Monday, March 3, 2014

Today was my first day of teaching Middle School in Vietnam.  I went in to observe 2 classes in the morning run by another native English teacher.  Apparently this school used to be ranked as one of the best in the city, but this reputation was its own downfall, resulting in increased enrollment (more $) and it being understaffed.  My first impressions of Vietnamese public middle school?

-          The classes are huge (50+ students! Some even reach 60!)

-          The air conditioning is... well, non-existent. And the fans blow everything off the desks.

-          The technology includes a microphone (that doesn’t always sound clear) and dinosaur age CD players that somehow survived the meteor (but each one has their own finicky problem, i.e. not being able to skip or go back; not turning on...)

-          You get very chalky. I feel like I have chalk/dust particles in every pore on my face and hands. Being a teacher in this era has made me a marker/board and projector screen pro – definitely not used to chalk!

-          The students are very talkative and disruptive. 

-          The Vietnamese teacher assistants don’t generally stay in the room. Sometimes they’ll peek their head in or come for a few minutes, but most classes I’m on my own with the 50+ Vietnamese students. 

BUT, there are definitely positives.  The students are quite interested in English and also very keen to get to know native English speakers.  I’m impressed with the level of English compared to when I taught in Korea as well. I feel like I can have better conversations with the students without need for a Vietnamese assistant to translate anything.  It’s also nice to have freedom in the design of lessons (as long as objectives are reached), yet to also be able to fall back on the books if need be. Also, I look at this as being very good for my teaching experience.  I can really practice my class management/discipline methods – an area that I see as my biggest area for improvement! I already feel like I’ve improved tenfold in this area since I first did my practice teaching in uni.

After work, I had about an hour and a half to go home, freshen up, grab dinner, and then make it to the private lesson I teach from 6:30-8:30pm.  It was a new student – a Taiwanese businessman looking to improve his general speaking abilities in English.  Private lessons are so much less stressful than teaching 50+ middle school students! Definitely going to try to get more private students J

Today’s dish of the day features a dish served to me yesterday actually, on Sunday night as part of one big pre-set meal. I went with Patrick and some new friends :) They served a variety of dishes that we all split (homestyle! And in fact, the place looked like a house from the outside!) As we walked through the restaurant, we had to stay on the path, stepping on the stones to avoid landing in the indoor stream, full of swimming fish.  I wonder if we ate one of those fish...! Below is the fried fish dish we shared, which was absolutely flavourful, fresh and light, despite being fried.