Education or entertainment?

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Work so far - Peter

Before even starting to work in a school it was clear that this was not going to be like my usual classes. On my arrival to Hai Phong Nadine and I were asked to attend an opening ceremony of the new school year in the High school. Instead of a boring speech the ceremony was filled with songs and dances from the students, presentations of flowers to all teachers (including myself), and the students were given cash prizes for attendance, hard work and good grades etc (gotta love a bribe). Even short bursts of torrential rain did not dampen spirits as the ceremony was just continued the following day. For me the funniest part was when the students watching the acts began to grab flowers and present them to friends or crushes on stage as they performed. It was very cute.

The children are lovely, they constantly have a smile on their faces and are .so excited to see a foreign teacher. The youngest try and get as close as possible to try and touch you then run like mad when you turn towards them. Others are like parrots and would happily keep repeating hello for hours as long as you would smile and wave. All you need to do is make a funny noise, smile at them, or jump about, and they will be in a fit of laughter.

I am now working in 2 primary schools; they are massive (as big as a secondary school at home) and each class has from 30-50 kids.

Each lesson starts with children learning a song and hopefully joining in with actions. From having 5 little monkeys, or 2 little dicky birds act it out at the front of class while my big bass of a man voice tries to sing along with them.

The trick is to keep them busy - repeating words and sentences can be boring, so it is a good idea to change the tempo (speak loud or soft, quick or slow, to sing the word or break it into pieces), and to turn choosing people to answer into a game. They thin we are playing a game when really i am just randomly selecting poor unsuspecting victims to speak infront of the class.

So far i am loving it. It is fun to see the children so enthusiastic, and some are so eager to impress. Now my only problem is planning all the different lessons ... oh, and that school starts at 7am (which is just wrong!)



Education Experience (Nadine)

Unlike Peter I work in a high school with emotionally volitile teenagers, so strung up on hormones they arn't sure whether they love you or hate you ... it all depends on the day. I teach approx 700 students in a week which makes it difficult to remember names but praise jebus for TA's - I dont know what I would do without them, they hold the key to the students name (correct pronunciation).

The best part about starting a morning lesson is the good old brain taxing tongue twister - god bless Dr Seuss and his nonsense rhymes. Tip for anyone teaching for the first time - get as many tongue twisters as you can and spend a good 15minutes of the lesson focusing on word pronunciation its a good way to get the students to listen to the words and pronounce them properly as well as an excellent time waster.

Unlike Peter, I do not spend my days singing songs and repeating the same 5 words for the entire 45min class (what a dream that would be). High school teaching can be quite challenging espically when you have a class who just dont want to listen but are ecstatic to see you arrive into their class

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