teaching and fun, fun and teaching

Hey all,

So I wanted to write a blog post on Monday, but nothing really happened on Monday so I was kind of lost. I thought about writing a post about identity, familiarity with Vietnam and the difficulty of transitioning, but who wants to read that emotional stuff? Anyways, that post is on the backburner, maybe I'll pull it out at some point in the future.

So Monday was relatively uneventful, but Tuesday was less so. We were going to Hanoi Pedagogical University #2, Andrew's host institution. Although we had taught at the American Center previously, here we would be teaching a class to Vietnamese students in their own university. We would be in a typical Vietnamese university, far away from the air-conditioned American Center with its massive projectors and overwhelming support staff.

The students would also not be as advanced as the American Center students had been, or necessarily as eager. American Center students had chosen to go to the American Center in their free time, so they were by necessity very motivated to learn English and very outgoing. Our students at Hanoi Pedagogical, perhaps not so much.

We arrived at the classroom in Hanoi Pedagogical and started teaching. We stayed in the same groups, so I was teaching with Koua and Amanda.

First we got to observe a lesson taught by Justin, Tyler and Lindsay

 It was clear just from watching the first lesson that the students here were not quite as advanced as the American Center students, and that they were not quite as outspoken. We would have to work harder to get responses out of these students, and we couldn't count on them to understand little Americanisms (like high-fives or any sort of slang) that American Center students had understood.

After watching the first class, Koua Amanda and I started teaching. Our class was all about contractions and how to use them in daily life.

Our lesson also prominently featured "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction.

...Don't judge me.

With a few of my students

The whole class!

The class actually went fairly well. It was definitely harder then at the American Center, just because it was harder to prompt responses. However, once the students got going they really began to get into the activity, and it was incredibly rewarding to watch. This particular class of students was also beginner-level, so teaching that level of class provided a new set of challenges and rewards.

After teaching we headed off to lunch at a restaurant that served absolutely delicious food

Anna was particularly enthusiastic

Then we had teacher evaluations

This was also a sad moment for us, as we had to say goodbye to Andrew, who has been a fantastic teacher to all of us and a good friend to me personally. Andrew is heading off to Vinh College soon, and by the time of our midyear reunion he will already be back in the states, so this is goodbye for possibly a very long time. Andrew has been a fantastic person to have with us in Vietnam, and I am very sad to see him go. I wish him all the best, and hopefully our paths will cross at some point in the future. 

Everyone with Andrew!

We had previously planned that Tuesday night would be bros night out and girls night out, so we were all excited to come back to Hanoi and have more fun than our counterparts. I have no concrete information on girls night, but I heard that it involved painting toenails, Anna somehow getting hold of my phone, talking about boys and desperately searching around Hanoi for ice cream.

There was a controversy about Lâm's height at some point? ... I don't really know

I can, however, tell you that bros night was incredibly fun. We went to a fried squid place with Lâm, our hotel manager, Bui, the hotel manager of a sister hotel, Mr. Hung, their boss, and several of the other hotel staff who have been taking such good care of us over the past three weeks. In particular I got to meet Sơn and I had a really good conversation with him about his education. Trevor, myself, Quan and Justin went (Tyler wasn't feeling great) and Michelle got major props for ditching the girls night to hang out with the bros.

Trevor, Justin and Sơn at dinner

Justin, Sơn and Bui

All the bro love

Me with my buddy Lâm

Lâm and Mr. Hung, who is a very funny man

With Sơn and Michelle at the end of the night.

It was a fantastic night and I had a great time. Once again, Rising Dragon Grand staff are fantastic and I really enjoyed getting to know a few of them better. I'm going to be really sad when I check out of this hotel. 

On Wednesday, we had the morning off and then headed to the American Center to teach another class. This would be a little different because all of us would be teaching by ourselves. We had eight ETAs and a class of about 100 students, so we broke the students up into four groups of 25, and we had four stations. At each station two ETAs led an activity for fifteen minutes before the groups would rotate. To make things interesting, the two ETAs in each group would alternate teaching the lesson, with the other one observing.

The other ETAs teaching

Trevor leading his group in a listening activity

I was working with Vanlam, and we were doing a lesson on tongue twisters. It went fairly well, but it is a lot more difficult working by yourself. It gets real lonely standing up by yourself with no one else up there with you. Vanlam gave me some good feedback (she killed it, no surprise, so I had no feedback for her) and the second time I taught things went very well. 

After teaching, ten of my friends came with me to visit my family's cafe in My Dinh, very near to Chu Thuat's house. I was nervous about bringing my friends to a fairly remote suburb of Hanoi, worried that we would be stuck in traffic, worried that people wouldn't get along, worried about everything going wrong. 

Everything went perfectly. The food was delicious, Chu Thuat, his wife and Thao all got to meet my friends, and we had a fantastic afternoon. All of my friends were showered with typically overwhelming Vietnamese hospitality, and my family was glad to meet my friends, especially the ones who spoke really good Vietnamese (thanks Trevor, Quan and Anna!). I was even able to communicate with Chu Thuat a lot more than I was able to previously, so I feel like my Vietnamese is coming along, slowly but surely.

Getting tea at the cafe

So many friends at my family's cafe...have to say I was really happy this happened

Eating some delicious chè

Thao cuts open a dragon fruit while Michelle and Kate observe

Everybody! (Thanks Chu Thuat for taking the picture!)

With Chu Thuat and family

After getting dessert, we then got dinner at Koto, a restaurant that takes in disadvantaged youth and trains them there as waiters and cooks before placing them in the hospitality industry worldwide. A very noble cause, and the food was really good as well.

At Koto

After Koto we went to Acoustic, this super cool bar that Ginger, our Vietnamese Culture teacher, had recommended to us. She mentioned it as an example of Vietnam's rapidly evolving and constantly changing music scene. On Wednesday night there is an open mic, and local artists will sing, play guitar, beatbox, rap and just generally riff for several hours. 

It's a small bar, and we were the only Westerners there, so the whole place was quite pleasantly low-key. It felt like we had discovered a little hidden treasure of Hanoi.

Acoustic

They sang both Vietnamese and English songs

All of these guys were really talented singers as well as being guitarists, drummers etc.

A Filipino guitarist named Randy walked in at the end and rocked out for seemingly forever

And of course, since it was an open mic, it wasn't long before some of the more talented Fulbrighters were coerced/pushed into performing.

First Amelia sang

Then Jess joined her

Finally Trevor picked up the guitar

It's been an entertaining past couple of days, and I can't believe how fast this week has gone by. On Friday we have a Fulbright banquet, and after that ten people are going off to Sapa. I will not be with them, as I am leaving on Sunday for my province, so a lot of goodbyes will be said very soon. It feels like I just got here, but things are already starting to change.

Well, no matter what happens I'll be sure to tell all of you about it!

Thanks for reading,

Jefferson