Recently a team of donors traveled from Australia to see YWAM Mercy’s work firsthand. As part of the visit, they taught English to students at two secondary schools in Hoai Duc.
This was their fourth visit to one of the schools and many positive changes were apparent. They noticed the teachers’ increased ability and enthusiasm to help the students engage with the lessons since they were now familiar with the interactive teaching style used by the visiting team. The students, especially those in grade 8 and 9, were especially eager to have conversations with these native English speakers.
Students in another school received the group for the second time. They were much more confident in communicating with foreigners than last year. They took the visitors on a tour of their new child-friendly library, sharing their reading plans, activities and hand-made books in both Vietnamese and English.
The local teachers saw an example of how to make English lessons more attractive when the visiting team use role plays in a grammar lesson. They could see how much the students enjoyed the lesson and how it helped with retention of the information.
I hope the local teachers will come here more, because after each exchange with them I feel more confident, knowing what I still lack in order to keep trying. I, like other students, are also rather poor at communicating in English, but thanks to these exchanges, I have the motivation to improve my listening and speaking skills.