The Great Awakening

I haven't posted in a few days, but life's been busy, and I was actually sick for two days out of the week. Stomach pains, and indigestion, and actually a really bad fever worse than I've felt in years. Luckily, since our schedule is pretty flexible with class in the morning and teaching at night, I was able to lie down for a few hours and that made me feel a lot better. I took immodium and ate pretty much just bread for two days, and by Friday night I was feeling much better, and starving, so we went out to dinner at a nice tapas place. There was a guy playing lots of American songs on guitar, everything from Billy Joel to Pearl Jam to Men at Work... so it was interesting, and we had good opportunity to sing along. Exploring more of the city, taking in more of the scenery, and starting to fall in love with Saigon and its people. We walked past the Hotel Continental last night, where the "Quiet American" was written. It's very old, left over from the French colonial period, but looks to be recently renovated. I read a travel article before I left about a guy who lived there for a few months trying to write a novel, following in the tradition of the quiet american, and it was a lot more run down then, and he never ended up writing his novel... but anyway, it looks to be in better shape now.

First week of teaching is done, and it has gone overall pretty smoothly. Even the day that I was sick, I was feeling well enough during the class time to get up and help Graham teach, but by the end of class I was zonked. Yesterday, Friday, I taught a class by myself at 3pm, so I had less time to prepare, and I wasn't familiar with the class, so I had to guess what they knew. Some were really sharp, some were struggling, but I think I got the content of the lesson across. I taught them a lot of new vocab about clothes, in the context of shopping at the market. Then I decided to try some drama, and I wrote a short play and acted it out as a one-man-show for them. It was kind of a funny play where a girl wants to buy blouses, and after she haggles and agrees to buy two, she discovers they are full of holes and decides not to buy them, but the shopkeeper demands payment. So, the girl tries to run away but trips over a candle and lights her pants on fire, taking off her sandal to put out the flames. The shopkeeper cackles and says "that will teach you to mess with me!" and the girl runs away to shop elsewhere. A simple thing, but the students absolutely loved it, and they could not wait to act out their own renditions of it. I also had a game at the end of class where pictures of the vocab words for the day were on the floor, and one representative from each team was up and when I called out a word they had to be the first to stomp on the picture with their foot. They loved that one too! We have also played a game where you smack the word on the board, but it's good to change it up sometimes. I'd like to plan Monday's lesson this weekend to get it out of the way. Perhaps we will talk about accessories.

Another interesting teaching experience came when I had to talk to a student one-on-one, as part of the training program here. We talk to them for an hour, find out what they know and what they need help with, then write a lesson plan, and then for another hour we tutor them using the plan. So, last week I met with a girl, and I found that it's much easier to discover what gives people trouble in language when you can talk and listen to them directly, rather than a classroom setting. For example, mixing up the sounds "p" and "b", which I think is very common among Asian students learning English. Also, consonants at the end of words are hard for them to pronounce, especially more than one, like "porch". A lot of their words end in vowels, or single consonants which are softer and not stressed. Anyway, I think tutoring can be a rewarding activity, and it helps one to think about language and learning on a more personal level.

This weekend we were supposed to be going to the Mekong Delta, but we figured that since we just got to Saigon and have barely seen it, it would be better to postpone that and instead see the city, so that's what we've been doing. Earlier today, we were driving around and looking at apartments for rent for people. I think on Monday Hien will show me a house that has an open room where I can live, where apparently her brother and sister used to live, and her friend still lives sometimes. It would be something like $400 a month, I think. A maid kind of comes with the house. I feel kind of awkward having someone clean for me, but Hien says that the maid is happy to do it and needs the job. Also, apparently she cooks. So, it's beginning to sound like a better and better deal. I just don't like coming across as the cocky American who comes over to another country where his dollar goes further and expects to be treated like a king. But, not having to cook or go out to eat is also nice.... I suppose I will see what the place looks like, but so far it sounds promising to me.

Until next time,
Peter