(VOVworld) – History teacher Truong Chau Giang who teaches at Nguyen Tri Phuong secondary school in Hanoi, has found innovative ways to make her lessons more appealing to students. Each of her lessons is tied to specific sites and stories to make them easy to remember. Thu Hien reports:

Students at Nguyen Tri Phuong secondary school won 2 first prizes and 5 second prizes in a history contest organized by the Ministry of Education and Training in February. This was the only secondary school in Hanoi to win an “Outstanding collective” designation in the contest. The students’ entries were presented on traditional Vietnamese materials: do (poonah) paper and bamboo blocks. The principal of Nguyen Tri Phuong school Pham Thi Huong Giang said this achievement was in large part due to teacher Truong Chau Giang: “Giang’s teaching methods are innovative. She makes history lessons less dry and more illustrative. She has inspired her students with a passion for history.”

Teacher Giang has liked history since she was a little girl, collecting and reading articles and stories about Vietnam’s generals and national heroes. After high school, she passed the entrance exam to the Hanoi National University of Education 1 and chose to study history. Giang found that the traditional way of teaching history, which makes students memorize, is boring and ineffective so she decided to change it to make history more appealing. It was difficult in the beginning for Giang to get support from her colleagues who argued that her way of teaching was in no way better. Giang did not give up. She carried on with support from the school’s board of directors. At first she managed to get approximately 20 students interested in history and then the passion for history gradually spread among all the students. Other history teachers also started to like her lessons. Giang said: “History teaches students many things. In the current context, if we don’t pay due attention to history, I think social morality will decline. That concerns me a lot so I’ve always tried to stir a passion for history in each of my students. My method is to link the lessons with specific stories, presented by the students.”

Giang’s lessons include field trips to historical places and meetings with historical witnesses. For example, on the death anniversary of General Vo Nguyen Giap, she organized a visit by her students to pay tribute to him at his house on Hoang Dieu street in Hanoi. There, the students were briefed on the General’s revolutionary life and historical landmarks in the campaigns he commanded, like Dien Bien Phu.

With regard to world history, Giang tries to turn events that are difficult to remember into interesting stories. For example, when they studied World War 2, her students pretended to be war reporters and she was their Editor-in-chief, receiving information sent from battlefields. Under her guidance, the students gathered and presented information about the events they were supposed to report. This made the lesson more memorable. 6^th grader Ngo Ngu Gia Huy said: “I look forward to her history lesson every week. I’ve learned a lot from the interesting stories she tells and the field trips to historical places in which she is like a real guide. I think these trips make us closer and widen our knowledge.”

In 16 years Giang has many times won the “Excellent teacher” title, but more students wanting to study history is perhaps her biggest reward.