CREATIVE WRITING INSTRUCTION FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS: AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS IN THE CONTEXT OF CURRICULUM REFORM IN VIETNAM

Abstract

In Vietnam’s 2018 Literacy Education Curriculum Guideline, creative writing is a new requirement, emphasized for its goals of developing primary students’ language competencies, critical thinking, and problem-solving. This new requirement offers teachers an opportunity to help students enhance their writing competencies and presents a challenge, as it requires them to have specific competencies, professional development, and specific guidelines. When it comes to the current situation of creative writing instruction in primary schools, it has many limitations and requires improvement. While instructional materials significantly influence teachers’ instruction by establishing suitable educational objectives, methodologies, and contents, the coverage of contents on creative writing instruction in some reference materials is very limited, leading to confusion among teachers and ineffective practices in actual classrooms. Therefore, an in-depth analysis of some key reference documents is crucial to come up with suggestions to improve the quality of creative writing instruction in primary schools, which is the focus of this study. The findings revealed some problems with possible suggestions for the four following issues: (1) approaches for creative writing for primary students, (2) approaches for assessing students’ creative writing competencies, (3) time allocation for creative writing instruction, and (4) contents on creative writing instruction in Vietnamese Textbooks.