Goodbye class photo: Y6-D1311E

Yet another teenager class has finished!

This young leaders teenager class was the epitome of a teenager class: crazy, loud, head-wracking, patience-testing, headache-inducing, and reducing-my-being-to-a-piece-of-stale-meat-by-the-end-of-the-day ! Yet, despite them making me wanna pull my hair out and yell many times during class (which I'm glad I don't take the habit of doing otherwise I'd be bald by now), I still love them and I do have to admit that their craziness makes me laugh or entertains me. After all, I used to be a crazy teenager myself, and I can vastly relate to some of the kids' clowning antics.

To be fair, the craziness can be narrowed down to a small group of boys, whom I dub the "trio-gang". Unsurprisingly, they are also the ones that I remember the most from this class. This gang consists of its clear de facto leader, Huy, a dubstep breakdancer boy who was always clad in admittingly cool teenager gear complete with oversized trainers with rocket wings on them, and who always vied for attention and made his voice heard at any moment imaginable, although I'm not going to lie, he is a good natural performer and entertainer. In fact, he was the only student who made my system of "if you speak in Vietnamese, you have to give an impromptu presentation in front of the class for 1 minute to a random topic of my choice" backfire, in that he would purposefully speak in Vietnamese so that he could get in trouble and pay the punishment, since he loved attention and getting in front of the class... So with time, I had to individualize a system specific for him wherein if he spoke in Vietnamese, he would get the punishment, but if he wanted to retain the punishment (that is, give a speech) he had to behave after that, otherwise I'd take the punishment away from him. Haha! Huy was also the only kid in class who would respond to a question in a way like this:

(After the students talk in pairs about each other's weekends)
Teacher - Huy, can you tell us what your friend did in the weekend?
Huy -  Yes, at 1 am, he slept. And at 2 am, he slept. And at 3 am, he was still sleeping, and at 4 am, he was still sleeping......
etc...

Sigh.... On the other hand, he still had an impact on the whole class as his absence was always greatly felt on days he wasn't there, lending over to a comparatively uncomfortable unenthusiastic energy-less atmosphere. At the end of the day, you always appreciate the class clown and they are always one of the most memorable and charming students in teachers' careers.

His sidekick is Quang, a mature and sweet guy full of affect, always ready to put his rowdier mate in check. He makes my heart melt when one of the other guys make an offensive joke or misbehave in a way that could be interpreted as disrespectful to the teacher, and he scolds at them and tells them not to be like that. He is also a lady's man, always sensitive to girls- in fact one of the speeches he gave was about how he had a sad weekend because he lost the trust of his best female friend and he would do anything to earn it back. Awww *heart breaks.... He was always the only kid who would extend to me a sincere goodbye at the end of class, and on our very last day, he thanked me for being a good teacher and hoped to see me again. Awwwww *heart shatters into pieces...

I will also remember the cute nerd of the class, Gia Bao, a young enthusiastic boy who always took so much care in all of the class activities we did! His care in the lessons and games motivate me to keep providing good lessons in times when I think it is hopeless in such a crazy class! In many competitive games, every time his pair-team would win a round, he and his partner, in perfect nerd fashion, would high-five each other in the air very excitedly and cheer, while nobody else would care much about winning. They are so cute! Also, consistent with the prototypical nerd, he would never fail to put up his hand and point out to me when somebody had cheated or when somebody had spoken Vietnamese or made an error in their response. Haha.......


Without further ado, here are our goodbye photos!!

Vietnamese cooking made easy!

Don't know how to cook your favorite Vietnamese dish? Or don't have time to run around the supermarket to gather all the necessary ingredients for a dish? Or just want an easy, lazy way to make good Vietnamese food? Well, worry not, because in Vietnamese supermarkets, many meals come bundled in packages of complete ingredients that you need for a dish, or are pre-marinaded themselves and just require you to put it on the stove! Here is the supermarket near my home, Co-opMart.

The ingredients to make canh chua (sour tamarind soup)

To make lẩu nấm (mushroom hotpot)

Fish pre-marinaded for your convenience!

Meat-stuffed tofu, meat-stuffed bittermelon, meat-stuffed tomatoes, processed fish, wow!

Yup, the Vietnamese famous Cá kho tộ (fish caramelized in clay-pot), complete in its own claypot that you cook directly in!

Fish sauce

Okay, let's get cooking!

 

 

Goodbye class photo: ICP1-D1303J

Thus comes the ending of another great adult pre-intermediate class... This class was ever-so-memorable... The group was enthusiastic, bright, and loved to have fun! I got to create a lot of cognitively-stimulating games and activities in this class, as the students welcomed great challenge and competition. Among the students who stood out was Tien, one of the youngest students, still in high school, yet one of the most inquisitive and positive students. Striving to master his craft in English, he never shied from asking me how to pronounce different words, as well as the meaning of any word he didn't have a full grasp on. He was always the first, and sometimes the only, student to get excited and want to partake in games I had planned for the class; one time, after having finished a long challenging group game that utilized a lot of brain power and grammar reflection, I asked the class if they were up for another game which I had planned for the remainder of class, which involved rolling a big die and creating correct grammatical sentences in a race; he was the only one with a big smile on his face, looking around the class, and urging everyone to give this game a go, while the rest of the class looked tired and dismayed at the thought of another brain-squeezing game. Vu is another avid learner, always keeping his eyes on me even when I felt like the whole class was warped in its own world of socializing and gossiping with friends; he always volunteered incredibly smart answers, and he always got all of the difficult questions which nobody else could answer. Nhi's big wide smile always reminds the teacher how energy makes a huge difference in a classroomt; she also always surprised me with her elaborate and amusing answers at open-ended questions. Finally, Vu was a charming and graceful woman, who, although was hesitant at quick-paced physical games such as dashing for the flag in the middle of the floor, always offered insightful responses and comforted me with her kind motherly smile.

This class was so delightful that I decided that a little classroom goodbye party was a must. On our last day, we ordered in some delicious Korean Fried Chicken and had ourselves some great Vietnamese-style on-the-floor chow-down fun.

TESL Snakes & Ladders

Yea!!! I've come up with a new exciting game! This one uses the concept of a Snakes & Ladders-style human-board game. It is great for getting students to produce correct sentences, both grammatically and semantically, in a fast-paced situation.

The lesson I was building on was using the future tense (will) to make predictions (It'll rain; You'll fail; She'll get mad), either in the positive or negative form.


Here is how it works:


I drew two identical Snakes & Ladders-style "boards" on the floor. They consist of different paths that could be taken to reach the finish line. The paths have varying numbers of steps so that some are longer and others are shorter. Therefore, it is in the teams' best interest to choose the shortest path and steer their human "moving piece" on the correct path. (After the first round, I re-modified the paths so that they were inter-linked and that one could also move backwards (towards the beginning), to add excitement). Each step consists of either a positive '+' sign or a negative '-' sign, representing a positive sentence or a negative sentence.


The class is divided into two teams, and each team sends a member to become a "moving piece" on the start circle of their respective boards. The goal is to be the first to get their "piece" to reach the end circle, by moving one by one on each step.

I show some pre-prepared sentences on the projected board, and the teams have to be the first to come up with a response in the form of a prediction. For example, a projected sentence could be I have an important exam to take this afternoon, and some possible permitted answers could be You'll fail or You won't pass. The teams have to choose to make a positive or negative sentence according to which step they want their "piece" to move onto (either '+' or '-'). The first team to answer gets to move their "piece", while the other team's "piece" has to stay put. Of course, on impulse, students may say a sentence in a form which may disadvantage them, for example if they accidentally say a positive sentence which leads their piece to move "down a snake" and go backwards in the board... Therefore they must always pay attention to whether they want to make a positive or negative sentence, and their minds are always working to produce sensible responses that fit the projected sentence.

In order to regulate the speakers, I give a marker to the first student of each team. When the round begins, the person who holds the marker is allowed to speak. If they cannot think of an answer, they may pass the marker to the next student beside them, who can either answer or keep passing the marker back until an answer is given.

You can play as many rounds as you'd like for this game, with a point allocated to a team every time they reach the finish mark. The team with the most points wins.


I played this game with my pre-intermediate adult class, and it proved to be highly excitable and effective in getting students to produce the target language.

The team on the left was so nervous that they huddled together in the back so that they could quickly exchange the marker to whomever had an answer!

Photo Exhibition: Con Dao, the Enchanted Island

 Almost two years ago, I made a trip to Con Dao, and island archipelago off the southeastern coast of Vietnam, about 185 km from Vung Tau (and about 230km away from Ho Chi Minh City). I knew that Con Dao had taken away a piece of my heart when I had visited it, and now, upon looking back at the photos, I feel captivated all over again, shaking my head in awe as I sift through the photos.

Con Dao has been named one of the world's nine most mysterious islands* by Lonely Planet's travel magazine, and a look at its history as well as its ecology reveals why. During the French colonial times, Con Dao was used as a penal facility to house the thousands of political dissidents who opposed the French regime. Opened in 1861 by the French colonists, the prison is infamous for its "tiger cages", small prison cells that constrained large amounts of political prisoners and held them in inhumane conditions. After the French departed Vietnam in 1954, the prisons continued to be used by the South Vietnamese government. Some of the highest ranking Vietnamese leaders were detained here. The prison closed when Vietnam became reunified in 1975.

Given its dark history, it is no wonder that people consider Con Dao as an island paradise growing from a "hell on earth". These dark beginnings aside, the island boasts beautiful pristine beaches, luscious jungles, and incredible biodiversity. The archipelago consists of 16 islands altogether, with Con Son as its largest island with an area of 51.52 km² (the second largest island is only 5.45 km²). The local population is roughly 5000 inhabitants, and tourism is modest but expanding with a lot of potential. In fact, in November 2011, the Brangelina clan stayed at the luxurious Six Senses Resort on this island during a trip meant to bring Pax closer to his Vietnamese heritage.

Con Dao is truly a mysterious island, full of natural beauty and cultural charm. There is a certain peace instilled in the atmosphere. The inhabitants are very laidback and life seems to move at a slow, happy pace. Surrounded by lush mountains basked in mist, untouched beaches and wilderness tucked away in secret locations, and with the haunting eminence of the colonial-era prisons still tinted in the air, Con Dao is truly an enchantment.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

*The eight other mysterious islands are: Torres Strait (Australia), Yaeyama (Japan), Iles du Salut (Guiana, French), Ulleungdo (South Korea), San Blas (Panama), Penghu (Taiwan), Bay and Hog islands (Honduras) and Ssese (Uganda).