| Washington, D.C., Dec. 12, 2000 - The Voice
of America's Vietnamese Service
launched its first call-in show, entitled
Dialogue with Listeners
(Doi Ghoai vor Thinh Gia) on Saturday, Dec. 9. Following a
ten-minute VOA news summary, program
host Minh Phuong and VOA Vietnamese
Service Senior Editor Huyen Trang discussed teaching English as a second
language.
Ms. Trang is the producer of the popular American Idioms program.
Ten percent of the population in Vietnam is studying English at any one
time.
Host Minh Phuong and an expert guest will lead an international discussion
on a different topic each Saturday. Each week, the Vietnamese
Service will announce the topic of the upcoming program on the air
and then open a "call VOA collect" phone line during the following week
to take listeners' questions. Listeners can then record their questions,
which will be answered during the broadcast.
Anticipating last Saturday's inaugural broadcast, one listener told
VOA
that he had studied English for a long time by radio. He suggested that
VOA
design and broadcast an English test so that listeners can gauge the English
speaking and listening skills they have learned. Minh Phuong and Huyen
Trang answered his question and those of six other listeners on the Dec.
9 broadcast.
The new Vietnamese-language program will also be available live on VOA's
international Internet site (www.voa.gov)
during the broadcast, and on demand for the following week. VOA
will air the program at 1500 UTC (10 p.m. in Vietnam) and then rebroadcast
it on Sunday at 2230 UTC (5:30 a.m. Vietnamese time).
The Voice of America
broadcasts two and a half hours of Vietnamese-language programming daily.
VOA
broadcasts world, regional, and U.S. news in 53 language to an estimated
91 million people each week.
Contact: George Mackenzie
Phone: (202) 619-2538 |
