Goodbye class photo: ICP3-D1304J

This class was not originally my class - I took it over after another teacher had left, about 3 or 4 weeks into the course- but as soon as I started teaching this class, I already felt like they were my students all along. I couldn't ask for a better classroom atmosphere - students were expressive, fun, and we all bonded really well. One of my favorite parts of the course was when I would share a personal story with the class at the beginning as a warm-up before heading into the lesson. I just love students who don't hold back, and who just say what's on their mind!

Given the great classroom community we had, I could not discern many different students in terms of standing out to me the most. There is one exception though, and that is Mr. Hoang. Right from the beginning, Mr. Hoang had always been the most energetic and enthusiastic member of the class. Aside from his contagious personality, his English was one of the best in class, where his knowledge of higher vocabulary aided many of his classmates with their work. If Mr. Hoang was on your team, you could bet you had a strong chance of winning! He was also beloved for his crazy uninhibited yelps and comments during heated games, which made the whole classroom crack up. Mr. Hoang was a prime example that in life, you have to grow older, but you do not have to grow up!

Unfortunately, we only had time for this one self-timed classroom shot; nevertheless, it is very prized by me.

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... :)

Photo Exhibition: Phu Quoc, Island of Magical Wonders

Last month, on a whim decision, I made a weekend trip to Phú Quốc Island to join a friend that was spending a week there relaxing before she made her move out of Vietnam. I hadn't expected much of Phú Quốc, reputed among friends and locals as a popular island getaway not too far from the city, loved for its long stretches of beach and pearl factories. So I quickly ran a search of things that we could do in Phu Quoc, and packed my bags, and after a 40 minute flight to the island's newly renovated airport, I met my friend on her rented motorbike outside at the parking lot not knowing what was in store for us as she drove us through the fresh ocean air towards town.

Phú Quốc Island is the largest island in Vietnam, and it has a reputation of containing some of the best beaches in the country. Situated in the Gulf of Thailand, it is roughly 45 km west from Ha Tien at the southernmost tip of Vietnam, and 15 km south of the coast of Cambodia. The 574 km² island predates the times of French missionary work in Vietnam, and has housed Emperor Gia Long in hiding, the Chinese colonial army during the time of Mao Zedong's revolution, as well as Viet Cong prisoners captured by the South Vietnamese Republic during the war. Inhabited by a local population of roughly 80,000, the island is known for its production of fish sauce, one of the best in Vietnam, as well as black pepper, one of the best in the world. The island is also known for its unique breed of dogs, the Phú Quốc dogs, characterized by a ridge down their backs and ferocious hunters by nature, but domesticated by the locals through the centuries, resulting in tame, sweet dogs that literally abound the whole island. Phú Quốc has long been the center of contentious territorial claim disputes between Cambodia and Vietnam, and although today the dispute is not officially settled, the island can only be reached from Vietnam.

With our guesthouse stationed in Dương Đông, the island's main town in the middle of the west coast, my friend and I decided to do a road-trip on our bike, up the breadth of the island to our destination of choice, Gành Dầu, a small beach town at the northwest tip of the island, where we would be able to see the Cambodian coast across the ocean. It turned out that the search for this destination would characterize our whole weekend trip, as we found ourselves swallowed in by the island's beguiling virgin forest (established as a national park) which took us on a captivating adventure swirling around never-ending red dirt paths to different tucked local secrets. After several hours of getting lost in the beautiful dense untouched forest the first day, it took us a second attempt the next day to finally get to our destination of choice. On the second attempt, we had initially missed a street and gone on to the northeast corner of the island to a town called
Bãi Thơm, where we would experience the most magical moment of our trip. We drove down a small path through the woods towards the coast, where we found ourselves on the property of a humble charming wooden hut house. As we started taking pictures of the coast scenery, some colorful creatures started popping out of the previously lifeless-seeming house, curious at us. Shy at first, this cute family of children soon warmed up to us, amused by our foreign-ness, and soon our encounter culminated in a heartwarmingly enjoyable game where the children copied all of my moves as well as sound effects. When it was time to leave, the kids cheerfully said goodbye to us then filed up the path to the street like mini-adults setting off to do some work! All alone! The mother was inside the house and kept yelling at the kids to keep manners in front of the visitors, and shyfully refused our offer to send her the wonderful photos of her children which we showed to the whole family gazing on excitedly. When we were back on the road, my friend and I were just completely stupefied at the incredible moment we had just had, feeling like it was all just a dream as we resumed our road-trip to the north. 

The trip was one of my most memorable because we happened upon so many hidden local gems and experienced such beautiful and authentic human moments. I got to know Phú Quốc as a dazzling island blending astonishing natural wonders with beautiful, humble and happy inhabitants propped up all throughout. When we rode back from the north towards town down the west coast of the island, we saw some of the most beautiful, wild and fresh beaches I have ever seen. In fact, I have just found out during the research for this post that that very beach I speak of, Bai Dai Beach, had been ranked by CNN to be in the top 100 best beaches in the world (#93); in 2008, ABC News had also voted Phú Quốc's beaches to be "The Most Cleanest and Beautiful Beach in the World" (according to some sources online which I couldn't verify). In any case, Phú Quốc island will always linger in my memories as that special place where such beautiful wild nature was interwoven with the romantic narrative of the local inhabitants.


I leave you with a selection of photos from the trip, which I chose on the basis of photography as well as the moments that captured me. All photos were taken by me, except obviously for the ones where I appeared in, which was taken by my friend, or the ones where we both appeared in, which was self-timed and positioned for automatic shots.