On November 11^th, 2022, Victoria Thang Long Primary & Secondary School and the representative of Cengage group had had a successful meeting about academic topics related to the textbooks and other resources in teaching Language Arts.

On the school’s side, present at the meeting were the Board of Directors and the experts from the Research & Development Department. The meeting was also graced with the presence of Mr. Andrew Tiffany – Cengage’s Senior Academic Consultant, who had over 25 years of experience in education; 15 years of those were in Asia. Mr. Tiffany had previously helped coach the teachers and managers of Victoria Thang Long School both online and offline since its early days, as well as advised the school in teaching materials for Language Arts.

The atmosphere of the meeting was very vibrant as the academic managers shared about what the students had achieved after engaging in the Language Arts program. Their awards from national and international competitions were the fruits of their efforts as well as the teachers’ dedication in Language Arts over the last 4 years. Mr. Tiffany was happy and congratulated the school on not only their achievements, but also the improvement in lessons and materials designing, teaching and managing. He was especially impressed with the students’ enhancement in both academic and communicative English usage of students. The difficulties in the process of teaching Language Arts were thoroughly discussed in order to for the publisher and the school to compose effective solutions together. With the school’s academic foundation and the support of Cengage, the school’s leaders were confident that would make even greater leaps in teaching and learning Language Arts.

In the next part of the meeting, Mr. Tiffany introduced to the teachers of Victoria Thang Long Reach Higher, the revised versions of Reach. As such, these textbooks had experienced updates that were geared towards Asian students. Specifically, Reach Higher had incorporated Phonics and added more reading passages with various cultural backgrounds (not just American culture oriented), which would certainly help students in global integrating during their higher educations.

For grade 1 students, Cengage had additionally designed the textbook Reach for the Stars. The textbook was a combination of phonics, reading comprehension, academic writing but still at a suitable level for grade 1 students. The textbook was composed to help better develop students’ language foundation and prepare them for academic English in the next educational stages.

After considering and evaluating the new textbooks as well as the adjustments in Reach Higher, Asso. Prof., Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngan Hoa, the principal of the school, had decided to start using Reach for the Stars for grade 1 CCS and Reach Higher for grade 6 CCS from the school year of 2023-2024.

Cengage also emphasized that they would continue assisting and supporting the school in training teachers and academic experts, as well as advising the school building curriculums and exams befitting the Common Core Standard.

With these timely updates from the school and Cengage, there is little doubt that the students and teachers of Victoria Thang Long School would achieve even greater accomplishments in the future.