And the most valuable member of society is...

In a language-learning perspective, there is nothing more valuable than an activity which elicits free-flowing, active communication. This communication activity I prepared several weeks ago for my Intermediate adults class was extremely successful, and it was also fun.

The topic was living without a salary, and we talked about a society where people lived by bartering goods or services. In this activity, students had to pretend that they were living in a bartering society, and they had to think about their most valuable assets in terms of skills or personal attributes, as well as their biggest weaknesses. Then, in speed-dating fashion, students had to interview one another in an inner-circle/outer-circle seating format where only students in the outer circle had to rotate seats with every new interview round. During the interviews, students asked each other about what they could offer as a member of a bartering society, and what weaknesses they had. Each interview round lasted about 2 or 3 minutes, with each student interviewing half of the class.

At the end, students had to vote on the three people that they felt would be the most valuable member in our hypothetical society. During the break, I tallied all the votes and our top three members were chosen. In our very own Award Ceremony, I presented the top 3 winners, starting with the runner-ups, and had them go up the "aisle" and "stairs" up to the "stage" (drawn on the floor), where they were given their "trophy" and where they would give an acceptance speech to the whole class, including why they believed they were chosen as a valuable member.

This activity was loads of fun, involving a lot of natural communication between students, and the award show in the end was exciting!

 

Here is a video snippet of the first runner-up winner, Huy, giving his acceptance speech. Unfortunately my iPhone ran out of memory at that point, so I wasn't able to catch his whole speech, which was excellent!

Goodbye class photo: Y9-D1307E

I've recently finished one of my favorite teenager classes of all time, if not the favorite. From day one, this energized group of students has been so eager, enthusiastic and receptive to both me as a teacher as well as to learning. I could not ask for a more ideal teenager class. All students were great learners, listeners, and all actively participated in the lessons. What I remember most is the great classroom culture we had; always joking around with each other as a group, with the teacher, having great fun, as well as really getting into classroom activities. My favorite part became the pair discussion parts at the beginning of each class: I would make students answer a question of the day in pairs and encourage them to engross themselves in a full-on discussion with their partners. During this conversing session, I would walk around and monitor the conversations; the system was that I would select two or three students whom I felt could use a bit more energy or development in their interactions to share their answer with the whole class at the end of the session. This prompted literally ALL students to do particularly well during this session, actively discussing the topic at hand with their partner with utmost vehemence, so as to avoid being chosen. As the course went on, students became more and more adept at conversing with their peers, such that I became so impressed and proud of them. Of course, it was also very humbling to see the impact you could have as a teacher on your students' improvements.

Among the students I will always remember is Thanh, nicknamed "Lemon" by the class, for a reason from their past classes I have failed to understand; nevertheless, "Lemon" stuck to us as his name, and "Lemon" became a character referred to for many of our classroom activities including dictations and group games. "Lemon" was always outspoken, but loveable and cheerful. His friend Phuc was also an endearing boy, always suggesting silly ideas. Hung was a mature gentleman, always surprising me with his knowledge in English, as well as his quirkiness when I wouldn't expect it. Nga was a sweet and hyper young girl, always ready to put a boy in his spot for teasing her, and always breaking the "No-Vietnamese" rule in the process. Linh sat in the back of the class but her big smile always stood out to me, as well as her elaborate and bright answers.


The highlight of this class was definitely the sense of comradery we had as a class, and I especially loved dialoguing with them all as a group. I actually delighted at our conversations, which always went above and beyond mere language class topics, into the realms of their culture and lives. We fed off of one another and it is our storytelling together that has resulted in such great memories I have of them.


Here are some pictures of our final day together, including our pizza party in which the food only arrived in the last 10 minutes of class, but it's alright, being the crazy teens that they are, we scarfed down all the food in due time.

Finally, here is a small video of their pair-conversation sessions taken in one of the last several weeks before the end of the course. I was just so impressed with their dialoguing that I had to capture it on video!

An overdue trip to the supermarket....

Well I've just wrapped up two final essays over the last several weeks for two correspondence courses that I'm currently taking, and after neglecting the gym, household chores, dishes piling up in the sink, and utilizing pretty much every last ingredient in my fridge to concoct different varieties of egg&rice meals, I finally had the time to make a badly overdue trip to the supermarket.

Come follow me!

The perk of living in an exotic country..... Never a shortage of exotic fruits

I still have not mastered all of my Vietnamese herbs and vegetables........ Something tells me I'll never quite get them all...

I prefer these packaged varieties.... At least the label is right on them so I know what the vegetable is...  haha....

Wow, my basket is overflowed! No room for my olive oil (the only oil I cook with, because of its health benefits!)

Bought so many things that I have to use a shopping cart to wheel my stuff out!

This is the most I've spent on groceries! It's over 1,000,000 VND (~$50), so I get a raffle prize!

You would think I was shopping for a whole family....... but nope... it's only moi !

Those are the prizes available.... Hmm... I hope I get something useful!

Validating my receipt.... My name is on it, hehe, cuz of my membership card!

Anddddd I get a....... laundry detergent bag! Yay! Useful!

Wow... Well I've managed to place all my bags onto my bike... Now let's see if I can navigate with this bike....

Home! But I have to open the second door up to fit my bike through hehe....

You just need a bit of creativity when it comes to lugging on your bags...

Wow...... what a long receipt.....

The most I've spent on groceries thus far! 1,218,565 VND! (Roughly $60)

Oh my Goodness!!!

Like my flowers? :)

Thanks for joining me on my trip to the supermarket! And if you think that you saw a pig in my photo.... well.... you're not going delusional... you DID see a pig! Haha.... I'll tell you the pig story another time... :)