No more Ms. Nice Guy

This morning's translation class didn't go badly, but it furthered my conviction that I am not really suited to teach this class. I thought I had had a brilliant idea when I assigned homework to write 10 sentences about an environmental issue (the topic of the semester) in Vietnamese and translate it into English. My plan was to use their work as warmup translation activities that would require minimal preparation/translation stress on my part. I went through and corrected their English errors, but naturally I couldn't evaluate their Vietnamese. I later discovered that it was unwise to assume that their Vietnamese would be just fine.

Then class started and we started translating. I asked one student to read the Vietnamese version of someone's paper, and another student had to translate it into English. The class kept giggling during the reading and, as usual, I didn't really know why. Eventually Trang stepped in and explained that the Vietnamese text was poorly written. Really? This was especially unexpected because I had chosen the most well-written assignments (based on the English) to be translated. I had assumed that the students would most likely write their assignment in Vietnamese first, because they are more comfortable with that, and then work on translating it into English. So, if something was well written in English it should have been just as well written, if not better, in the students' native language. Anyway, it turned out that some of the best English ones were practically incomprehensible in Vietnamese, or so I gathered. So, instead of enabling me to circumvent my limitations, this lesson plan further revealed my shortcomings. It was frustrating.

My next class was Speaking 2. This class went fine, but I got the sense that people were still adjusting back into school mode. There are a few students in this class who are always talking.  Talking bothers me for many reasons. First, students are not respecting their peers. Second, it is incredibly distracting to me. Instead of listening to the student that I called on, I am trying to find out who is talking, how persistent a problem it is, and what I should do about it. I asked everyone to be quiet and listen to their classmates but, as usual, the following silence didn't last long. I had to pull out the big guns. I asked the students who were talking to stand up. That's it. I figured if one member of each talkative group of two or three were standing, it would be a lot harder for them to continue having semi-subtle conversations. They stood for the rest of the lesson. It didn't make me feel like a nice person, but it worked.

In the afternoon I had my monthly schedule meeting, at which is was not so shockingly revealed that I will not be teaching yoga "yet." As I learned a long time ago in Vietnam, I don't expect any plans to happen until they are happening. After that I suggested that Trang and I go to the place next to her house for fried fertilized duck eggs. When we got there they set up a table for us, but then Trang decided it was too sunny. So, the shopkeeper picked up our whole table and moved it into Trang's yard. Now that's what I call service!

Giving home delivery a whole new meaning