Hanoi (VNA) – An association in France has maintained the Vietnamese language teaching for over the past three decades, helping promote the Vietnamese culture in the European country.

The French-Vietnamese Friendship Association in Bordeaux city organises about five such classes each year with some 50 students, both adults and children.

Others like the Lien Viet Association, the Catholic Association, and the Lien Hoa Pagoda have also offered charity courses on the Vietnamese language and culture mainly for Vietnamese children in Bordeaux and adjacent neighbourhoods.

Aware of the increasing demand as Bordeaux is home to a large number of Vietnamese people, the Bordeaux Montaigne University has included the language into its curriculum.

Antoine Ertlé, Director of the Centre for the Study of Foreign Languages, French and Francophone (CLEFF) at the university, said the centre wants to step up cooperation programmes with Vietnamese schools in student exchange.

The Vietnam Association in the UK (VAUK) and VietSchool London under the Vietnamese Family Partnership (VEP) on September 8 opened an online Vietnamese language course as part of their efforts in preserving Vietnamese identities among Vietnamese in the country, especially those born and growing up there.

With 12 such classes opened three days per week, the VietSchool London now offers training to 130 students.

Meanwhile, the VAUK has coordinated with the Liaison with Overseas Vietnamese (ALOV) and the University of Languages and International Studies under the Vietnam National University, Hanoi, in building a Vietnamese language teaching programme for OVs.

Launched in June, the online programme has attracted up to 350 students with both language teaching and trips to the homeland.

EV360online, an online Vietnamese language teaching centre for children in the UK and Europe, has inspired the kids to learn their mother tongue through diverse activities, benefiting some 300 children aged 4-17.

Besides, public organisations in the UK have organised an array of activities for the over 120,000-strong Vietnamese community in the country to preserve the language.

In Taiwan (China), Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, a teacher of Vietnamese at the National Taiwan University, who is also the author and co-author of many books on the Vietnamese language and culture published in Taiwan and China, said the first Vietnamese language classes were opened at the university 16 years ago, each with 3-4 students.

Given the shortage of teaching documents at that time, Huong decided to compile them herself with the first published about eight years later, receiving the warm response of learners.

Huong has also participated in training teachers of Vietnamese as in 2019 Taiwan officially introduced the language, together with seven others, into its primary schools.

She has also worked for the Vietnamese news department of Public Television Service (PTS), the leading public service broadcaster in Taiwan, and participated in many forums where she has inspired students to learn their mother tongue.

The Vietnamese language is now a major at more than ꦿ40 universities in Taiwan. There are 272,000 Vietnamese workers in Taiwan, about 120,000 Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese, and over 27,000 Vietnamese students there./.