Looking back

Surprisingly, despite the drudgery of having to write what felt like ten different overviews for Fulbright and the college, I somehow ended up churning out something I liked. I thought I'd share this one:

My time in Vietnam has been, first and foremost, a learning experience. I learned some local culture and language; I learned about how people learn and how to teach them, and I learned about myself.

One of the reasons I wanted to come to Vietnam was to experience a culture drastically different from my own, and to try to learn Vietnamese. While my Vietnamese study was not as consistent or successful as I had hoped, there was no stopping the cultural exposure. I was lucky to have a host with an appetite as big as mine, and a teacher’s spirit. I told her early on that I wanted to try new things, and even now, in my last month in Vietnam, she is still taking me to try new dishes, like gà ác. I can definitely say I have savored Southern Vietnamese culinary culture. More importantly, over the many meals we shared, she taught me so much about Vietnamese culture. I learned about everything from proverbs to chopstick etiquette to superstitions. Moreover, every time I interacted with someone, it was a moment of cultural exchange.

Though I had some experience teaching before I came to Vietnam, this was my first time developing lesson plans that had to keep 30+ students engaged and learning for 90 minutes. In the beginning, the hardest part was estimating how long each activity would take, and I often over-planned in case I overestimated how much time each activity would fill. Eventually, though, this became second nature. But then the real challenges started. How did I know if my students were learning anything? Was I a teacher, or just an entertaining foreign babysitter? Most of the time, it was hard to tell. But, there were moments, flashes of light, in which I saw that I was having an impact. They could be small signs – students getting in groups and shouting their group number in English rather than in Vietnamese – or big ones, like when I let my students chat about whatever they wanted as long as it was in English, and they did. I asked students to fill out teacher evaluations and self-evaluations at the end of each course. Even if at that point it was too late to implement any suggestions for improvement, these evaluations showed me what the students thought of me, my teaching style, my lessons, and their own behavior and progress in my class. Many times, when students wrote about the effects of certain lessons, they wrote exactly what my unspoken objectives had been. These evaluations affirmed me as a teacher, and educated me about my students.

Life in Vietnam was sometimes a life of extremes. Living alone here is different from living alone in the States, where friends are never too far. Here, a 15-hour time difference separated me from my closest friends, at least two hours of public transportation separated me from the closest ETA, and language separated me from most of the people in my vicinity. Loneliness was a whole new animal. Frustrating situations were made all the more frustrating by cultural differences and language barriers. I had to confront my shortcomings and my bad habits, and battle to change them or accept them as a permanent part of me. When I first got to Ben Tre, feeling the weight of nine unimaginable months ahead of me, I told myself that if I survived this next phase of my life, I would know whether I would never leave home again or whether I would be a wandering spirit forever.  Well, I survived, and I now know I am ready to spend some time at home for now, but I’ll be surprised if I stay there for too long.

I know that Fulbright’s objective is cultural exchange. I know that my role was that of a teacher, inside and outside of the classroom. People told me time and time again that I, the first foreigner, was an invaluable resource to the community. I believe them. But what I can most accurately assess is the personal value of my experience as an ETA in Vietnam. I have gained so much: understanding, knowledge, perspective, patience, friendship. Was I the person most changed by my presence in Vietnam? Maybe. But maybe I changed enough people enough that my influence will branch out from them, changing how foreigners are viewed, changing how English is spoken, changing how English is taught, changing things I cannot imagine.

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey