As a VIA alum, I’d have to say that it was one of the best experiences of my life. Like all “one of the best experiences of my life” stories, I met new friends whom I still keep in touch with, saw things that I never thought I’d ever see or even knew existed, ate some of the world’s best foods, struggled with new cultures, struggled with myself, fell in love, got lost on a new adventure, shared in laughs and tears…

It was amazing.

Now is the recruiting season for VIA. If you are looking to do something abroad- whether you know what you want to do or not- take the time to look at the below links and see if it sparks your interest. There’s so much of the world to see. There’s so many wonderful people to meet and get to know. Take that chance and live out a new story in your life. I’ll do my best to share some of the ones I’ve had in a new category called “Volunteer in Asia with VIA”.

Brief VIA Information Page

VIA Website

If you have questions, feel free to leave it in the comments section or contact VIA directly. I had tons- and they answered them all.

Who do the students love?

I don’t know… could it be us? Perhaps.

It’s been an interesting first term and half-year at HANU. My partner and I feel that we are truly blessed to be at this university. The staff is wonderful; the students are amazing; the city is only a bus ride away; and we get Vietnamese lessons weekly. Not every post has all of these things. It seems like we lucked out.

We’re afforded the opportunity to work with the students outside of the classroom as well which has led Tiffany to sometimes meet with them after lessons or show a movie. I have met with classes for karaoke and a Christmas party. I have something on the horizons that I would like to share with my students and hope to do so early in the coming year.

Christine is wise in placing me at HANU. Now that I’m acclimated, it’s time to get to work. =)

[Note: "American" appears to be a synonym used here, and other parts of the world, to refer to people from the United States. Whenever we can, we do try to expand their definition of the word to reflects both North America and South America. The lesson continues.]

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