Vietnam has chosen multinational book publisher Pearson as its partner to write new English textbooks for middle and high school students under a national proposal to better teach the language to the country’s population.

According to a deal between Vietnam Education Publishing House (VEPH), the nation’s sole textbook publisher, and Pearson, the latter will provide advice on the structure, design, and content of the textbooks whereas VEPH will be in charge of the publishing and printing work.

Familiar subjects as well as Vietnamese culture will be included in the books to help motivate and engage students in learning English, David Kaye, regional teacher development manager at Pearson, told Tuoitrenews in an interview.

“But alongside that, as English is now a global language, we have introduced more links to the world around us, to help our students understand and be part of the global community,” Kaye noted.

Teachers will also benefit from the new structure of the textbooks as it provides extensive support and guided activities to help them give students practice with new language, he added.

As the first milestone of their cooperation, VEPH and Pearson have recently finished preparing new textbooks for 6th-graders that are about to be published and piloted in the 2012-13 school year, starting this September.

Under the proposal it calls Project 2020, Vietnam wants most of its vocational school, junior college, and university graduates to be able to speak fluent English in an international working and learning environment by 2020.

Pearson is an international media company with involvement in education, business information, and consumer publishing.