Weeks 3 and 4: Student Teaching

After our Sihanoukville beach weekend, we all went to our teaching destinations. On Sunday, September 12, seven of us caught a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) in Vietnam.

Driving in at night was a rush of neon lights and whizzing, honking motorbikes.

Rush hour traffic. Scary, scary.

My first week in Vietnam was hard. I got sick right off the bat and ended up going to see a doctor during our first day of student teaching. Luckily, I just had a nasty cold, not dengue fever. The next day, I managed to get through my first actual teaching class only with a lot of help from one of our instructors. I had eight to 13 year old students who had more energy than I could keep up with, especially seeing as I hadn't started the day with any actual energy...

Regardless of my weak start, every day got a little bit better and I discovered something: I really like teaching. I know what you're thinking: shouldn't I have known that before I set off to teach English in a foreign country for a year? Well, I had an inkling but no real experience, so let me tell you, it was a relief to realize I like it. And I'm not half bad at it either, which, of course, helps the whole liking it thing. It makes me feel good about where I'm at in my life right now. Helping others in their education is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. Yeah, I had bad days--student teaching is difficult--but most days I found myself energized after class.

Those two weeks of student teaching were equally as intensive as the first two weeks, but in different ways. In Cambodia, we didn't have a lot of free time because we were in class learning how to teach. We started at the same time in Vietnam--9 a.m.--but we ended at all different times of the day. My first week in HCM, I was at school from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. We had Vietnamese language classes in the morning, then an hour and a half with one of our instructors either helping us write our lesson plans or going over resumes or talking about how to teach Vietnamese students, and in the afternoon and evenings we taught our own classes. Even though I didn't teach until 5:30 p.m. that first week, I was still at school until then every day because I was planning my lessons.

Those two weeks were full of long days. Fortunately, we had another adventure our first weekend in Vietnam. One of our students invited us to go to a water park. It was unlike any water park I've ever been to and it was awesome.

Water park on the Saigon River.

The water park had no rides, no lines and very little of it was man made. Stretching along a portion of the Saigon River, the water park hosted a few water slides that went into the river, a few platforms to jump off of, a line of floating devices on the water that you're supposed to try to run as far as you can on, and some canoes. The rest of the water park consisted of huts with tables and/or hammocks. The student who invited us even brought a traveling stove and a wok, and he fried up some spring rolls, noodles and veggies for us.

Yum.

It's monsoon season here, so it inevitably downpoured on us. But swimming in the river, reading a book in a hammock, eating good food, and playing card games in a hut with good people made for an awesome day. I also learned that Vietnamese people swim in shorts and t-shirts. Some people wear real bathing suits but keep their clothes on--even the men. Very strange.

The fourth week was much the same as the third. However, I had the same group of students for the entire week. They were roughly 18 to 26 and the best group of students ever. I had a lot of fun teaching them and I definitely would like to keep teaching that age group. There's more room to build a report with older students and, while they don't usually get my jokes, they still appreciate that I have a sense of humor.

At the end of my fourth week abroad, class was over. We had a party at a Mexican restaurant of all places and we received our certificates. All in all, the course was difficult, time-consuming and fun. I learned a lot and I'm glad I had the opportunity to take it.