Visiting An Giang University

We are staying now in the city of Long Xuyen, not far from the Cambodian border in the Mekong Delta. Today I observed two English classes at the university. The students are all about 18 to 20 years old, mostly female. I was amazed at how advanced their communication skills are. The students speak English very well, seem self-confident, and love to participate in the discussions. The teachers used teaching methods similar to the communicative and more student-centered approach used frequently in the ESL department at City College. In the first class, the instructor used power point to introduce vocabulary and discussions regarding money,banking and income issues. The teacher had the students discuss how to tell if someone is rich and what are the best ways to save money. The students were then asked to tell their partner (randomly chosen) a good way to make money and the partner had to respond why this was not a good reason. This was to practice how to disagree politely. Then the students had to nominate the five best ways to get rich and finally they got to vote on the very best way to get rich. In the second class I observed, 6 groups of students had to do a skit in which two people broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend. The students were very enthusiastic and laughed a lot.

The next day, Ana and I had lunch with several of the faculty members. Three were from the U.S.including one of Vietnamese background, another was from Australia and three from the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. They seem like good friends and several were going on an outing to the beach on the weekend. One of them is doing research on agriculture and was telling us about the heavy use of insecticides and its dangers. The insecticides are necessary because the new kind of rice, although it is more productive because it can be harvested several times a year, requires much more insecticide than the one crop a year kind of rice formerly used. Vietnam has become the second largest rice exporter in the world after the U.S., but at a great cost to the environment and to the small farmers who are being squeezed, according to this source. An Giang University has a large department devoted to studying agriculture.

An English student that we met last night was telling us that some students do not have to pay tuition depending on what your major is. The students have to pass very rigorous tests and be among the best in their high school in order to be eligible to study here.