Teaching English

The last two weeks since I arrived in Bien Hoa (pronounced Been Hwa) has been very busy, getting to know my way around, (although I don't have any transport of my own as yet!) shopping, usually eating out because its so cheap, but sometimes cooking in Mark's apartment at the top of the school. That's literally at the top, on the roof. He's taken over a large store room and furnished it with desks borrowed from the classrooms, a very nice bed, table and chairs, fridge, washing machine, electric rice cooker, water heater and little gas stove. It's a bit like camping with all mod cons. It's very private up there and his window is visible from mine in the Hotel.

Anyway, I want to tell you about the school. Students of all ages come here to learn English in their spare time after regular school, college or work. So some classes can have students of varying ages at the same level of ability. These classes start at 5.45pm Monday to Saturday, last for approximately an hour and forty minutes with a 10 minute break and are all finished at 9.15pm. At the weekend, classes for beginners, from age 5, start at 7.45am and some of the tiny tots are still sleepy. They are so cute, (what's the English word for that?) and love singing songs in English, even though they don't understand yet. The girls did this little dance for me! I do two half-classes in the morning in co-operation with their Vietnamese Teacher. It's great fun, but exhausting and I've come back to my room to recover!

When I attended Mark's advanced class last week I offered to coach their speaking abilities, so on Wednesday when I got to school at 5.00pm two young ladies were already waiting for me. We settled into a corner of the Library and had a good hour and a half of conversation. I asked about them and life in Vietnam and encouraged them to ask me questions. I learned that both girls are 16, though they appear very mature. They are in the same class at High School, which starts at 7.00am and finishes at 4.30pm, with a lunch break from 11.15am to 1.30pm. Miss Trang’s dream is to be a Lawyer and she’d like to study in the US, while Miss Uyen’s ambition is to be a Doctor and study medicine in the UK, but they have to improve their English in order to achieve their goals. Uyen’s speaking was quite good, while I had to correct Trang’s pronunciation when I didn’t understand her, which was quite often. Trang told me that her main problem is nervousness, so right there and then I taught them both the rudiments of EFT to convert any nervousness into confidence. Unbeknown to me, the Director, Mr Thom was watching but hasn't asked me what we were doing!

They obviously come from good families. Miss Uyen’s family is Roman Catholic and she attends Church every evening. Her parents are Tailors and have their own business, living over the shop. Miss Trang’s parents are both Teachers, her father teaching Physics and her mother teaching English, but she doesn’t like to practise English with her Mother in case she gets it wrong! Oh dear, the tensions between mothers and daughters! Both girls join their families for dinner at 7.30 in the evening and don’t go out at night, except to come to KTV English School. They surf the net, read, study and are in bed by 10.00pm.

As we talked, other students surreptitiously joined our group, eager to join in. One young man, Mr Tuan is from Thanh Hoa City near Hanoi in the north but prefers the warmth here in the south. He achieved a degree in Economics and now has some job in the government, unless I misunderstood. Two young ladies, Miss Loan and Miss Van were waiting to join their first class at level 4; the ‘Black Dragons’. I don’t know who dreams up these class names, but they’re more imaginative than the impersonal letter and number system in use when I was at school; I think it gives them some kind of identity.

Later I joined Mark in his first VIP class for students at level 10. These students have very good English and are here to polish up their speaking skills and I'll be glad to help them. Mark has been teaching a class of teenagers and older at level 8 called 'The Evil Ones' but I was amazed when the class was suddenly assigned to me yesterday morning, to teach that evening! Mark is a hard act to follow!! I've already met this class, having joined the one Mark took last week. Not only that, but we all sang at the Karaoke bar on Monday night! That's me up there, jazzing up 'Pennies from Heaven'.

I don't think I did too badly; we did have a good time, didn't we? (That was the target language, by the way.) When I ran out of ideas near the end, I got one student to organise a game, which was great fun. One team writes a word, followed by the other team who take the last letter to begin their word. They are very fond of finding words ending in X and I had to contribute xylophone and xenophobic to my team.

I'm relieved to be back online after four days without internet, either here or at the school. We had a big thunderstorm on Tuesday, though I don't know if that had anything to do with it. Mark's here to take me to lunch, so I'll sign off for now.