That's not to say that people do not want to speak English. Many people have approached us in the elevator or on the street asking us if we can help them with their English. Some are quite desperate to learn it. We've helped Huong, the young man in Diagon Alley who has befriended Noah:
After getting lost trying to find her office, I was able to find her school, which was located on a small side street where every building on the block appears to be getting motivated. The school prides itself on being free to anyone that wants to take classes, and that any age person can take the classes. Here's a 52 year-old math teacher that walked in to meet me before his lesson.
Here are the women who run the school. Ha is the woman on the left. The woman in the middle is one of the English teachers. Her shirt reads, "Don't peep at me. I'll be shy. OK?" It is a perfect example of the shirts Vietnamese (especially young women) sometimes wear -- English text on the shirt that doesn't completely make sense. I'm not sure they understood exactly what the shirt says. In fact, for an English school, I was surprised at how little English was spoken here. Everyone was speaking to each other in Vietnamese, and they were quick to translate anything I said to the students. That is fine to a point, but eventually it will be better if there is less Vietnamese and more English, in order to let the students figure it out for themselves instead of relying on the translation. I've learned that the hard way in my very feeble attempt to learn Vietnamese.
Dao, the young receptionist in our building who has helped us many times with questions about the building or ordering a taxi (her English is the best of the staff in our building):
And earlier this week I finally caught up with Ha. She chased me down on the street one day and asked if I would help her at her "English program" teaching students English. Since I have a little time on Mondays and Tuesdays while Libby is teaching, I agreed to go to meet her and see what she had in mind.
After getting lost trying to find her office, I was able to find her school, which was located on a small side street where every building on the block appears to be getting motivated. The school prides itself on being free to anyone that wants to take classes, and that any age person can take the classes. Here's a 52 year-old math teacher that walked in to meet me before his lesson.
Here are the women who run the school. Ha is the woman on the left. The woman in the middle is one of the English teachers. Her shirt reads, "Don't peep at me. I'll be shy. OK?" It is a perfect example of the shirts Vietnamese (especially young women) sometimes wear -- English text on the shirt that doesn't completely make sense. I'm not sure they understood exactly what the shirt says. In fact, for an English school, I was surprised at how little English was spoken here. Everyone was speaking to each other in Vietnamese, and they were quick to translate anything I said to the students. That is fine to a point, but eventually it will be better if there is less Vietnamese and more English, in order to let the students figure it out for themselves instead of relying on the translation. I've learned that the hard way in my very feeble attempt to learn Vietnamese.
I don't think my schedule will allow me to work with this group much -- we're only here till the end of December and I'm really only free Monday and Tuesday before 3 pm. But good for them for putting this network of schools together (http://englishschools.edu.vn) throughout Vietnam. We are willing to help anyone that is trying to learn English.
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