Tuesday morning, I actually woke up with enough time to spare for breakfast. Today was another swim day, the last week of our swimming, as the following week is when many of the children return to school. I had a rather decent amount of sleep, though the dog, Min, who decided to sleep over in my room woke me up a little early in the morning. I let it out at around five thirty, Mrs. Hong shouting for her dog. Today was also another sunny day, some of the last few weeks of summer, until the rainy, rainy, and even more rainy wet season. Vietnam has a two seasons a year, wet and dry. Hue citizens in particular live in the extreme, bearing tough rains during fall, winter and spring, and harsh dry conditions in the summer. My uncle was busy today, unable to take me to the swimming center, and so I went with Bac Hung, Mr. Hung, the gardener of the center. He took me along with his son to meet the children at the swim center.
Today's numbers were a little lower, many of the children having other errands to run, such as going to school and turning in money for the school year. Nevertheless, we had another fun day at the pool. There were no fights anymore, just fun, play, and practicing of swimming. I spent a lot of time at pool trying to test my endurance, swimming more laps than before. I also took the time to teach some of the children how to swim more efficiently, many of them not regular swimmers (neither am I). Ten o'clock rolled around and I headed back with Mr. Hung.
My goodness, we rode for a long time. We first dropped off his some, and made stops at many different places where Mr. Hung was running errands for people. We spoke quite a bit to each other in the last couple weeks at the center, Mr. Hung having a calm and collected personality and a can-do attitude. When we at last pulled into the center, the children on bikes even beating us back, I took the hour of time before lunch to go and relax, shower, and work over some ideas for my class in the afternoon with the junior high children. "Ben, today is fishing day!" said Luong and Phe, both of them excited and asking me if they could skip class to go fish. I told them that I would think about it, playing around with the children and chatting with them until lunch was served.
I continued to joke with the children at lunch about how many bowls of rice I had eaten, always throwing out random numbers. "Ugh, Ben you don't like our food do you?" asked Hien. "It's great, don't worry about it, I eat like this normally" I replied, "to be honest three to four small bowls is usually enough for me." Many of the children had heard stories of me eating seven small bowls, so they told all of the households to cook a lot of food for me. Unfortunately, they were a little wrong. What I almost forgot to mention was that a little bit before lunch, I went out to buy some sweets for the children, but was overcharged double the normal value of the snacks for the children. A bag of cookies normally costing six thousand dong was twelve thousand to me. The man at the nearby store definitely knew I had money, seeing as how I also bought a one hundred thousand dong phone card for my phone (about five dollars). While he tallied up my items, I did notice that I was being overcharged, but said nothing. To be honest, I wanted to do him a favor, help him out with his business. Though, when the children heard of how much I payed, they demanded that I run back and ask for a refund or ask for another set of snacks. "It's no big deal, I'm helping him out, he's running a tough business" I told them. We split out a bag of cookies and other sweets, eventually all heading off to rest.
During class today, I at last taken the time the following night and this noon to work out my ideas for what to teach the children for the last remaining weeks. Complete English grammar would take ages, so I selected the basics first, sentence construction and simple tenses. The children were definitely catching on, feeling as if they understood things finally as I explained it to them in Vietnamese. What I had learned today is that in their schools, they are taught only grammar and vocabulary, having little or no opportunity to practice reading, writing, or speaking. "We just work through the lessons by the grammar, but do not understand anything we are writing down" said one of the students. I was surprised, and instantly it hit me. I have to do something about this. After calling the class off, I thought to myself about an opportunity to go with some of the children to their respective schools to see how the teaching program was at their schools, particularly in English. Some of them said they would get back to me, and so now I wait.
On Sunday, I met one of the older daughters of one of my dad's friends. Her name was Tien, and she is a second year student at the Da Nang University of Education, specializing in mathematics. At first, she told me, she had chosen to attend a different university, what I believe to be was in English or something like that. Three years in, she decided that she didn't like it, and switched. Now at the age of about twenty four or so, she has to start over again in university to work towards a career in teaching mathematics, something she feels is far far easier for her to grasp. I invited her out to meet me at one of the local cafes, her having about three days of break left before going back to Da Nang for school. We talked for a long time, me spending a lot of my time going over my philosophy and how I got to the mindset that I am now, going over from my parents' history, my disagreements, and my epiphanies year after year. We talked deeply about the differences in education systems and cultures between West and East, comparing ideas and trying to work out compromises. Eventually, the time passed so quickly that I nearly missed out on dinner, the children calling me at around six. I waved her goodbye as she got on my motorbike back to one of her homes in Hue, greeting the children and walking on in to dinner.
It was another fine dinner, the dog following us around and begging for food. When I finished, I went on back to my room to work, the children also following me up. Pretty soon, about twelve of the children all ran into my room, to relax in the air conditioning and play. "When will you be done Ben?" said one of them, wanting to watch another movie on my laptop. I worked as quickly as possible, the children making quite a stir in my room, me fearing that one of the mothers would come and chastise me. At last, I brought my laptop down towards the little children's houses, setting up the videos, and going off to tutor English to Phuong and Dieu, Phuong in her last year in high school, and Dieu in her second year in college.
While the little children glued their eyes to the laptop screen, me and the two sisters got to work, going over basic English grammar, and practicing writing. Phuong told me about her frustration with English teaching, saying that she didn't understand a thing she was writing down in her classes and that her teachers did not explain the meaning of passages to the class, only focusing on grammar as if English was some kind of math subject. I looked at one of the notebooks of the recent graduates of high school, noticing a sea of grammar boxes and question/answer lessons. I asked her if they said they understood, and she told me no. I let out a sigh, telling her and Dieu that I would find some way to fix the problem. "If I could spend at least a year in America or overseas, I'm sure I could learn much much better" she told me. "Of course, I've had my whole life to practice" I replied. This is apart of the reason why my English is at the level that it is. Exposure. Something extremely important to the understanding of language. How do I "expose" them to an English speaking world? How do I create a simulation or something of the sort to help them understand? This will take a lot more time to develop.
The time was getting dark, the children saying ghosts would grab me as I walked back to my room in the dark. I told them that it was nonsense and wished them all a good night, trudging on up to my room without anything in the way, other than the little white dog, Min, running after me to come sleep in my room. I let out a yawn, tired from the day, but still worked on my laptop until midnight, Min snoozing away on one of my big green pillows on my bed. I pet its head one last time, and flipped the switches to go to sleep. Every now and then, Min would yawn, letting out a ever so soft squeal. What a cute dog.
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