Olympic English contest launched

HCM City — Registration opened yesterday for the Olympic English Contest 2010 in HCM City for high school pupils who wish to practice English and gain essential skills for entering the workforce in the near future.

The three-round contest, being held jointly by Apollo English and the Department of Education and Training of HCM City, is open to 10th and 11th grade pupils from all HCM City high schools.

The first round will be held on October 10 at a high school in HCM City. Contestants will take a 100-question multiple choice test with questions spanning across various topics, such as culture, history and society.

Second round contestants will be challenged with a 50-question multiple choice test and a 50-question listening test.

The final round will include two parts: a quick Q&A session and an oral presentation session.

Khalid Muhmood, chairman of Apollo English said: "This is the first time Apollo English is holding this contest in co-ordination with HCM City's Department of Education and Training, and we are honoured to create a meaningful playground for pupils in this city. Organising this contest is one of our efforts to show our commitment to the development of Vietnamese students and to create a frequent academic playground that helps build confidence and winning results."

Contest registration is open until October 4. Pupils can register at their schools or online at http://apollo.edu.vn/olympic. — VNS

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Global video project tours Vietnam

Photo: Tuoi Tre

Project 35, an international exhibition of video works selected by 35 curators around the world, is launched by Independent Curators International (ICI) Thursday and expected to attract audiences in Hanoi, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City.

Each of the curators were invited to choose one work from an artist they think is important for audiences from around the world to experience. The resulting video selections are divided into four parts that will play over the period of one year.

The selections will also be presented simultaneously in an increasing number of venues world wide. The project, which was initiated by ICI in New York , has made its way to Vietnam thanks to San Art, the country's most active independent art space.

Project 35 celebrates ICI's 35-year life span as an organisation that connects emerging and established curators, artists and institutions, and fosters the building of international networks.

The exhibition opens with videos focusing on wide-ranging and controversial subject matter, including the uprisings and protests in post-colonial South Africa , the urban roads of modern-day HCMC, and the crime-filled streets of Bogota, Colombia .

Screenings are free and the first four screenings will take place simultaneously in Hanoi's Goethe Institute, HCMC 's Cafe Cao Minh and Hue's New Arts Space beginning at 6.30pm on Sept. 22.

The first session offers nine works, including the works of Vietnamse artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen and Ha Thuc Phu Nam , both of whom currently live and work in HCM City . The two artists were selected by HCM City-based curator and San Art director Zoe Butt.

Other artists were selected by the director of Objectif Exhibitions, Mai Abu El Dahab; the chief curator of the Mori Art Musuem in Tokyo, Mami Kataoka; an adjunct curator at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, Constance Lewallen; the artistic director of Philagrafika 2010, Jose Roca and senior lecturer and head of the Fine Arts Studio Practice in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Kathryn Smith.

The selected works will demonstrate the diversity of content and style that the single-channel video can captures, including You Tube-style narrative to documentary format to clay-mation to digital animation. The videos show a variety of approaches from creating performance installations to reformatting a Walt Disney classic.

The project has already been screened in Albania , Mexico , Sweden and the US among others, and will continue to expand as more venues and chapters in the video series emerge. The project is expected to screen in 19 countries over the course of 2010 and 2011.
 

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Rung celebrates 50 years of painting

A visitor looks at a nude painting by artist Rung at Tu Do Gallery in HCMC- Photo: My Tran

A painting exhibition by artist Rung will open at Tu Do Galley, 53 Ho Tung Mau Street in HCMC’s District 1 on Thursday, to mark his half century of painting.

The exhibition will feature 16 oil paintings on canvas, a pottery work, a print of painting that was produced in 1965 but since lost and 17 photos of paintings by the artist from 1986 to 1991.

This exhibition displays works from Rung’s exhibition last year “Thanksgiving for Woman”. Works include nudes, flowers and fields of dreaming with rainbows and clouds.

Viewers will see many images of female nudes flying through scenes of stars, gardens and vaporous spaces.

“Women’s beauty is always my big inspiration. Their beauty makes me fly and urges me to paint to express my admiration, my love, my respect and my passion for women,” said Rung.

War is also another inspiration for Rung, not only in paintings, but also in most of his stories published in the U.S.

Rung said he plans to open a class in HCMC to teach people how to use colors to relax, to enjoy their hobby, and express their emotions . “People have a lot of ways to relax and express their feelings such as singing, playing piano, cooking but they do not know that using colors is also an ideal way to bare the emotion.” The painter, who held his first exhibition in 1960, added that 50 years is a long time to live but is very short for the arts, so he will continue to paint and to write until the last breath.

Born in 1942, Rung was born Nguyen Tuan Khanh. Since his first show, he has had 21 solo exhibitions and joined 30 group exhibitions in Vietnam and abroad. Rung has held about eight solo exhibitions in Vietnam. He has lived in California since 1994.

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SHTP donates English study aids to school

The Saigon High-Tech Park (SHTP) on Monday donated English study aids to Long Thanh My Elementary Schools in District 9.

It included about 500 books, CDs, games and posters for English study.

Long Thanh My School will use the donation to hold English story telling contests, karaoke singing in English, creative club and English film screenings.

The donation was a SHTP social activity under this year’s “For a developed and happy community” program, to assist education of local students and to mark the park’s eighth anniversary on October 24.

Hotel Equatorial brings joy to kids and oldies

On the occasion of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Hotel Equatorial HCMC on Monday visited homeless old people and children at Thanh Loc Center in HCMC’s District 12.

The hotel team together with the hotel’s ambassadors, supermodel Ha Anh and actor Chi Bao, brought food, moon cakes and lanterns to organize a warm Mid-Autumn Festival for the elderly and children there. Established since 2006, the center is home to 279 disabled old people and 63 disabled children from 3 to 18 years old.

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MoET, British Council launch website for teachers

The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) in cooperation with the UK’s international educational organization British Council has launched a website with resources for local high school teachers.

The website www.teachingenglish.edu.vn links to a large selection of reference resources and English textbooks approved by MoET for grades 10, 11 and 12.

“The site is a very useful source of materials for both teachers and learners of English in Vietnam… implementing the strategy ‘Foreign languages teaching and learning in the national education system – period 2008-2020,’” Nguyen Vinh Hien, vice minister of MoET, said at the launch in HCMC last week.

The website provides teachers with useful teaching resources, techniques and methodologies, which have been consulted by Vietnamese and British specialists.

By logging on teachers can select an interactive activity to supplement their lessons. Guidelines for using the activities are in both English and Vietnamese, and there are also low-tech options for classrooms without a computer.

Teachers can find tips on dealing with a range of everyday problems such as correcting errors and managing large classes. There is also a section on professional development and opportunities to become part of a global network of teachers via the online forum. The website contents will be extended to elementary school teachers in the 2011 academic year.

The website is part of the British Council’s four-year project, Access English.

Access English aims to support changes in English language teaching for policy makers, educators and teachers. It has researched primary English language teaching in Vietnam, supported MoET and the national textbook writing team to develop new materials and curriculums, and has supported Danang University and Hanoi Junior Teacher Training College to design training courses for primary school English language teachers. The project has also worked with the National Institute for Educational Sciences to develop a new primary school English curriculum that is being piloted at 92 elementary schools across the country this academic year

The British Council is also working with MoET and several higher education institutes in Hanoi, Danang and HCMC to run a course called Primary Innovations, to train workshop facilitators.

The UK’s international educational organization is also coaching a group of trainers from Vietnam’s English Teacher and Training Network to train secondary school English teachers in eleven provinces throughout the country. At Friday’s launch, MoET and the British Council announced a competition to design a lesson plan or video a lesson using the resources on the website. The winners will fly to the U.K to study English or Singapore to attend the Regional Language Center conference.

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Spain presents dragon show for Hanoi millenium

The Embassy of Spain in Hanoi is adding a Spanish flavor to the capital’s millennium celebration with its “Festival of Dragon” show by Spanish theatre troupe Els Comediants.

The show will be at My Dinh National Stadium on Le Duc Tho Street, Tu Lien District, Hanoi on October 2.

Nineteen Spanish and 18 Vietnamese artists from the Circus Federation of Vietnam will present the show featuring music, acrobatics, dance and spectacular fireworks. It aims to be a great celebration for the people of Hanoi to commemorate their city’s anniversary.

The show “Festival of Dragon” depicts the legend of the birth of the city mixing elements of Vietnamese culture with a Spanish perspective.

It will combine the musical language and aesthetics of one of Vietnam’s most popular dragon legends and the firey Spanish spirit fire to tell about the proclamation of King Ly Thai To in 1010 to move the capital.

The show starts with a dragon waking up after a long sleep and breathing fire into the sky, to create the islands of Ha Long Bay. Then the islands becomes greener and more beautiful waking up other gods.

The centerpiece of the stage will be a big dragon, ten meters wide and ten meters tall. Its eyes can move to express emotion.

Admission is free.

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Global video project tours Viet Nam

HA NOI — Project 35, an international exhibition of video works selected by 35 curators around the world, will be launched by Independent Curators International (ICI) tomorrow and is expected to attract audiences in Ha Noi, Hue and HCM City.

Each of the curators were invited to choose one work from an artist they think is important for audiences from around the world to experience. The resulting video selections are divided into four parts that will play over the period of one year.

The selections will also be presented simultaneously in an increasing number of venues world wide. The project, which was initiated by ICI in New York, has made its way to Viet Nam thanks to San Art, the country's most active independent art space.

Project 35 celebrates ICI's 35-year life span as an organisation that connects emerging and established curators, artists and institutions, and fosters the building of international networks.

The exhibition opens with videos focusing on wide-ranging and controversial subject matter, including the uprisings and protests in post-colonial South Africa, the urban roads of modern-day HCM City, and the crime-filled streets of Bogota, Colombia.

Screenings are free and the first four screenings will take place simultaneously in Ha Noi's Goethe Institute, HCM City's Cafe Cao Minh and Hue's New Arts Space beginning at 6.30pm tomorrow.

The first session offers nine works, including the works of Vietnamse artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen and Ha Thuc Phu Nam, both of whom currently live and work in HCM City. The two artists were selected by HCM City-based curator and San Art director Zoe Butt.

Other artists were selected by the director of Objectif Exhibitions, Mai Abu El Dahab; the chief curator of the Mori Art Musuem in Tokyo, Mami Kataoka; an adjunct curator at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, Constance Lewallen; the artistic director of Philagrafika 2010, Jose Roca and senior lecturer and head of the Fine Arts Studio Practice in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Kathryn Smith.

The selected works will demonstrate the diversity of content and style that the single-channel video can captures, including You Tube-style narrative to documentary format to clay-mation to digital animation. The videos show a variety of approaches from creating performance installations to reformatting a Walt Disney classic.

The project has already been screened in Albania, Mexico, Sweden and the US among others, and will continue to expand as more venues and chapters in the video series emerge. The project is expected to screen in 19 countries over the course of 2010 and 2011. — VNS

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