On Thursday evening, we decided to get some dinner from a food stall that sold noodles- very, very tasty. It reminded us of Vietnamese pho. I can’t wait to sink into my first bowl of pho when we arrive in Hanoi.

After a nice bowl of noodle soup, we headed across the street to Cozi for some drinks. They have a very good special of 3 Leo beers for 100 Baht. This special seems to run every day. We had a great time getting to know each other. The three of us are going to be in Viet Nam for our posts. Some for a year, others for two years.

Olivia wanted to brainstorm ideas for possible jobs she could do to earn money on the side while volunteering. Of course, this was going to be in addition to her food stall that she wants to start. I only agreed to give her more ideas if I could work at her food stall when I visited Hue. Here was our list of potential jobs:

1. English Tutor
2. Bartender
3. Hotel Receptionist
4. Radio DJ
5. Voice-Over Work
6. Open a Wine Bar
7. Weekend Tour Guide
8. Vietnamese Soap Opera Star Playing the Mute Girl (I would play the Viet Kieu with long hair)
9. Movie Star
10. Cover Band Singer (and Guitarist, when we learn how to play the guitar)
11. Model (we think Candice has the jump on us with this one)

As you can see, we know how to brainstorm. Maybe it was the Leo talking. Either way, those are pretty darn good ideas if you ask me.

You: “Do you think these are…?”

Me: “Yes, they are.”

After looking into our future moonlighting jobs, we talked about life in general- family, music, relationships, food, and a big part of our lives now: VIA.

The past near two weeks in Chiang Mai has been really great. Everyone here is simply amazing. It seems that we’ve found our flock to fly with. Everyone seems to be here for themselves, but to give all of themselves in this endeavor. I think a lot of times we grow accustomed to the status quo within us and over time we don’t even recognize it. You know what? I should have blogged this the night I came home from the bar because it was really good and I now can’t remember everything we talked about. I just remember the feeling. It made me feel really good about everything- myself, my friends, VIA, and this next part in my life. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.

rice
with
pork
Korean
style
twenty
Baht
so
so
good

tea
cold
also
known
as
bubble
tea
only
ten
Baht

Today was our first teaching assignment for some of us. The other half of the VIA group will be teaching later in the week. Our group was assigned to teach the intermediate class. We received the assignment yesterday and worked on it for the majority of that night. The most complex part in creating a lesson plan was following the plan that our ECC mentors gave us. They were great instructors, by the way, it was just difficult for us to combine our different teaching styles with the mold that they had for the class. In the end, we decided to go with our own dialog instead of what was on the CD we were given.

Our lesson was to cover conversation listening, split into five 15 minute sections: an ice breaker, 2 conversations & 1 activity, repeating the conversations to use with another activity, having the students brainstorm conversational questions, and a writing assignment. Throughout each section, the students were asked to participate in various ways such as small groups or pairs.

It was good to see what my teammates had in mind for their lesson. It exposed me to ideas that I either forgot or didn’t even think about using in my section.

Below is feedback from the instructor and our VIA peers that observed. The bold represents items that I felt personally needed improvement on my part.

1. The classroom setting could be intimidating for students since there are five of us teaching and ten of us observing in the back
2. Many students chose to speak in Thai during the assignments
3. When no one responds to a question posed…
   1. Call on them by name
   2. Have them discuss in pairs or small groups and then respond by calling on them
   3. Call on the most confident students first
   4. Split the class into teams to compete and have them answer as a team
4. Check for understanding of instructions
5. Have students play out the dialog instead of it always being performed by the instructors
6. Keep teaching language simple and brief
7. Pace yourself; no need to rush
8. Prepare the board ahead of time
9. Don’t write in ALL CAPS (apparently, Thai students are taught to copy everything that is written in ALL CAPS)
10. Address errors (either speech or writing) at the end of class as issues that came up for improvement
11. Use follow-up questions to encourage students to dig deeper