientiane: USOM, 1956.

Kene, Theo. Bibliographie du Laos. Vientiane: Comite Litteraire Lao, 1958.

Kennedy, H. G. "Report of an Expedition made into Southern Laos and Cambodia in the early part of the year 1806." Journal of the Royal Geographic Society. 1867.

* Kirk, Donald L. Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. New York: Praeger Publications, 1971.

Kunstadter, Peter, ed. Southeast Asian Tribes. Minorities, and Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967. (See especially Vol. I, Part V)

La Font, Pierre Bernard. Biliographie du Laos. Paris: Ecole Francaise D*extreme-Orient, 1964.

"La Revue Francaise Presente Le Laos." La Revue Francaise de I 1Elite Europeene, (October, 1967) No. 203.

Lancaster, Donald. Emancipation of French Indo-China. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. 132

Langer, Paul F. Laos: Preparing for a Settlement in Vietnam, P-4024, Rand Corporation. February, 1969.

* ______and Joseph J. Zasloff. North Vietnam and the Pathet Lao— Partners in the Struggle for Laos. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Larteguy, Jean. The Bronze Drums. New York: Alfred A. Knopf & Co., 1967.

LeBar, Frank M. and Adrienne Suddhard, eds. Laos, Its People, Its Society, Its Culture. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1960.

Leerburger, Franklin J. "Laos: Case Study of U.S. Foreign Aid." Foreign Policy Bulletin, January, 1959.

Legendre, Sidney J. Land of the White Parasol and the Million Elephants; a Journey Through the Jungles of Indo-China. New York: 1936.

Levi, Sylvain, ed. Indochine. Paris: Societe d*Editions Geographiques, Maritimes, et Coloniales, 1931.

MacGilvary, Daniel. Half Century among the Siamese and the Lao. New York: 1912.

* McCoy, Alfred W. et.al. The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

McKeithen, Edwin T. "Life Under the Pathet Lao in the Xieng Khouang Ville Area." Vientiane: USAID, 1969.

Manich, M. L. History of Laos. New York: Paragon Books Reprint Corp., 1967.

Mathieu, A. R. Chronological Table of the History of Laos. Paris: France-Asie Press, 1959.

Maynard, Paul J. and Palachard Kraiboon. Evaluation Study of the Muong Phieng Cluster Area. Bangkok: Thai Watana Panich Press Co., Ltd., 1969.

Meeker, Oden. Little World of Laos. New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1959.

Menger, Matt J. In the Valiev of the Mekong. Paterson, New Jersey: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1970.

______. Slowly Climbs the Sun. New York: Twin Circle Publish­ ing Company, 1973. 133

Mills, Lennox A. Southeast Asia. Illusion and Reality in Politics and Economics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1964.

Mirsky, Jonathan and Stephen E. Stonefield. "The United States in Laos, 1945-1962." Selection in Friedman, Edward and Mark Selden, eds., America's Asia. New York: Pantheon Books, 1971.

Morris, Terry. Doctor America. New York: Hawthorn Books.

Mutual Security Program in Laos. (House Committee on Foreign Affairs) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Na Champassak, Sisouk. Storm Over Laos: A Contemporary History. New York: Praeger & Co., 1961.

"Note on the Principles and Conditions Governing the Implementation of a Rural Development Programme in a country, such as Laos, Em­ barking on its Economic and Social Development." Bangkok: UNESCO, 1959.

O'Ballance, Edgar. Indo-China War. 1945-1954. Faber: 1967.

Oganesoff, Igor. "Living it Up in Laos." The Wall Street Journal. April 9, 1958.

Pietrantoni, Eric. "La population du Laos en 1943 dans son milieu geographique." Bulletin de la Societe des etudes Indochines, (Vol. XXXIII, No. 3) 1957.

Poindexter, Hildrus. "Epidemilogical Data on Laos." Vientiane: USOM, 1955.

______. "Some Observations on Major Health Problems in Laos." Vientiane: USOM, 1955.

Presence du Royaume Lao. Saigon: France-Asie, 1956.

Prokopov, V. and B. Bapshov. "The Laotian People's National Liberation Struggle." International Affairs, June, 1970.

Rapports au Grand Conseil des Interets Economiques et Financiers et au Conseil du Gouvernement. (Major French Government Journal for Indochina) Paris.

Reinach, Lucien de. Notes sur le Laos. Paris: Viubert et Nany, 1906.

Report on Indochina. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1954. 134

Robequain, Charles. Economic Development ot French Indochina. London: Oxford University Press, 1944.

Roberts, T. D. et.al. Area Handbook for Laos. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967.

Royal Lao Government. "North Vietnamese Interference in Laos." Vientiane: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1964.

Sahni, J. N. Across the Twentieth Parallel. A Narrative Study of the Countries of Southeast Asia and Australia. New Delhi: 1954.

Sardeso, D. R. Indian Foreign Policy in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, 1947-1964. Berkeley: California University Press, 1968.

* Schanche, Don A. Mr. Pop. New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1970.

Sithat Sithiboum. Biographies des Personalites du Royaume du Laos. Vientiane: Lao Presse, 1960.

Smalley, William A. "Gospel and Cultures of Laos." Practical Anthro­ pology. (No. 3) 1956.

Southeast Asia. An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Reference Sources. Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1952.

Stanton, Edwin F. " 'Presence’ in Laos." Current History. (No. 226) 1960.

* Strong, Anna Louise. Cash and Violence in Laos and Vietnam. New York: Mainstream Publishers, 1968.

* Tanham, George K. Communist Revolutionary Warfare: The Vietminh in Indochina. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1961.

The Far Eastern Quarterly. (Vol. VI, No. 4) August, 1947.

"The Foreign Exchange Operations Fund for Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1970.

The Kingdom of Laos, Land of Enchantment in Southeast Asia. (rev. ed.) Washington, D.C.: Royal Embassy of Laos, 1961.

* Thee, Marek. Notes of a Witness: Laos and the Second Indochinese War. New York: Random House, 1973.

Thompson, Virginia. French Indochina. New York: MacMillan Company, 1942.

______and Richard Adloff. "Laos, Background of Invasion." Far East Survey. May, 1953. 135

Thompson, Virginia and Richard Adloff. Minority Problems in Southeast Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1955.

* Toye, Hugh. Laos— Buffer State or Battleground? London: Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 1968.

United States Aid Operations in Laos. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1959.

U.S. Economic Assistance to the Royal Lao Government, 1962-1972. Vientiane: USAID; December, 1972.

U.S. Exports to Laos. 1962-1964. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce, 1965.

Vercoutre, Claude. "L'Economie du Laos." Vientiane: 1960.

Viravong, Maha Sila. History of Laos. New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corporation, 1964.

* Vongvichit, Phoui. Laos and the Victorious Struggle of the Lao People Against American Neo-colonialism. Paris: Neo Lao Hak Sat Edi­ tions, 1968.

* WoIfkill, Grant. Reported to be Alive. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965.

Yves, Henry. Gouvernement General de l'Indochine. Hanoi: Imprimerie de 1'Extreme-Orient, 1943.

* Zasloff, Joseph J. The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization. London: D. C. Heath and Company, 1973. BIBLIOGRAPHY II

READINGS AND DOCUMENTS ON EDUCATION IN LAOS

Although I worked alone to search out and systematically order

the items included in this listing of materials relating to education

in Laos, I acknowledge with deep gratitude the valued assistance of

the following persons.

Mr. Stephen Ford, IVS Administrative Officer Mr. Norman Green, USAID/EDUCATION Chief Mr. Howard Hardy, USIS Cultural Affairs Officer Dr. Gertrude Kazlov, ESP Fulbright Lecturer Mrs. Penelope Khounta, LAA Director of Courses Dr. Lawrence J. Levy, AACTE Curriculum/Higher Education Consultant to USAID/LAOS Mrs. Pinhkham Simmalavong, ESP English Section Director Mr. Philip Rudge, ESP British Council Expert Mrs. Viengsay Luangkhot, MOE Director of External Relations

As with Bibliography I, this enumeration is not intended to be definitive. The areas least comprehensively treated are those of MOE departmental directives and USAID reports.* However, this partial delimitation of depth does not substantially detract from the value of this compilation as a viable core bibliography on education in Laos.

Note: Unless marked by underlining, all ESP, IVS, MOE, RLG,

UNESCO, USAID, and USOM documents are (probably) mimeographed.

*The best source of information on materials in these two areas is the May, 1973, report of Dr. Lawrence J. Levy, which contains, in part, an extraordinary bibliography on MOE and USAID documents.

136 137

"A Recommendation Regarding Language and Language Training." Vientiane: ESP, 1972.

An English Syllabus for the First Cycle (5th-7th year) of the English Section of L'Ecole Superieure de Pedaeogie. Vientiane: ESP; February, 1973.

Andrus, Russell J. "Projections of Costs for Elementary Education, 1965-1980." Vientiane: USAID, 1966.

Annual Report: 1958-1959. Ann Arbor, Michigan: SEAREP, 1959.

Annual Report: 1959-1960. Ann Arbor, Michigan: SEAREP, 1960.

Annual Report: 1960-1961. Ann Arbor, Michigan: SEAREP, 1961.

Anoulack, Sisouk. Supplementary Material on the Dialogues in First Things First, units thirty-seven to seventy-two. Singapore: RELC, 1973.

Barnett, Stanley A., Emerson L. Brown, and David Kaser. Developmental Book Activities and Needs in Laos. New York: Wolf Management Services, 1967.

Beyda, Henry. "Information on Lao Students Abroad." Vientiane: USAID, 1972.

Bilavam, Phonesvan. Techniques for Using Pictures in Guided Composi­ tion for Beginning Students of English in Laos. Singapore: RELC, 1971.

Bilodeau, Charles, Somlith Phathammavong, and Le Quang Hong. Compulsory Education in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Switzerland: UNESCO, 1955.

Blessing, R. F. "Recommendations for First Year English." Vientiane: ESP, 1968.

Bollinger, W. "Goals of USAID Education." Vientiane: USAID, 1965.

Bounnong, Thipphaawong. An Analysis of the Social and Educational Systems of Laos in View of Establishing Teacher Education in Agriculture for Elementary School Teachers. Michigan State University Ph.D. Dissertation, 1966.

Bounthong. "Report on the Status of Reading and Follow-up Materials in Laos." Bangkok: UNESCO, 1968.

Branfman, Fred. "Education in Laos Today: A Rather Elegant Form of Mass Hara Kari." Vientiane: IVS; February 10, 1968. 138

Brindley, David H. "More Further Suggestions for an English Syllabus for the English Section, Dong Dok." Vientiane: ESP, 1972.

Brindley, Thomas A. "American Education Efforts in Laos." The Educa­ tion Forum. (Vol. XXXIV, No. 3) March, 1970. pp. 365-370.

Butler, Lucius. "Lao Educational Statistics: Selected Statistical Tables Dealing with the Royal Lao Government Ministry of Educa­ tion for the Period Between 1962 and 1972." (Information Draft Copy) Vientiane: USAID, 1973.

______. "Lao Secondary Education Enrollment Review." Malaysian Journal of Education. (Vol. 9, No. 1) June, 1972.

______. "Secondary Education Growth Factors in a Developing Nation: A Review of the Kingdom of Laos." (Pre-Publication Draft) Vientiane: USAID, 1972.

______. "Secondary School Teacher Career Ladder Program" Vientiane: USAID, 1972.

Chamberlain, James L. A Generative Approach to Tone in Vientiane Lao. Michigan State University M.A. Thesis, 1969.

Chandler, James B. "Teaching and Learning in Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1973.

Chanthala, Khamtanh. The Policy of Secondary Education in Laos. Dis­ sertation Presented for 3rd Cycle Degree at the University of Paris, 1972.

Chartrant, Georges. Laos: Development of Libraries. Paris: UNESCO; March 1, 1967.

Chittavoravong, Saly. Analysis of Problem Areas of Lao Students of English Based on a Contrastive Study of Lao and English. Singa­ pore: RELC, 1971.

Clerck, Marcel de. "Functional Literacy as an Investment." Bangkok: Mekong Secretariat, 1968.

Coyle, Joanne Marie. Indochinese Administration and Education: French Policy and Practice. 1917-1945. Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Ph.D. Thesis, 1963.

"Curriculum Outline— 1972-1973— English Section, Ecole Superieure de Pedagogie." Vientiane: ESP, 1973.

Decornoy, Jacques. "Where is America?" Far Eastern Economic Review. August 15, 1968. "Diagram of Lao National School System." Vientiane: USAID, 1973.

Douglas, Robert H. "Five Year Plan For Vocational Education in Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1973.

Dunlap, Harold J. "A Brief Guide to Some Readers Used in Teaching English in Laos," Vientiane: IVS, 1972.

Durnbaugh, Linda. "Overview of the Fifth Year Intensive Course of the English Section of the Ecole Superieure de Pedagogie." Vientiane ESP, 1973.

"Education Development 1962-1972." Vientiane: USAID, 1972.

"Education in Laos; Report of the UNESCO Mission." Bangkok: UNESCO, 1957.

"Educational Development in Laos: Non-Capital Project Paper." Vientiane USAID, 1969.

Educational Investment in the Pacific Community. Washington, D.C.: AACTE, 1963.

"Educational Materials Production Project." Vientiane: USAID, 1965.

Educational Technology and the Developing Countries: A Handbook. (Draft Copy) Washington, D.C.: USAID, 1972.

Emling, Marjorie Elaine. The Education System in Laos During the French Protectorate. 1893 to 1945. Cornell University M.A. Thesis, 1969

English Language Programs of the Agency for International Development. Washington, D.C.: Department of State, 1967.

Final Report: SEAREP Regional Conference. Bangkok: SEAREP; April 25- 30, 1960.

"First Examination for the Lao Baccalaureat: June 10." Lao Presse. May 16, 1968.

"For the First Time, a Lao Principal at the Lycee of Pakse." Lao Presse. August 23, 1972.

Frans, J. J. A. Laos: Adult Education and Plural-Language Vocabularies. Paris: UNESCO; October, 1968.

Furnival, J. S. Educational Progress in Southeast Asia. New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1943. 140

Graham, Marilyn. "Report on the Lycee de Vientiane." (Report of the Second National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos) Vientiane: MOE, 1971.

Green, Norman W. "ESP English Section and English Language Training in Laos." Vientiane: USAID; February 20, 1970.

Hall, Ralph H. "Curriculum: English Section, Ecole Superieure de Pedagogie." Vientiane: USAID, 1967.

______. "Goals for Teacher Training." Vientiane: USAID, 1967.

______. "Laotian Degree Conferring Institution." Vientiane: USAID, 1967.

______. "Student Records from Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1967.

______. "Teacher Training in Laos: Overview and Goals.” Vientiane: USAID, 1968.

Halpern, Joel M. and Marilyn Clark Tinsman. "Education and Nation Building in Laos." Comparative Education Review, October, 1966.

Hamblin, F. N. "Survey on Manpower Assessment and Educational Planning in Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1965.

Harris, Douglas W. "Planning of Practical Arts and Art Program at the National Education Center." Vientiane: USAID, 1960.

Hayden, Howard. Higher Education and Development in Southeast Asia. (2 Vols.) Paris: UNESCO and International Association of Universities, 1967.

Heath, Kathryn G. Ministries of Education: Their Functions and Organi­ zation (Laos). Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962.

Hoshall, C. Earle. "Developing a College of Education in Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1969.

Huq, Muhammad Shamsul. Education and Development Strategy in South and Southeast Asia. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1965.

Inthavong, Thonglouy. Supplementary Materials for Adapting Situational English, Books I. II, III for use in Laos. Singapore: RELC, 1972. 141

Inversin, Allen R. "Report on a Visit to the Regional Centre for Educa­ tion in Science and Mathematics (RECSAM) and The Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST) and its Relevance to the Higher Secondary Level Physics Curriculum in Laos." Vientiane: IVS, 1972.

Johnson, Ras Oliver. "A Study of Education in Laos." Vientiane: USOM, 1956.

Jones, A. M. "Outline of Course 1973-1974." (Social Studies Methods) Vientiane: ESP, 1973.

Kaser, David, C. Walter Stone, and Cecil K. Byrd. Library Development in Eight Asian Countries. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1969.

Kazlov, Gertrude. "Final Report: Fulbright Lectureship to Laos, 1973- 1974." Vientiane: USIS, 1974.

______. "Interim Report: Fulbright Lectureship to Laos, 1973- 1974." Vientiane: USIS, 1974.

Kene, Thao. "A National Library and Museum System for Laos." Vientiane: 1958.

Khammao, Tiao Anouvong. Reading Comprehension Passages for Second Year in Lao Secondary Schools. Singapore: RELC, 1972.

Khamphao, Phonekeo. "Literacy Drive in Laos." Vientiane: MOE, 1966.

______. "Literacy in Laos." Bulletin of the UNESCO Re­ gional Office for Education in Asia, (Vol. V, No. 2) March, 1971. pp. 46-50.

______. "Literacy Training in Laos." Vientiane: MOE, 1969.

______, ed. Rapport Statistique de l'Enseignement Primaire. Vientiane: MOE, 1964.

. Report on Laos. Bangkok: Technical Seminar on Wastage and Student Dropouts, 1966.

La Penetration Scolaire en Pays Cambodgien et Laotian. Hanoi: Imprimerie d 1Extreme-Orient, 1931.

Langer, Paul F. Education in the Communist Zone of Laos. Santa Monica, California: The Rand Corporation, 1971.

"Laos, Secondary Education: Plan for the Training of Teachers; Struc­ tures and Programs (First Cycle)." Vientiane: MOE, 1965. "Le Lycee de Vientiane." Vientiane: MOE; March 20, 1970.

Levy, Lawrence J. "Collected Reports, No.'s 2-13." Vientiane: USAID, 1971-1973.

Lewin, Howard. "Work in Laos: Some Immediate Problems." Vientiane: IVS, 1966.

"Library Services in South-East Asia." UNESCO Bulletin for Libraries. (Vol. V) November, 1951.

"Literacy in Laos, 1967-1968." Lao Presse. October 3, 1968.

Little, Harry A. "An Address to Primary School Inspectors of Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1967.

______. "Ideas about a Reading Program for Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1967.

______. "Information on Schools of Laos, 1963." Vientiane: USAID, 1963.

______. "School Plant Operation and Maintenance." Bangkok: USOM, 1960.

Llasera, Jean. "Project to form a Lao National Pedagogical Center in Vientiane," Paris: October, 1972.

"Long-Term Projections for Education in Laos." Bangkok: UNESCO, 1965.

Lyonnet, M. "Presentation of an Activity Program for Vocational and Technical Education." Vientiane: MOE, 1966.

MacRae, Roderick. "The First Three Years: A Report on the Development of the Ecole Normale d'Instituteurs (ENI) at Pakse." Vientiane: USAID, 1965.

Marcus, Russell. "Discussion on Cluster Libraries." Vientiane: IVS, 1967.

. "Laos and Library Development." College and Research Libraries, (Vol. XXVIII) November, 1967. pp. 398-402.

"Libraries and Their Development in Laos." Vientiane IVS, 1967.

McKeithen, Edwin T. "Education Under the PL." Vientiane: USAID, 1969

Moller, A. D. "Report of a Visit to Laos." Singapore: RELC Newsletter March, 1971. 143

Morris, Sylvester. "Report on the Lycee de Vientiane." (Report of the Fourth National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos) Vientiane: MOE, 1973.

Na Champassak, Manipanh. Teaching English Pronunciation to First Year High School Students in Laos. Singapore: RELC, 1972.

Nhouyvanisvong, Liliane. "The Sociology of Rural Education in Laos." Bulletin of the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Asia, (Vol. V, No. 1) September, 1970. pp. 58-64.

Niehoff, Arthur. "Theravada Buddhism: A Vehicle for Technical Change." Human Organization, (Vol. XXIII, No. 2) Summer, 1964. pp. 108- 112.

Normington, Louis W. Teacher Education and AID. Washington D.C.: AACTE, 1970.

Noss, Richard B. "Language Policy." Higher Education and Development in Southeast Asia, (Vol. Ill, Part 2) 1965.

______. "Politics and Language Policy in Laos." Vientiane: USAID, 1972.

______. "Politics and Language Policy in Southeast Asia." Language Science, August, 1971.

"Objectives of the English Section." Vientiane: ESP, 1968.

"Official Order No. 428/ESP." (Concerning a new grading system for the ESP) Vientiane: ESP; November 23, 1973.

"Organization Chart of the MOE." Vientiane: USAID, 1973.

Parton, Michael. "Materials on Student Teaching and English Methods." Vientiane: ENV; November, 1973.

______. "Report on the Lycee de Vientiane." (Report of the Third National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos) Vientiane: MOE, 1972.

Phengratanavong, Somphone. A Contrastive Phonological Analysis of English and Lao. Singapore: RELC, 1973.

Phimmasone, Phouvong. "L'Institut Bouddhique et l’enseignement reli- gieux." France-Asie, (No. XII) March-May, 1956. pp. 1105-1109.

Phommasouvanh, Bounlieng. "A Study of the Barrio High Schools in the Phillippines and their Implication for Laos." Bangkok: UNESCO, 1971. 144

Phommasouvanh, Bounlieng. The Preparation of Teachers and Its Role In the Laosization of Public Secondary Schools. Southern Illinois University (at Carbondale) Ph.D. Dissertation, 1973.

"Position Paper of the Education Division on Education in Laos." Vientiane: USAID; January 22, 1968.

Progress in Education in the Asian Region. Bangkok: UNESCO, 1969.

Rapport de Rentree. 1972-1973. Vientiane: Office of the Proviseur of the Lycee de Vientiane, 1972.

Rattana, Bounnho. Techniques of Teaching Reading to Students of Com­ prehensive High Schools in Laos. Singapore: RELC, 1970.

"Report of the Fifth National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos, March 25-29, 1974." Vientiane: MOE, 1974.

"Report of the First National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos, January 15-17, 1970." Vientiane: MOE, 1970.

"Report of the Fourth National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos, February 7-9, 1973." Vientiane: MOE, 1973.

"Report of the Second National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos, Jauuary 5-7, 1971." Vientiane: MOE, 1971.

"Report of the Third National In-Service Seminar on English Language Teaching in Laos, February 7-9, 1972." Vientiane: MOE, 1972.

"Reports of IVS English Teachers, 1969-1974." Vientiane: IVS, 1969- 1974.**

Royal Lao Government. "A Brief Report, Year 1967-1968." Geneva: Conference on International Public Instruction; July, 1968.

A First Year English Syllabus for Laos. Vientiane: MOE, 1971.

______. Annee Scolaire. Vientiane: MOE, Issued Yearly.

______. "Bulletin de Statistique." Vientiane: MOE, Issued Semi-Annually.

**As part of my general backgrounding on English Language Teaching in Laos, I read approximately 175 of these monthly, quarterly, and end- of-term reports. IVS-provided copies of all these reports were left on file in the Fulbright Teachers' Room at USIS for the ready reference of any interested person. 145

Royal Lao Government. "Document on Laos." Israel: Conference on Science and Education In Lesser Developed Countries; August, 1969.

______. "Education in Laos— Its Problems and Its Future." La Revue Francaise, October, 1967.

______. "Explanation of the 1962 Education Reform Act." Vientiane: MOE; July 12, 1962.

______. Historical Development of Secondary Schools in the Kingdom of Laos. Vientiane: MOE, Undated. (In French)

"Laos Secondary Education." Vientiane: MOE, 1965.

______. "Ministerial Decree 11/ED."*** (Concerning the Curriculum of The Institute of Buddhist Studies) Vientiane: MOE; January 4, 1964.

______. "Ministerial Decree 27/ED." (Concerning Recruit­ ment of Normal School Students from Ethnic Minorities) Vientiane: MOE; March 13, 1973.

______. "Ministerial Decree 50/ED." (Concerning Modifi­ cations and Additions to Ministerial Decree 803/ED of December 29, 1967) Vientiane: MOE; January 16, 1969.

______. "Ministerial Decree 139/ED." (Concerning Guide­ lines for Recruitment to and Graduation from the First and Second Cycles of the ESP, and Abrogating Ministerial Decree 1002/ED of December 11, 1963, Effective the 1973-74 School Year) Vientiane: MOE; February 12, 1973.

______. "Ministerial Decree 140/ED." (Concerning the Establishment of the ENV) Vientiane: MOE; February 12, 1973.

______. "Ministerial Decree 426/ED." (Concerning the Establishment and Functions of the Inspectors of Primary Educa­ tion) Vientiane: MOE; May 31, 1972.

***Ministerial Decrees, Presidential Decrees, and Royal Decrees have been listed numerically rather than chronologically because the numbering systems employed by the RLG describe no apparent pattern. Furthermore, it is suspected that some Decrees have probably been misnumbered. Perhaps an archivist/bibliographer will one day be able to compile a complete and accurate listing of all such docu­ ments. 146

Royal Lao Government. "Ministerial Decree 496/ED." (Concerning the Abrogation of Ministerial Decree 437/ED of June 8, 1972, Dealing with the Requirements for Degrees Awarded at the end of the First and Second Cycles of the ESP) Vientiane: MOE; June 15, 1973.

______. "Ministerial Decree 562/ED." (Concerning Student Allowances for 1972-1973) Vientiane: MOE; August 31, 1972.

______. "Ministerial Decree 648/ED." (Concerning Place­ ment of the English Section under the ENV) Vientiane: MOE; August 8, 1973.

______. "Ministerial Decree 699/ED." (Concerning Crea­ tion of the Second Cycle, ESP, Lao Language Section) Vientiane: MOE; September 12, 1972.

______. "Ministerial Decree 803/ED." (Concerning the Tests, Coefficients, and Durations of the Terminale Baccalaureat Examinations, Series A-D) Vientiane: MOE; December 29, 1967.

______. "Ministerial Decree 2543/ED." (Concerning Scholarships) Vientiane: MOE; October 16, 1972.

______. "Ministerial Letter 37/EDU." (Concerning Further Explanation of the Implementation of the 1962 Education Reform Act) Vientiane: MOE; April 4, 1973.

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