ESL in Hai Phong

In December I went to Hai Phong to do a one week workshop on ESL. My translator Nhan went with me to help out. A good thing, as the level of English of many of the English teachers was not very good.

On our arrival we checked out the school. The initial room was a room with lots of chairs with attached desks, not what I wanted for group activities. We ended up on the third floor of the administration building, just above the loudspeaker. Breaks were given whenever the loudspeaker decided to play music!!

I had told Mr Long that 30 was a good number for the workshop and had prepared accordingly. But on Monday, we had 34, so scrambled to get matching pictures and words for the first activity.

This workshop was conducted in English and was a real make and take workshop. I taught English songs like BINGO, TEN FINGERS, HOKEY POKEY, OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM, and games like WHAT TIME IS IT MR. WOLF? and we made flashcards, calendars, sentence strips, etc. An action packed week. From what I understand, the teachers told their friends, and we always had new teachers in the workshop.

At the end of thew workshop I invited in a fellow volunteer John to be a guest speaker of English. He was so well received, that he has already been asked to speak at several of the primary schools!!

The school I taught at was only 20 minute walk from the hotel so we rented a motorcycle. The traffic was horrendous and I was glad I wasn't driving.

When we weren't teaching, we walked the streets of the third largest city in "Vietnam". We were only 2 blocks from this park-like avenue that ran for 2 kms through the city. It was green space with flowers, trees, statues, water features including a large pond. An oasis in the city. We also found 2 lovely pagodas, with turtles in the ponds.