Editor's dairy: Being a part of ELTiCenter Project, What I've achieved?

I have been a team member of the website project “ELTiCENTER” and this project has given me a chance to both show what I could do and practice academic and professional skills.

Concretely, before the website project was officially run, I could not imagine what I should do and how I could develop myself thanks to being a part of the project. But after every period of the project, under the guidance of the team project, I myself realize that the project has brought significant benefits for my personal development.

Firstly, I have been able to enhance my skills of writing and translating English – my real passion since I was a freshman at SFL, TNU. In addition, my English reading skill is also improved due to my studying academic documents to serve for my writing and translating posts to update on our website. Moreover, the content of the website has been very plentiful, which allows me to reinforce my English skills freely.

Secondly, professional skills including leadership skills (initiative, organizing skills, creativity in reaching out, and team building skills, etc) and other working skills (finding a solution to a problem, time management, etc) are necessary skills that I have been equip for me due to the time  involving in this project. The guidance and encouragement of project team gave me very big promotion to try to work seriously and professionally. Significantly, I could correct some of my weakness like being so careless in working or being late for meetings.

Finally, self-confidence and life motivation are the most important things that the project has given to my life. I remember I was so shy to go with Mrs. Nhi, Mr. Huy and Ms. Sherry Yen one year ago to Ha Noi to meet and talk with Uncle Mel about the project. That was my first time coming to the centre of Ha Noi capital. That meeting was very important to me because it was a point marking one of my first step to work professionally in a project, of which I had never thought before. At first, I was not sure if I could complete well my role in the project or not, but time passed away, and the help and support of team project have made me stronger and stronger every day. I am now more confident in my ability and the project has become an important part of my life. Honestly, I enjoyed the feelings of being so eager at the nights before sis Yen and I announced the information of the upcoming contests or the results of those contest. And the meetings with winners of each contest held by ELTiCenter left a lot of memorable memories in my mind. Furthermore, attending the project helps me realize my interests and hopeful jobs. I think I may seek for other projects to work as a team member.

To sum up, attending the project has made my life become more and more meaningful. Thanks to being a part of this project, I have had a job to take care of and a passion to pursue.

***

More about the significance of the website projects to coordinators of the projects:

The project has also given chances to many other ESL learners who were seeking opportunities to practice their writing and translating skills. Sis Yen and I have invited many teachers and students to write or translate for the website. Some of them agreed and they have become coordinators of ELTiCENTER website. They all said that they hoped the project would be maintained and kept going on so that they could have a good environment to develop their English writing, reading and translating skills.

June, 2015

By Thanh Huong, Co-editor of ELTiCenter project

How teaching English to Young Learners change my life!

“It must be such a long and harsh journey for me to become an ESL teacher”, “Oh children, they are such playful and annoying creatures ever”. That’s what I thought when I was a student in university a few years ago. In my whole student life, I had no students as I had never been a tutor like my other friends at that time. To be honest, I also had no intentions to teach English to anybody as I was doubting myself about my teaching motivation, teaching methods and capabilities; the only thing I did is sharing my learning experiences with other people to easily remember knowledge and get better marks. Those people called me their “special teacher”; frankly, I did not think I was a teacher at that moment, I just thought a teacher has to do something else even bigger, greater and he/she does not need to be too close with students. However from time to time, I come to realize a teacher should not be too distant with their students, he/she needs to understand what his/her students need, what he/she can do to help their students learn more useful knowledge, remember what they learned, or even encourage them come to the class. I realize that something meaningful comes from small things, small actions of each teacher with students. 

Until now, I still wonder how come I started my very first teaching with young learners while I did not really like them, while I did not know how to handle them well or having nothing to back me up, how strange but wonderful it was. From that start, I totally changed my mind and what I thought about kids. The first thing I learned from teaching English to young learners is not any new words or academic grammar, that is the thing I have tried to learn for more than twenty years in my life “Love for Children”. That sounds unbelievable and unreal but it is truly what I learned. I cannot tell since when I came to miss my students when I was not in the class with them. I cannot tell how much I miss my students’ smiles and naive eyes but I can tell I always feel so relaxed and joyful joining them after extremely stressful working hours. Teaching English to young learners, I learned how to be more patient, more creative and more responsible with other people. It is totally wonderful for teachers to teach and learn good things at the same time “Learning by teaching!”. What we teach is “Knowledge”, but what we learn is “Love”. Why have to be more patient? The only answer is: Kids are impatient and playful, that is why the teacher needs to be patient. If a teacher cannot wait for their students to finish writing some simple words “HELLO,    HOW      ARE      YOU     TODAY?”, he/she must not be able to teach them how to write English correctly; if a teacher cannot wait for their students to finish spelling their names in English “MY    NAME     IS     HUYEN”, he/she must not be able to teach them how to pronounce and speak English appropriately. In order to assist the kids remember knowledge more easily or build their growing characters, a teacher needs “Love”. He/she needs to be smooth, gentle, humorous or even careful like caring for his/her own children. No wonder why there is a very popular saying in Vietnamese society “A teacher is like a mother!”

 

Why to be more creative? Children always like something incredible or related to senses like vision, hearing, feelings, etc. That is why a teacher needs to be more creative in designing lessons for young learners. New vocabulary (tangible nouns) has to be illustrated with something visible like objects, worksheets or flash cards; students can also draw or color pictures to learn new words more quickly. Pronunciation has to be simulated with something hearable like music, funny sounds and memorable songs. Verbs have to be simulated with something like actions or animations, etc. There are various ways to teach English to young learners. Teachers can use games like crosswords, bingo, word search…., candy coupon (attached picture), extra-curricular activities to make students more interested and motivated to study English. They can even dance, sing along and play with their students also.

 

Why to be more responsible with other people? I always bear in mind that children are pure papers, what a teacher teaches children at a very young age may affect them in their whole life. With young learners, teachers do not teach only knowledge, they also teach children how to treat people, how to be sympathetic and become a good person. It is undeniable to claim that teachers have a great influence in building characters of the young generation for our society. 

With some teachers, they may find it is difficult and challenging for them to teach English to young learners but if they spend more time with kids, learn how to interact with them and try to understand more about their world, I am pretty sure that they will also love teaching children like me. We cannot tell anything for sure if we do not try. Right now, I still agree with what I first thought about teaching English, I surely need to learn more to become a good ESL teacher but I also changed my mind about children “They are the most wonderful creatures we have had in this world”. It is teachers’ true happiness to see their students growing up physically and mentally with what they taught them before. Though I am postponing my journey to be an ESL teacher to try other things in life, I still believe if I have fate to do that, I will come back and do what I need to for my students.

A warm meaningful meeting with winners of Lucky Drawing Contest by ELT iCenter

On January 13rd, ELT iCenter held a warm meeting with winners of Lucky Drawing Contest to award them certificates of ELT iCenter and the amount of money in cash in equivalent with their prizes as prescribed in the rules of the contests. Although there were 3 winners of the 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd prizes, only the winners of the 2nd and the 3rd prizes attended the meeting. The winner of the 1st prizes lived in Nam Dinh, which was approximately 200 km from Thai Nguyen, so she could not come to Thai Nguyen due to her busy schedule. However, ELT iCenter did send her certificate and awards by the form of transferring at banks and sending via post offices.

About the place where the meeting happened, instead of celebrating a formal event as usual, editors of ELT iCenter decided to meet winners of the contest at Coffe Hollic in the centre of Thai Nguyen City, Vietnam to have an informal talk with winners.

  The meeting warmly began with an introduction about ELT iCenter. Ms. Sherry yen – Editor of ELT iCenter provided the winners with a brief background of ELT iCenter whose purposes are to promote English language teaching in Vietnam and disseminate various types of scholarships and grants as well for those who may concern.

The meeting continued with winners’ sharing about the reason why they had known about the Lucky Drawing Contest by ELT iCenter. Both of the winners of the 3rd and the 2nd prizes said that they had known about the contest via their friends. Generally, at first, the winners were a little shy. However, because of the friendly attitude of 2 editors, the winners comfortably shared with two editors of ELT iCenter about their study. Surprisingly, they were both students of School of Foreign Language, Thai Nguyen University - the same school with two editors of ELT iCenter.

The story seemed to be more exciting when two editors kept quiet to pay attention to their expressing about difficulties in learning English. Ms. Dieu – the winner of the 3rd prize mentioned that she was not confident in her ability of English language, so she found it hard to speak and communicate in English as fluently as others. Similarly, Ms. Hue – the winner of the 3rd prize faces a lot of troubles in listening to English. Both winners seemed to be diffident in themselves and were seeking for the best methods to improve their English language proficiency.

Enthusiastically, Ms. Sherry Yen gave them a lot of good advices that they can apply to practice speaking and listening to English. Concretely, Ms. Sherry Yen told her stories of learning English when she was student at SFL, TNU. I remembered she said that she did enjoy listening English via popular channels like CNN, BBC at every noon when she cooked. At first, she could not understand the content of the speeches or talks made by speakers of each program. Gradually, after regular practices, she amazingly recognized the content that speakers of CNN or BBC was making on each program and she was so happy of that. Moreover, she also introduced to winners some common English clubs for students in Thai Nguyen such as ICC English Club, Community English Club, TNUT English Club, etc so that they can come there to meet new friends and practice communicating in English with others. 

And as a common rule of life, the meeting nearly came to an end even though no one wanted to leave. Two editors of ELT iCenter said that they were so glad to meet the winners and they hoped that the winners would also attend further activities held by elt icenter. Then on behalf of ELT iCenter, Ms. Sherry Yen awarded the two winners certificates of ELT iCenter and their equivalent prizes as in the contest. They both looked so happy to receive their prizes and they also promised to be regular readers who would usually update information published by ELT iCenter. *** Finally, the meeting with winners of Lucky Drawing Contest by ELT iCenter finished with a lot of regrets from both winners and editors. All wished that they would have more time to talk to each other. *** 

Personally, being a part of ELT iCenter project with a position of an editor is one of the most meaningful achievements I could achieve this year. And celebrating this Lucky Drawing Contest did give us a lot of memorable experiences. We did try to make a well-running contest with all our possibilities even with the smallest things. Sis Sherry Yen and I may never forget the feeling of discussing about the rules of the contest, waiting for the time to start it and preparing carefully everything to make the video of selecting winners through the forms of drawing randomly and announcing results for the winners of the contest. Thanks to organizing the contest, we had a good opportunity to be the organizers of a contest which requires us a lot of skills like team-work, time management, writing scenario and controlling a program like real MCs on TV shows.

  Sincerely, all these useful lessons which we have learnt from organizing the contest encourages us to better complete our jobs as editors of ELT iCenter so as to provide readers with the best quality posts and the most meaningful programs including contests or interviews to great people who are interested in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). And as we have promised, we will soon return with more impressing activities! Let update our information on this site and Facebook fan page of ELT iCenter.

Once again, thank you so much for all participants in Lucky Drawing Contest and all those who have visited and contributed to build and develop our ELT iCenter website project. We are looking forward to more feedbacks from you so that we can expand the content of ELT iCenter Website. Many thanks in advance!

Congratulations to Huy Phung, Fulbright Scholar

Congratulations to Huy Phung, an English teacher as a second language of the School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for being awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for advanced study in the US during the period 2014-2016.

Mr. Phung chose to study at the University of Hawaii, Manoa and left Vietnam in the early August to begin his studies in Honolulu after attending a Fullbright orientation program held at the University of Idaho.

According to Mrs. Nhi Tran - Associate Dean of the School of Foreign Languages, Mr. Phung has been one of the most popular teachers with students at the School and well deserves the honor of being a Fullbright Scholar.

“Our students at the School will miss him so much for the next two years, and they look forward to his return and also his exciting stories about his life as well as his studies in the US.”, said Mrs. Nhi Tran

Mr. Phung has a happy family

with his beloved wife and one lovely daughter called “Truc Ly”.

Vocabulary and phrases of words corner

New words	Transcription	Meaning
Scholar (n)	/ˈskɒlə /	A specialist in a particular branch of study, especially the humanities A person who is highly educated or has an aptitude for study A university student holding a scholarship
Member (n)	/ˈmɛmbə /	A person, country, or organization that has joined a group, society, or team
Award (n.v)	/əˈwɔːd /	(n) A prize or other mark of recognition given in honour of an achievement(v)Give or order the giving of (something) as an official payment, compensation, or prize to (someone)
Advanced (Adj)	/adˈvɑːnst/	Far on or ahead in development or progress New and not yet generally accepted
Orientation (n)	/ˌɔːrɪənˈteɪʃ(ə)n , ˌɒr-/	The action of orienting someone or something relative to the points of a compass or other specified positions
Associate Dean (n)	/əˈsəʊʃɪeɪt, -sɪeɪt di:n/	Vice Dean
Deserve (v)	/dɪˈzəːv /	Do something or have or show qualities worthy of (a reaction which rewards or punishes as appropriate)
Honor (n)	/ˈɒnə /	High respect; great esteem
Daughter(n)	/ˈdɔːtə /	A girl or woman in relation to either or both of her parents

Phrase of words	Meaning
Congratulations to someone on something	congratulate someone who has earned or received something good: had a baby, received a job promotion, found a job, bought a new house, graduated from school, passed a test, etc.
Be awarded something	be given something (prize, certificate)
According to	based on
Look forward to doing something	to feel pleased and excited about something that is going to happen used at the end of a formal letter to say you hope to hear from or see someone soon, or that you expect something from them