You really are tearcher wonderful!

Teaching in Vietnam is an interesting experience. Teaching Research Methods (as I am) is both an interesting experience and a HUGE challenge. Research Methods is a class that teaches students how to do research and more importantly, how to use the latest tools and research databases to assist them in this process. Sounds good, huh?

Well, imagine teaching with no research tools....little English language skills...and even less English writing skills. I laugh and cry at the same time. The important thing is that the students are really, really appreciative of any small thing you can teach them. And to give them individual help is almost unheard of.

So this week I asked my students to rewrite their research problem and send it to me. I carefully edited each statement and tried to fix the English as much as possible. As I send these statements back to the students via email..... they respond with great surprise. Here are a few of the interesting replies:

Thank you! I don't belive my eyes. I think that This isn't my topic. But we don't use "American War". The war is common in the world. We don't discriminate. In my country, the time of war is very long during many decade. You don't think proplem is too specific. You made me too amezing. I don't think that you spend time to repairing spelling mistake for one by one. You really are tearcher wonderful!
We love you!!! [NOTE: I switched one statement and included the term "American War" instead of something else...thus her reference to that war in her email. Interesting, and something I want to talk with her about!]

--------------------------------------------
My Assignment :

" Students, pupils are future masters of country, if they have good maral and good results of study, they'll build developed countrt in the future. And students of Ha Noi University of Education to contribut to develop Education faculty. Nowaday, the bad habits ussually appears in lecture hall and the life of many students. It limited capacity of study and build healthy life of students. Studying this topic, I'll come to:

1: Knowing the bad habits of students of HN university of education.

2: Finding the cause and find the measure to repair it for me, and you"
----------------------------------------

When I meet you, I am very interest and happy. But, I am sorry, because I don't listen and speak English well. Your class is very good and important for me but I know little. I must try harder. Best wishes for you!

-----------------------------------------

I could put up about 30 of these statements. Hopefully the examples above give you just a glimmer of my challenge. I try to keep in mind that I have NO---note the big letters....NO - NONE --NADA -- ability to speak Vietnamese. I have about 5 things I can say and that is it. The Vietnamese language is very tonal and difficult to speak for my western oriented brain and tongue. Thus I take the lack of English skills with great compassion and understanding. They at least are trying....whereas I can't even do that! So I continue to correct, edit and help them improve their speaking and writing skills in addition to teaching them how research is supposed to be done.

My other major headache is the total lack of resources here. The library is a big beautiful building with no books on its shelves...and the few that are there are in Russian. No one speaks Russian! There are few academic journals.....little support system in the form of online databases for searching out articles. I am going to leave all of the books I brought with them. Last summer I cleaned out my office and gave away all my geography journals because everything is now digital. I regret that move. I should have boxed them up and shipped them here! They need anything...and everything.

But with that said, the students are very bright and ambitious. Education is very important and they work very, very hard. They respect their teachers (yeah!) and are appreciative of any little thing you can do to help them. I really enjoy the positive feedback I get from everyone. It is something that American universities and society somewhat.....doesn't seem to give much of any more.