Yesterday around 5:30 pm, I visited some evening classes at Quoc Hoc High School. This school is famous because Ho Chi Minh and General Gap went to school here before they were expelled. The founder of the school was the father of Ngo Dien Diem, President of the American backed South Vietnamese regime during the early 60s. President Diem, a Catholic with little support, was assassinated in a CIA backed plot; he also attended this school. In the evening, students and members of the community come to attend the foreign language center, although they receive no college credit or certificate.
I walked along a row of classes until I found an English class. I poked my head in, and a female teacher in her early 20s interrupted her class and walked over to see what was up. I explained that I was an English teacher from the United States visiting Vietnam, and that I would like to observe her class. She suggested I contact the director, but when I told her it was only for a few minutes she waved me to an empty chair next to a student (two to a desk) who quickly shared his book with me.
There were about 35 students in the class, mostly female college students. The name of the book was "Lifelines Intermediate", written by Vietnamese authors and printed in Hanoi. The book was quite advanced and integrated reading, writing, grammar, listening, and conversation activities. Each unit focused on a topic (starting out, modern life, your future, relationships, the law, travel, entertainment...) and had some particular grammatical structures to work on. Tonight's reading was about the triathelon sporting event and people who participate in that sport.
The teacher spoke English well and asked the class questions about the reading. It was a whole group activity, and she usually answered her own questions without leaving much time for individuals to answer. There was a great deal of background noise due to the open windows and door which allowed noise from other classes to penetrate. Occasionally, the teacher would use Vietnamese to help students' comprehension. One of the exercises from the book was a scanning exercise in which the students were given a list of vocabulary words that they had to find in the text of the reading. The students were also given some time to prepare some answers to discussion questions from the text. It might have been good for students to work in pairs or groups, but instead the teacher asked the students to work individually on these questions and then asked the whole class to answer them. After that, there was a good listening exercise using a tape in which the students had to listen to an interview of a triathlon competitor and write down the question as they heard it. However, several students were not participating, perhaps because it was too difficult for them.
Tonight I went back to the Foreign Language Center. I found out that the center has 50 classes in the program and three levels of English. Classes are generally three days a week. Teachers have to have a B.A. degree, and the two I talked to had not been out of Vietnam although they spoke English fluently.
I attended a communication class taught by a young woman in her early 20s. Her class, which had about 30 students, included conversation practice and listening practice, along with grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation exercises. This class was very communicative and the teacher had the students working in pairs and in groups on several different activities. There was considerable class participation in these activities and the teacher walked around the room checking on and helping the students. She also supplemented the text by giving them a worksheet with some useful materials that related to the lesson. For example, she had the students work on the use of like/dislike/enjoy/hate and other related idiomatic expressions. In one activity, the students had to find out what their classmates liked and disliked and make a list. In another activity, the students were given a list of possible "pet peeves" and had to ask their partners "How do you feel when people...? - filling in the blank with a pet peeve such as "people who drive too slowly, don't turn out the lights, couples who kiss in public", etc.) Students had to answer using an idiomatic expression provided on their worksheet. I was very impressed with this teachers energy and her teaching methods.
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