In the recent post about Desk Art , my teaching colleague Lam Anh made a wonderful assessment of my observation about teaching English in Whazzit Like to Teach English in Việt Nam?
His observations and mine are quite different. Lam Anh feels that most younger Vietnamese teachers use high levels of interaction whilst teaching, and my perception is that most students are not accustomed to having teachers interact with them – especially if they use questions as a teaching tool.
Possibly this is somewhat like the three blind men who encounter an elephant. Each cannot see the whole elephant, so each describes the beast in terms of what he can feel. One will tell you an elephant and is hard and smooth – because he felt the tusk. Another will tell you elephants are rough and tall because he felt a leg. The third will tell you elephants are rough-skinned, very flexible, and sinewy – and he felt the trunk. All were correct, though their observations were incomplete.
I wonder what part of the elephant I didn’t see. During a research trip a few years ago to small cities such as Phan Rang and Quy Nhon, I saw no questions asked at all – just pure lecture. I also know that with my brand new first year students, they were extremely recalcitrant to talk to me for the first month or so. When questioned, they just giggled nervously and refused to answer. (Note: one of those students reads this blog, and she is the exception.)
Let me add this to my cordial debate with Lam Anh: is it possible in my past observations, that I saw some of the older teachers he mentions, and that they also were not teaching at a more progressive school such as Đại Học Sư Phạm (Huê College of Pedagogy)? Is it possible that Lam Anh is among the academic elite of Việt Nam who was taught by progressive teachers and mirrors their practices in his own teaching?
Another variable is that my first year students may have never had a foreign native speaking teacher before. (I assume that is very likely – native speaking teachers are either at universities or teach at private schools in Hồ Chí Minh City or Hà Nội
Still another variable (which Lam Anh tacitly acknowledges) is that he is teaching foreign language skills, which demand interaction. I wonder how many of the students’ other classes in history, chemistry, political science, or other topics are as interactive as language classes.
It’s a big elephant – and there is much more for me to learn.
