I arrived in Vietnam on March 15th, 2011 at 11:00pm Hanoi time. This was the end of a 25hr trip that started at the Minneapolis International airport.
I was met at the gate by the school representatives who immediately drove me 2 hours more to Hai Phong.
The weather was startlingly cold. It was raining and continued to rain for 3 days. The wind made it feel like winter in Wisconsin. Already I was a bit saddened by my decision and though I wanted to be upbeat, I couldn't be.
We arrived in Hai Phong at around 1:00am and the town was not extremely lively. This actually surprised me as in Ho Chi Minh City it seems that the traffic and people never seem to stop. Hai Phong had little traffic and there were only a few food stalls open on the side of the streets.
We stopped at one food stall to have a beer (rượu bia) and some noodles. I couldn't remember any of the Vietnamese I had learned in my 3 years of living in Vietnamese so I couldn't tell you exactly what was ordered. The language barrier was the beginning of a "new teacher in a new location" frustration kicking in. When you accept a position as an ESL teacher from your living room at home, one tends to forget that you have also accepted to move to an unfamiliar place where no one but your students can understand what you say. You have but two choices. Either learn the language and preferably as quick as possible or don't. I always choose to do so but if you do not choose to learn in the beginning, the longer you pursue a career in ESL the more you will choose to start learning. If you do not.......you are setting yourself up for a long contract of pure frustration.
After eating, I was introduced to my new home: the hotel. The hotel I stay at is Khách Sạn (Hotel) Ngôi Sao (Star). Yes...The Star Hotel. The first room i stayed in reminded me of a jail cell with its Brady Bunch yellow walls and Brady Bunch decor. The room consisted of nothing more than a hard, double bed, a desk, a small round coffee table, 2 chairs, a TV stand and a 20" TV and a stand alone closet with the sliding doors. The bathroom was actually decent sized with a sink, toilet and bathtub. But the best thing, the one thing every teacher immediately should check is "Does the room have hot water?" IT DID! Hallelujah.
DAY 2: March 16th, 2011
I woke up to the sounds of buses and cars honking. Certainly the most pleasant sounds and even if you cover your head with a pillow the sound penetrates. Might as well get up.
It was freezing cold! maybe 10 degrees F. I was supposed to meet the Owner and his Director of the school in the lobby at 10am so as to get a look at the schools, receive my teaching schedule and meet the assistants who would be here for us during the next two months.
The weather was cold and wet. The rain was not hard rain but it just never stopped. The first two days it rained with a wind that made it feel like it was -10 degrees below zero. This was not the Vietnam I remembered.
The first school I work at is Le Quy Don (Trường THPT Lê Quý Đôn). Le Quy Don is basically a public high school. Each classroom has roughly 30-50 students in it and each class is 45 minutes long. The nice thing is that each classroom does have an overhead projector so one can use PowerPoint to teach. 45 minutes doesn't really give one a lot of time to focus on too many English issues and 30-50 students can be difficult to manage.
All my classes at Le Quy Don are morning classes and currently I have 8 classes a week from Tuesday thru Thursday. Classes start at 7am. OH MY GOD!
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| Trường THPT Lê Quý Đôn |
My classes here are in the afternoon. Each class is 75 minutes long and there are about 20-30 students per class. At least the attendance/ledger says that. As of yet, I have only had a couple classes with all the students in attendance. These classes vary from normal English to IELTS.
I have 2 classes every afternoon Monday thru Friday.
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| Trường THPT Trần Phú |
On Sunday afternoon, I do one more private lesson for 8 children which lasts 90 minutes. This lesson is actually done at the home of a teacher on the 3rd floor. The 3rd floor is actually set up as a classroom with desks and a chalkboard. I really don't know who the teacher is or where they teach at but it seems that most of the kids' parents are also teachers. Their ages are between 11-14.
After a quick walk-around of the schools the Owner and Director took us for lunch. It was here that I met some of the other foreign teachers. The two other teachers I work with here are a couple from the UK.
I went on alone with the Owner and Director to a cafe and than back to the hotel.
The rest of the night was uneventful. I watched TV and went to bed. And yes....they have Starz and HBO.
DAY 3: March 17th, 2011
The first day of teaching classes. I have 3 classes at Le Quy Don and 2 classes at Tran Phu. I have never met the students and quite frankly, I have no idea what they are learning. It is massively difficult to prepare lesson plans for classes when you are given the prior lesson plans 5 minutes before class. Apparently they want me to do "Introduction" classes so the next week is basically "Hi How are you" stuff.
This is not particularly my strong-suit as a teacher. I much prefer to just get right down to it. The only real blessing is that the Le Quy Don classes are only 45 minutes long.
The school uses a big drum to signal class time. As my class actually is supposed to begin at 7:00am, I am mystified as to why they bang the drum at 7:00am. Logically, the students continue wondering into the classroom LATE until about 7:10am. Now we have 35 minutes!
Each class at Le Quy Don has a monitor who is basically a student who takes the attendance and attempts to keep the students focused. Of course, keeping 45 students focused at 7am in the morning in an English class is ridiculously difficult to do. The constant chatter in Vietnamese can and will be heard throughout class. I quickly figured out that a lot of the chatter is one student asking another "What the hell did he say?". This trend tends to repeat itself throughout class but I figure that its better that students can translate than to have them just not paying attention at all. LOL. Funny!
