Hello, Ms. Thao! Would you mind introducing a little bit about yourself so that readers of ELT iCenter can know more about you?
Firstly, I would like to give my greetings to all readers of ELTICENTER! Hello, everyone! Let me introduce a little bit about myself. My full name is Dang Thi Thao. After five months graduating from the School of Foreign Languages Thai Nguyen University, I was lucky to pass the interview of Ha Giang Training and Education Department to be chosen as an English teacher of Meo Vac high school in Meo Vac district, Ha Giang province. Now I have been an ESL teacher for several months.
Actually, the purpose of our interview today is to understand more clearly about your Summer rural village English school project for poor students at remote areas last summer and your current job as an ESL teacher at _Meo Vac high school, Ha Giang, a mountainous village in the North of Vietnam.
Let’s start with your Summer rural village English project ! The first question is that: “When and where did your project take place?”
Summer rural village English project took place during 8 weeks between the first week of July and the last week of August, 2014.
What was the purpose of this project?
The purpose of this project was to help children get familiar with very basic English. In my village, it was not until children were in class 6 that English would be taught at their school. Therefore, the project worked with the target that children could make simple daily conversations in English during and after the project.
How did your project happen? How many students did you have?
At first, there were 30 children taking part in the project; however, after that 4 kids had to drop out because they had to help their parents do house work, graze buffalo, or look after babies.
What did you do in the project?
In this project, I worked as an English teacher and taught English for them based on the book "Let's learn English - Book 1" with my all heart.
Did you apply any new teaching methods or techniques in your project?
Yes, of course. During each lesson, I tried to apply suitable methods and effective techniques that helps improve the quality of teaching and learning English in classroom. Children were encouraged to work in pairs or in groups, practice English conversation in front of their class. Besides, some out-door activities were carried out to get children inspired in English lessons. For example, I always tried to select an English song having the similar content to the lesson to help children get access to English lessons better by guiding them to sing those songs. Or playing games after each lesson was what most children enjoyed so much. Moreover, I brought my laptop and speaker to class so that children could listen directly and watch performances. After that, they could sing more easily, especially they could dance by following movements from videos shown on my laptop screen. For these activities, I prepared some small gifts for the winners to motivate them. Therefore, every lesson ended with a lot of fun and inspiration.
How did your students react to those methods or techniques?
I realized that they were interested in taking part in my activities very much because they joined in my activities happily.
Could your share with us about your students’ attitude during the project?
To be honest, they were very obedient, friendly and enthusiastic. I love working with them so much.
The class in the project had its regulation so as to avoid the situation of students’ absence from class freely.
Did children taking part in the project make any progress during and after the project?
Yes, they did. They became more active and some children proved themselves to be potential English learners who may reach achievements in the future.
What are their most significant differences before and after joining in your project?
The kids became more confident and they could make simple conversations in English.
What are the similarities and differences in teaching English for students in your project and your previous students?
This is such a big question. When I was a student, I worked as a tutor to earn for my living from the second year and I taught students from grade 1 to 10. As I see, the similarity between these students is that they forget the lesson quickly. However, the difference is that students in big city get knowledge quicker than children in my village. I think it's understandable because students in big cities have a lot of good conditions to learn English well.
From whom or which you get the inspiration or motivation to carry out it?
Teaching English for children in my own village was an idea which had been in my mind 4 years ago. However, I couldn't carry out it because of some personal reasons. During the time waiting for degree, I came back home to help my parents with house work as well as reduce stress. In order to carry out my plan, I asked the leader of my village to inform every child. I intended to ask each child to contribute 10.000 VND for each lesson. However, my plan was not successful as I had expected. The number of students who registered to learn was very low. You can imagine how sad I was. When I came back school, I accidentally told Dr. Sakaguchi about what I did during the time I was at home. After asking me quite a lot of information, he promised to support a little bit for my class instead of taking money from kids. This was a big happiness for me and my students.
Did you receive any support from any individuals or programs?
Thanks to Dr.Sakaguchi's help, I received support from VHFS with a funding package of 8 millions, in which 6 million was paid for me as my salary for my teaching during two months and 2 million was used to buy textbooks, workbooks, notebooks for students and gifts for games in each lesson. At the end of the project, I hold a small party for children and they loved it very much.
What is your most memorable experience in this project?
The most memorable in the project were the imagines that children sang and danced the song "five little ducks" with music. Whenever I close my eyes, those imagines appear in my mind.
What are the difficulties you have to cope with during the project? Have you ever experienced the disappointed feeling during the project?
The first difficulty was that children were at different ages, so they were in different levels. Particularly, children aged 5-6 gained knowledge very slowly.
The second one was that some children were absent freely. Of course, they had their own reasons.
What did you learn from the project?
Through the project, I could learn many things. I grew up more and I thought for others more than I used to.
Specially, about teaching job, I realized that we should apply different teaching methods for students in different situations.
If you had another chance to conduct a similar one, would you take it and expand your project?
Yes, of course. I always hope I can do something to expand the project in every remote village.
Now, we move to the second part of the interview: your current career as a teacher at Meo Vac high school, Ha Giang, a mountainous village in the North of Vietnam. Could you tell readers how long you have worked as a teacher there?
I have worked as an English teacher in Meo Vac high school for more than two months.
What was your first impression about the school where you are working now?
My first impression was that everyone here was very simple and friendly.
With whom do you live and where do you and your colleagues live?
At present, I'm living with three other colleagues in the dormitory for teachers.
How about your students? Where do they come from and how about their family?
Most of my students are very lovely and obedient. They live quite far from the school (it's about 30 to 50 km). The majority of students are ethnic groups such as Hmong, Dao, Giay, etc. They said that their families were very poor, so they don't think they can continue learning after graduating. This is a big problem.
Is English language main major at your school? Do you think English language will be useful for your students? Why or why not? If yes, what will your students gain if they have a good English competence?
I think English is very important here because many tourists come here during their holidays. If students are good at English, they can get a good job.
Do you have any difficulties in teaching English for your students there?
The biggest difficulty is that most of my students just know a little English or even nothing. They can't read, write, and understand anything while the amount of knowledge taught at school is large every day. I'm so tired after teaching because I have to talk a lot. I try to apply some teaching methods but they aren't very effective because the time of each lesson is limited and their vocabulary are so poor.
If you can change or suggest something to help improve the above situation, what do you want to change and what will you suggest?
I really want to found an English club to help students improve their English. However, it's not easy to do this because students have to study all day from monday to saturday. I intend to open a volunteer class on sunday morning to teach Speaking for all students who love English.
Will you continue your current job for a longer time, or just a period of time? Why?
At present, I don't know how long I will work here, but I will try my best to do my job well.
How about your future plan? Will you apply for a scholarship to study abroad?
I hope in the near future I will have a chance to study abroad, so my plan is taking part in the IELTS examination first.
Which countries would you like to study in?
I love studying in America because I hope I can meet Mr.Sakaguchi there.
Just mentioning again about your current job, why did you choose to dedicate your youth for a position as a teacher at mountainous areas while you have many better choices at luxurious companies or offices where you can gain a lot of money and pleasure?
Thank for your interesting question. I want to come back my province to work because I know that English is the biggest problem of students in my province in general and in mountainous areas in particular. I hope to help them change their thought about learning English that it is not difficult to learn English as they think.
The last, would you mind giving the young like us some messages or advice at any fields so that they may have a more meaningful life?
"Try to do what you want and help people who are less lucky than you as much as possible, you will feel that your life is very meaningful."
For more information about Ms. Thao Dang, please read at:
https://elticenter.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/summer-rural-village-english-project-in-ha-giang-province/
By ELTICENTER
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