Major progress

First of all, my apologies to my loyal readers for my absence from the blog-o-sphere. I just got chastised by MJ for needing to update my blog, and fast!, so before I get reprimanded by anyone else, I will at least write a short update to let you know that I am indeed still alive, but have been busy and relying on faulty Internet lately.

It's been a whirlwind week of travel and visiting with my Dad and Jenna who came to Vietnam last week! It was wonderful to see them, to celebrate both Jenna's and my birthdays, and to have some familiar faces, hugs, and comforts from home. We also got to travel to some pretty sweet locations (I recommend Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park to ANYBODY who ventures over to Vietnam), and I got to be pampered in lavish hotels and eat lavish Dad-sponsored meals. All in all, a total win!!

I promise that pictures and stories from the past week will be forthcoming, but please give me some time to settle back into the silence and solidarity of my cold, moldy apartment in Ha Tinh!!

Until then, I can tell you about my wonderful class with my beginner-level students today. Generally, their class is the one that I dread the most because their English level is SOOOOOO low. Most of them don't understand any of the directions that I give for very simple activities and tasks, and they hardly ever understand any of the personal anecdotes or jokes that I tell. I've (politely) argued with Mr. Duc several times that my presence in their classroom might be a waste of all of our time since they don't understand most of the things that I say and that I just leave class feeling frustrated. Still, he won't budge, so the classes must go on.

Nonetheless, I was not in the mood to go to class today (both because of my usual pre-teaching jitters as well as the cold weather outside and how warm my bed was). I contemplated canceling class because, both luckily and unfortunately, there seem to be no real consequences for being irresponsible here. I don't want to take advantage of this dangerous knowledge and become a total slacker teacher, but the knowledge is there nonetheless. It would have been sooooo easy (and somewhat pathetic) for me to text my students, cancel class, and get back in bed for the rest of the day, with little-to-no repercussions for such behavior. Of course, guilt and self-loathing may be bigger repercussions than any external party's judgement could ever be, so, naturally, I got out of bed and went to class as planned, laziness and anxiety be damned.

Today we started with a warm-up activity that I had budgeted would take just about 10 minutes and be a simple and fun way to start the class. Instead, the warm-up activity ended up taking 45 minutes, the entire first period of class (classes consist of three 45-minute periods). I wasn't mad, and I never have a problem shortening the amount of information that I give the students (there is no curriculum, no textbook, and no syllabus for my classes - a looseness that often times frustrates me beyond belief, but at least it means I can tailor classes in-the-moment based on how students are responding!). The result was that I felt like all 25 students TRULY understood the activity and felt confident participating in it. Total win.

Later, we made a list of qualities that they thought were necessary in a good friend. Adjectives such as loyal, trust-worthy, honest, friendly, etc. came up, and then we contrasted these adjectives with qualities that are present in a bad friend: angry, liar, selfish, impatient, etc. Then, we listened to "You've Got A Friend In Me," filled in some lyrics, and, shockingly enough, were able to make connections between parts in the song where some of the qualities of a good friend are evident.

I was blown away that my students were reading song lyrics and analyzing them critically. Of course I truly had to coax and coach them to their final responses, but WHO CARES?! These are students who struggle with "Hello, how are you?" on most days, so I felt entirely victorious that some of them were able to pinpoint that a certain lyric was an example of being a "generous" friend, even if they required my help.

Sometimes I go weeks without these teaching breakthroughs, and I feel miserable and hopeless about my presence here. I feel like I'm not making a difference at all and that Fulbright made a big mistake in picking me to be the shaper of young, foreign minds. However, days like these remind me that progress is being made. Even when I look around the classroom and see students responding to my idiosyncratic, non-verbal cues (a raised hand and a finger in front of my lips means "stop talking," for example), I realize that we've come a long way from the first day when I did the "hands-up-mouths-shut" gesture (thank you, Camp Nashoba, for this one!) and received tons of blank stares and continued noise and pandemonium.

Tonight for dinner I made more pasta puttanesca (definitely my most well-honed culinary specialty!) and even ate one of the coveted Cadbury chocolate eggs that Jenna brought for me. I received such goodies from home: pepperoni, Annie's macaroni and cheese, Haribo gummy frogs, REAL bacon bits (non-processed!), Kraft grated parmesan cheese, my favorite pasta fagioli soup mix, and even some Valentine's Day conversation hearts (50% off after Valentine's Day- thanks, Mom!).

Now I just have to ration all of these goodies in order to make them last for the next 3 months...