I taught Translation first. Last week’s homework had been for students to write in English and Vietnamese about how they spent a day of Tet. I stressed that since this was a personal account, there should be no reason for anyone to copy anyone else’s sentences. I was very happy when I didn’t have to give a single zero for cheating. Again, we used a few of the assignments for translation warm up at the beginning of class. I’m keeping a list of who reads the Vietnamese and who translates to make sure I get to everyone eventually. Our main activity was song translation. I played Simon and Garfunkel’s “If I Could (El Condor Pasa)” and then read them the lyrics. They worked together as a class to produce the Vietnamese version of the lyrics. When we finished, I handed out the English lyrics and we listened to the song again.
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| I'd rather be a hammer than a nail |
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| Reading along as we listen to the song |
Since Valentine’s Day is next week, I changed their homework a little bit. Instead of writing and translating original texts, they will be translating the lyrics to love songs. It was nice to see my students so excited about something.
Next I taught speaking to my 2nd years. Even though these students are notorious for being passive in class, they are consistently more engaged than my 3rd years, or at least more receptive to my teaching methods that differ from what they’re used to. The lesson was about food and dietary restrictions (being a vegetarian, having food allergies, having religious restrictions on what you can eat, etc.), and we started out by reading a sample menu. I asked them to read over it on their own and then tell me what words they didn’t know so I could explain them to the class. I don’t do this often, mostly because students rarely pipe up about what they don’t know. I had prepared a list of words I thought they might have trouble with that I intended to address in case I didn’t get any questions. However, they pleasantly surprised me by bombarding me with a bunch of words.
Last week I had the students sign up for conversation groups, so that I can spend time actually talking to each student. I met with the first group last week, and this week I would see two groups. Usually, it takes the first 5 or 10 minutes of basic questions (e.g. what did you do this weekend?) before they loosen up and start asking me questions, too. This week, I had barely sat down when one girl started talking a mile a minute. “I’m so happy to talk to you! I don’t speak English very well but I really want to improve and I know you can help me. This weekend I saw some foreigners on my bus and I wanted to talk to them but I was too shy but I want to be able to talk to foreigners.” It pretty much made my day.
2.7.12
Today my Vietnamese class was replaced with a visit to Trang’s parent’s house to celebrate the death anniversary of her dad’s dad’s dad. (I was informed that in Vietnamese this familial position is ‘cha cha cha’.) As far as I experienced, it was no different than any other occasion for feasting, except that the older kids weren’t there because they were at school. I got to try more of Trang’s mom’s excellent cooking, and her reputation as a master chef is more than intact. One of the new dishes was chicken wings with a fish sauce based glaze. I’m hoping to get the recipe; it was delicious and Trang says it is quite easy to make.
I ate at the women’s table, but after eating I spent a long time talking with Trang’s dad. I found out that the reason he knows ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ is because he heard that it was LBJ’s favorite song, learned it, and played it for him when he visited Vietnam.
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| Just a few of the preliminary dishes |
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| Not from today, but I think this picture really captures the awesomeness of the house |
I was totally free until six, when I had to teach the teacher’s English club. They had asked me to make a presentation about how I spent the Tet holiday, and it was Trang’s idea to ask the teachers to do the same. To my surprise, everyone actually prepared something, so we spent the first hour with presentations. After that I explained some differences between Tet and how we celebrate the new year in the US. Then, someone asked me to talk about the differences between eastern and western dragons. It turns out I didn’t know much about eastern dragons, but that meant that I could ask my students a lot of questions. While western dragons breathe fire, are generally destructive, and get killed by knights, eastern dragons spray water, are considered good luck, and don’t get killed. Eastern dragons have the head of the lion and the body of a snake, while western dragons look more like winged dinosaurs.
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| Dragon descriptions |
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| Close-up of my attempts at drawing dragons |
No way! I didn't know that about east vs. west dragons! You learn the most fascinating stuff from your students!! Also, in the foreground of the food picture (naturally the most exciting one for me), is that plate after plate of xoi? JEALOUS!!!!!
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