I've been in Vietnam a week now, and what a week it's been!
The teaching is a little easier now than it was at the beginning of the week. To be honest, I was a little out of my depth teaching the 6-7 year olds as I've never taught that age group before and none of them speak any English. But we've been playing lots of learning games (most of them with the ball I bought for them) and things have got a lot easier. It's been interesting to see the progress that most of the children have made in such a short space of time (with their English and their catching skills!) and we're all beginning to feel more comfortable with each other, even if we cannot effectively communicate with each other! The hardest parts are disciplining the children (how can I explain why their actions are unacceptable if we don't speak the same language?!) and motivating the children after nap time. Most of the children take a long time to wake up after their nap but they are scheduled to have an English class with me every day immediately afterwards (somehow I always managed to get the session immediately after lunch when I was at work too!). I have a few classes of 8-9 year olds per week and they understand me a lot better. We have been learning about clothes this week so we've had fun drawing our outfits and learning how to describe what we're wearing. I had one class of 12-16 year olds who could understand me very well but who brought their hormones with them into the classroom. Once boy, the youngest in the group, looked down his nose at me the whole lesson and was cocky when I asked him questions. When it came to working in pairs I made him come and work with me as punishment for being rude! We discussed what we had done at the weekend and all of the children, with one exception, said they slept late and then watched TV and spent most of the weekend being bored! Guess teenagers are the same in every country!
Between 10am and 11.30am the 6-7 year olds have playtime. On Thursday I brought in some leftover craft materials that we hadn't used when making the costumes for The Wiz and we made masks. It was really interesting to see how the children applied themselves to this. One child, Ty, likes to cause issues in the class (he doesn't like to share), overreacts to most things and gets angry very easily. However, he took the most care in his mask making and painstakingly stuck sequins onto his cardboard in a beautiful pattern whereas the other children just threw glitter around and hoped that some of it would stick! He was calm and focused - it was lovely to see! Now I just need to figure out how to get this behavior to show through in English class too!
On Thurdsay evening I was invited to a meeting by Efirst.vn English Centre. I was met by a group of students who are all learning English and told that I was the guest of honour! I was sat down at a table, given a drink and asked to talk about myself in (slow) English so that everyone could understand. The students all asked me questions about why I was volunteering, what I was hoping to do in the future and what my feelings were of Vietnam so far. It was a very strange experience as I was centre of attention and everyone's eyes were on me! We played a game of 'Who am I' so that they could practice their new words that they had just learned in class and then they asked me if I would like to come to their social event next Saturday with will most likely be either paintballing or indoor rock climbing! Brilliant! On the way home Trang, one of the girls, asked me if I would like to join her and her friends for a coffee on Saturday (yesterday) - we had a great time! Everyone here is so friendly and I am so happy that people are inviting me to do things!
Yesterday I took a quick 2 hour class (actually, it was the slowest 2 hours of my life as getting English out of these kids was like getting blood from a stone!) and then headed into the old quarter of Hanoi to explore. The old quarter was actually less hectic than I thought it would be. The streets were wider and the street sellers were less aggressive than I'd expected them to be. I had wanted to go to the Water Puppets but they were sold out so I have booked a ticket for next Sunday. I also booked my trip to Halong Bay (22nd June for 3 days) and when I got home I booked my flight to Ho Chi Minh City on 25th for 3 days. I'm very excited! I tried to find the Botanical Gardens (we had driven past them on the way to the old quarter) but I accidentally got lost. After a while I came across another lake (my fourth of the day, or so I thought) and decided to find a taxi to take me home. At that point Alex cycled by and told me that this was actually West Lake and I should just follow it round to get home! I was already halfway there so another hour's walking would get me home! I had a lovely time walking by the side of the lake, it was very peaceful and relaxing, if a little hot (38 degrees, my nose isn't happy!).
The teaching is a little easier now than it was at the beginning of the week. To be honest, I was a little out of my depth teaching the 6-7 year olds as I've never taught that age group before and none of them speak any English. But we've been playing lots of learning games (most of them with the ball I bought for them) and things have got a lot easier. It's been interesting to see the progress that most of the children have made in such a short space of time (with their English and their catching skills!) and we're all beginning to feel more comfortable with each other, even if we cannot effectively communicate with each other! The hardest parts are disciplining the children (how can I explain why their actions are unacceptable if we don't speak the same language?!) and motivating the children after nap time. Most of the children take a long time to wake up after their nap but they are scheduled to have an English class with me every day immediately afterwards (somehow I always managed to get the session immediately after lunch when I was at work too!). I have a few classes of 8-9 year olds per week and they understand me a lot better. We have been learning about clothes this week so we've had fun drawing our outfits and learning how to describe what we're wearing. I had one class of 12-16 year olds who could understand me very well but who brought their hormones with them into the classroom. Once boy, the youngest in the group, looked down his nose at me the whole lesson and was cocky when I asked him questions. When it came to working in pairs I made him come and work with me as punishment for being rude! We discussed what we had done at the weekend and all of the children, with one exception, said they slept late and then watched TV and spent most of the weekend being bored! Guess teenagers are the same in every country!
Between 10am and 11.30am the 6-7 year olds have playtime. On Thursday I brought in some leftover craft materials that we hadn't used when making the costumes for The Wiz and we made masks. It was really interesting to see how the children applied themselves to this. One child, Ty, likes to cause issues in the class (he doesn't like to share), overreacts to most things and gets angry very easily. However, he took the most care in his mask making and painstakingly stuck sequins onto his cardboard in a beautiful pattern whereas the other children just threw glitter around and hoped that some of it would stick! He was calm and focused - it was lovely to see! Now I just need to figure out how to get this behavior to show through in English class too!
On Thurdsay evening I was invited to a meeting by Efirst.vn English Centre. I was met by a group of students who are all learning English and told that I was the guest of honour! I was sat down at a table, given a drink and asked to talk about myself in (slow) English so that everyone could understand. The students all asked me questions about why I was volunteering, what I was hoping to do in the future and what my feelings were of Vietnam so far. It was a very strange experience as I was centre of attention and everyone's eyes were on me! We played a game of 'Who am I' so that they could practice their new words that they had just learned in class and then they asked me if I would like to come to their social event next Saturday with will most likely be either paintballing or indoor rock climbing! Brilliant! On the way home Trang, one of the girls, asked me if I would like to join her and her friends for a coffee on Saturday (yesterday) - we had a great time! Everyone here is so friendly and I am so happy that people are inviting me to do things!
Yesterday I took a quick 2 hour class (actually, it was the slowest 2 hours of my life as getting English out of these kids was like getting blood from a stone!) and then headed into the old quarter of Hanoi to explore. The old quarter was actually less hectic than I thought it would be. The streets were wider and the street sellers were less aggressive than I'd expected them to be. I had wanted to go to the Water Puppets but they were sold out so I have booked a ticket for next Sunday. I also booked my trip to Halong Bay (22nd June for 3 days) and when I got home I booked my flight to Ho Chi Minh City on 25th for 3 days. I'm very excited! I tried to find the Botanical Gardens (we had driven past them on the way to the old quarter) but I accidentally got lost. After a while I came across another lake (my fourth of the day, or so I thought) and decided to find a taxi to take me home. At that point Alex cycled by and told me that this was actually West Lake and I should just follow it round to get home! I was already halfway there so another hour's walking would get me home! I had a lovely time walking by the side of the lake, it was very peaceful and relaxing, if a little hot (38 degrees, my nose isn't happy!).
This sounds amazing! And yes, 38 degrees sounds a bit much for me too
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