Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Random updates before internet connection disappears again


We just finished our TEFL Methodology class. Now we just have to write 3 papers, 1 long and 2 short, and email them in by Aug 22, then that class is done. The teacher just left Hanoi this morning on his way back to Nebraska. We had a short quiz yesterday, and I had to run to the bathroom in the middle of it, no, not because the answers were there but because my stomach was acting up, really. It has not been well ever since I got to VN. Wondering if I should get on a course of Cipro to take care of it.

We just started on our last class for this training. It's called Classroom Dynamics and Practicum, taught by a PhD who also has been an English teacher in China for many years. She flew to VN on short notice to sub in for our original teacher who couldn't make the trip due to pneumonia. First day of class, and the room lost power right when she tried to show the first slide of her presentation. Of course, the AC went out too, so we had to bring in fans (running on backup generators) to keep all of us alive and sane. Welcome to VN, where we're told over and over again that flexibility and greeting the unexpected with a smile are key.

Next week, we'll have our practicum at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, where we'll be taking turns teaching real classes of real VNese students with trained teachers, both national and foreign, observing us to grade us and give us feedback. After that, then training is over... and real real teaching begins, if we passed the course, of course.

Yesterday, a worker from the hotel approached me and asked for a favor, in Vietnamese. She had noticed over the past weeks that I knew some Vietnamese, so she handed me one of the brochures of the hotel and asked me if I could help correct the English portion of it. I got it done for her this morning, and got the chance to tell her more of what our group is about, where I came from originally, and why I have been living here in the hotel. I was glad I could be of help. Incidentally, for the practicum next week, we'll be teaching a class on English for Tourism, where most of these students hope to get a job in the toursim industry upon graduation. Maybe I can bring a copy of this brochure in and show the class as an example?

This morning, I also got to talk with another worker at the hotel, again in my broken Vietnamese. She was saying that both her husband and she work and keep their two kids, 10 and 5, locked up in their house the whole day with no babysitters. She leaves the food there, so the two kids just serve themselves at lunch, and she will come home at 6pm after work to give them dinner. She asked why we were always in class and whether it was tiring, I told her we're being trained to be English teachers and that pretty soon everyone in our group will be leaving to go to his or her respected assigned country and city to teach. It's quite tiring because we're trying to learn in one day what's normally taught in a semester.

To end this entry on a pleasant note, we've had some good success today at a small eatery that was introduced to us last Sunday. My order was just 25,000VND, and it came with rice, stir fried beef, some tofu, some boiled green vegetable, and a small bowl of fresh vegetable soup. It seemed clean and tasted good too. The only drawback was that it was not within walking distance, so we would have to take a bus or a taxi (some taxi drivers have ripped us off with their rigged meters) to get there. But then the eatery told us they can deliver as well, so I'll give that a try next time and avoid getting out into the heat and humidity and the crazy traffic here. Talking about food, after hearing from one of our teammates' experience with 5 worms the size of night crawlers, we tentatively renewed our resolution to avoid raw salads and vegetables. Either that or take a pill every few months to take care of these (harmless, according to local doctors) worms, like one of the other veteran teachers has been doing in past years. What do you think? I guessed I lied about ending this on a pleasant note.


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