As Vietnam integrates into the global economy, English fluency is more and more important, especially in developing countries like Vietnam. However, in rural areas, many people are still not aware of the need to speak English and children often have little opportunity to learn it. This diminishes their future employment prospects. Even when English instruction is available, there is often little opportunity to interact with native English speakers.
Because we are concerned about educational development in the areas where we work, YWAM Mercy recently organized a model English class for students in the Van Con Secondary School with the help of a group of donors from Australia. This activity both aimed to model delivery of attractive English lessons for local English teachers as well as to create passion and motivation for students in learning English.
Four Australian teams did a great job in modeling an attractive English sessions for local teachers and students in 12 English classes. Students received their foreign teachers with excitement . They were encouraged to speak in English through role plays, games, pictures and songs with various topics like culture, animals and the weather. This is a good way to help students to remember vocabulary words and expressions.
I really liked the English class today. This is the first time I have communicated with foreigners so I was a little bit nervous. But now I feel more confident to speak English and really want to attend English classes like this again.
This activity did not only inspire students in learning English but also inspired me in learning to teach better. Their teaching methods are very attractive. I learned a lot from them.
After the classes, we got the foreign and local teachers together to review the advanced English teaching techniques used that day. The foreign teachers suggested some interactive teaching tactics aiming to attract the attention of students, and how to take full advantage of available resources for English practicing at school. The Board of Management and teachers of Van Con School highly appreciated the support of the foreign donors and YWAM Mercy, and expressed their hope that there will be more practical activities using English organized in the future.
