Today was our irst day teaching English, it all started off a little behind schedule as we were a bit confused about when we were supposed to be at our breakfast location (which just ended up being dumplings right outside our classroom). The first day of teaching was quite entertaining as we are getting to know the people while we are trying to teach them (Christine being the only teacher in the group). We watched a 10 min video on how to make the "th" sound both the voiced and voiceless versions. After watching that a whole new world of sounds was opened up when you think about how we use our mouths to create sounds. One of the things that makes learning English difficult is it is the language that uses the most movements of the mouth. Most of the Vietnamese words are spoken with very little mouth movements and even fewer facial expressions.
After our first teaching session we all headed over to the university Café to get some Ice Coffee (Vietnamese Ice Coffee is by far the best I have ever had... period) and continue chatting with some of the teachers. It is very interesting talking to people who know so much English, yet it is still a struggle for them to speak it (mainly because their mouths work differently than ours). Once we finished our coffee we headed back into the class room to finish up our last 2 hours of teaching. Our subjects that we were discussing today were Family and entertainment. I really enjoyed getting to talk about my little family (at work and at home) it really helped being able to show them some pictures of what I do in my spare time.
one thing that is pretty neat is that most of the teachers all teach at the same school. One of the guys in the English class has just recently graduated from the university to become a teacher, he has been teaching for three months now.
Now that we have finished all our teaching for the day it is time for us to head over to grab some lunch with the teachers. we took our motos from the school to the restaurant which was along a river that eventually joins the Mekong. Our lunch consist of the traditional beef, shrimp, rice, soup, fish, etc. I really love the rice soup that they serve at almost every meal (makes me want to be more proactive about cooking at home... Phô for everyone!!!!!!).
With our stomachs full and our brains exercised the next logical step is to go on a tour of Mr. Ho Chi Minh's temple here in Tra Vinh. Here's the thing, people don't normally get to tour Mr. Minh's house and temple, it's a very special thing that was put together by the English teachers. It was absolutely beautiful, you can ask any of the people on the team and they would tell you that they want a house like that (some might prefer a room with an air conditioner, but that's beside the point)
After the tour we stopped at this small roadside restaurant where we had DIY spring rolls. Basically they gave us all the fillings and some rice paper to make our own spring rolls. I'll be honest, Tyler and I preferred to just eat the meat (these weirdly delicious sausages that tasted a little like bbq sauce), this got us in trouble as our meat bowl cleared out twice as fast as the other ones. Thankfully it was no problem to order a bit more.
That's something I've learned here, despite that they seem to eat a ton of food (or they're bringing out more than usual because we're Americans) the Vietnamese are in very good shape and are very healthy.
yet again filled to the brim with food we headed back to Palace 1 (the names of the hotels are Palace 1 & Palace 2, our team is staying in Palace 2) to meet with Bob and the rest of the team to debrief from the day and discuss any ideas we had for class tomorrow. We prayed then headed out for our last event for the night, a sugar cane juice run. One of the teachers in our class also runs a small sugar cane juice cart. Sugar cane is the most delicious drink, but is only good if you get the fresh sugar cane (and in their case, add a little bit of pineapple for a litte bit of extra flavor). While the group was enjoying their sugar cane I got to take a walk through the night market with Tuan. It was mostly clothes, but still a fun experience.
looking forward to a good night's sleep ^_^
Keep Praying as we prepare for our next day of teaching, Thankfully we have two days off scheduled teaching (saturday/sunday). We will most likely be spending that time with the teachers, but also catching our breath and getting a little rest.
Soli Deo Gloria
Until tomorrow
Brandon Goodyear
P.S. WiFi was not cooperating, so no picture this time around, if it decides to work with me tomorrow I'll edit this
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