Each day of class goes better than the last, thanks to familiar structure and intense preparations the night before. Having coached 2 years of Skyhawks summer sports camps for basketball, the coaching part is my JAM and I'm grateful that the program lets us come up with the sports lessons plans ourselves. I also really enjoy teaching physics because physics is quite applicable to their lives and non-verbal demonstrations are necessary and fun. The theme for fun teaching here is non-verbal, because translating slows the lesson down a lot and loses the kids' attention.
Many of the kids (8th grade and 9th grade) are very smart and very skillful (both boys and girls), and many are also very shy at first. The 8th graders are VERY small, with our smallest 2 boys and girls standing a generous 4'0". We also have a "life skills" class every day in which we are teaching about college and career goals this week. Aside from the expected doctors, engineers and teachers, we have a larger than expected number of students who want tot be pilots and flight attendants (especially girls). Only about half the class included that their goal was to graduate college, though after a few days they all raised their hands when we asked if they were planning on attending college. Everyone's main goal was to have a happy family when they grow up.
In basketball, all the students play barefoot or in flip flops on an uneven stone court. Thanks to many kind donations, the kids have new balls to use and sports courts for every sport, which is quite unusual in an area like this. Nevertheless, the opportunities to learn these sports (other than volleyball, badminton and soccer) are extremely limited.
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| Barefoot basketball |
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| Barefoot soccer during monsoon season |
Some highlights of our camp so far have been:
- Being named "Ly" (a Vietnamese flower) by the kids, and giving them American names. It is much easier to address them with American names because we cannot pronounce their names correctly
- Teaching our whole class how to do the macarena and the song "hey Mickey you so fine..." because one of our students has the American name "Mickey." . He is adorable!
- Watching the kids ride away with 4 kids on one bike!
- Receiving gifts of coconut leaves skillfully made into the shapes of helicopters and locusts
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| Andy's awesome helicopter! |
I had a very interesting conversation with my roommate, pronounced "Yoom", about the experiences of Vietnamese expatriots in America. she talked about how her friends come back to Vietnam and show off their green card to anyone who will look, yet she is skeptical as to the benefit of a green card because these people have lost the social status they had in Vietnam and had to start over in America, facing discrimination and a language barrier. Apparently, a lot of Vietnamese migrate to Australia instead (due to simpler bureaucracy) but the racism there is even more pronounced.
The Vietnamese coaches were very surprised that we (the American coaches) could not physically do the squat that everyone here constantly assumes, with feet flat on the floor and butt just barely off the ground. They thought it was hilarious how much we struggled with something so natural to them!
Mispronunciations have been a theme for me thus far. I have not been paying close enough attention to my intonation when speaking Vietnamese, because I exclaim "good job" (Tot Lam) all the time, but my intonation changes when I try to express excitement. Unfortunately, a different pitch for the word "Lam" means "Good misunderstanding" instead of "good job." Definitely NOT what i was trying to say! The older kids give me a hard time for it, which I accept good-naturedly.
Another mis-statement to watch out for is "Tam Chyoom" instead of "Tap Choom." The latter means "focus," which we need to use constantly (as with any middle school group). The second has the rather unfortunate meaning of "lets take a shower together," which has the potential to create either very awkward or very hilarious situations if I mess up!
Happy 4th of July from Vietnam!!
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