I've taken a month-long break from my last post so that I could devote all my limited mental bandwidth to obtaining my English teaching certification that allows me the option of spreading the knowledge and ability to communicate in the de facto international language of government and business to Vietnamese and other non-native speakers of it. It was an interesting experience that unfolded in ways that surprised me while also making demands of me that I wasn't anticipating.
My fear before attending the first class was that I would be by far the oldest student with the others comprised of 20-something fresh college grads, but the class was a nice mix of ages from 23 to the mid-50's, and nationalities including 3 Americans, 4 Aussies, and 1 Brit so I didn't feel at all out of place.
Right off the bat we were introduced to techniques for getting the foreign language learning process started for beginning students by using images, pictures, gestures, and something called realia all in the interest of setting a known context to start from. Realia is nothing more than a fancy name for props that a teacher would use in the same manner as a prop comic who pulls objects out of a bag to accompany his comedy material and a teacher does it for the same purpose, that is to command the attention of the audience and illustrate ideas without requiring much effort. I am however reminded of the metaphor of using an elephant gun to shoot a mouse and it seems a bit high brow and a waste really to use the term realia for something so mundane and ancillary as toys and gadgets. I was then fully expecting to cover the philosophy of dangling participles and the morality of missing antecedents followed by the gestalt of coordinating clauses. Realia?! Please. Henceforth I will use the term props. The realia, along with a wicked dose of philosophy, morality, and gestalt was to appear, for me at least, at the onset of teaching practice.
Teaching practice is where, as they say, the rubber meets the road. In my case I hit the road behind the wheel of a toy car made of cardboard and wire held together with paste and cellophane tape with wheels made of construction paper and popsicle sticks and at least one of those wheels was square. I found that I got no notice or respect for the 'Teacher On Board' scrawled across the door. Written in blue magic marker of course. This is all to say I was woefully unprepared for the task of standing at the head of a classroom of over 30 12-13 year old Vietnamese students who had about as much interest in learning English as having a few teeth pulled. This is simply how kids of that age are and always have been all over the globe. As I stood there and tried to ask in a friendly manner for attention and quiet with all the effect of whispering into the maw of a hurricane I thought to myself 'Where is my class of eager quiet attentive English students?' and I knew the answer was they existed in my head but definitely not then and there in that classroom. Now you can finally start talking to me about realia!
It turned out that a topic we had touched on ever so briefly in our classroom, a topic properly called classroom management, was the most important skill we would be needing for our series of 6 teaching practices. Out of our class of 8 prospective teachers, I'd say there were 3 who had an innate or previously acquired ability in classroom management and the rest of us floundered a bit. Not all the classes we taught were out of control and even in those classes that were there was always a handful of students that did pay attention and did want to learn, but without the classroom management skills the English teaching was largely a wasted effort. That said, it was still a good learning experience for us teachers and I think overall the kids liked it too even if they didn't show it the way we would have liked them to. I also have this suspicion we were being tested to find teachers who could in fact control large classes in this age group as I gathered many teachers simply will not teach these students, preferring really young or more advanced and serious students, but unfortunately 2 of the 3 teachers that I thought did a good job of classroom management during the teaching practices said they had no interest in pursuing it, at least for the time being. No worries, starting next week there's a new group of prospective teachers to pick through!
The classroom teaching practices were followed by one on one practices which were much easier on us and productive for the students who volunteered. It was good to get a taste of being able to help someone who wanted to learn without having to first rope them up and herd them into a paddock.
End result is that we all received our TESOL certification which should help any of us who so desire to get English teaching positions in Vietnam or elsewhere. My biggest regret of the experience is that I didn't bring my camera to any of the teaching practices to get some photos of the classes and the enthusiastic students in their blue and white uniforms. All the public schools here require uniforms which I've grown to consider a good idea. The schools here also operate at late hours, until 9 PM often, and even on weekends. I don't know if this is due to having shifts to deal with overcrowding or if it results in longer classroom hours for the students.
Besides the teacher/student aspects of the classroom experiences, over the past 4 weeks I came face to face with many of my own expectations and as it turns out, illusions, about not just teaching but living somewhere like Vietnam on a long-term or permanent basis. I also spent a lot of time interacting with and observing my fellow student teachers in an attempt to divine the answers each of them might truthfully have to what I simply call The Question. The Question is simple and important but it's one of those that most of us devote more time dreaming up polite pretty responses to that we can roll off at a party or over lunch with a relaxed smile and maybe accompanied by an expression of selfless concern on those rare occasions it's even obliquely asked than to trying to honestly answer. The Question is 'Why are you here?'. While the nice responses we concoct are not necessarily untrue, there's usually also a less selfless component we tend to leave out that we should acknowledge at least to ourselves. Or maybe not. That's enough realia for now.
