Different Perspectives

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.

Comments

[HanoiMark]

I didn't do a lot of teaching while in Hanoi, but I did do some, and like Doug, I found it difficult to engage students in discussion. My attempts to get them interacting by inviting questions didn't usually work, and likewise i rarely got responses when I would ask the class a question. What worked best was to get them to discuss issues in groups and then report back to the class. But I always wondered how much of this was a language issue. It takes nerve for any student to speak up in class, but it's even more difficult when they have to do so in English.

I am also interested in the question of staff meetings. I witnessed a few and found them fascinating. How are they similar or different from Western style meetings?

[Tu Cong Van]

The problem for Vietnamese when they speak foreign language are scare of making mistakes and shy.

[Doug]

Thanx, Van. But your comment begs the question of *why* they are afraid to make mistakes. It is my contention that for *most* (not all) students, they have been in a non-interactive environment that is critical of making mistakes, as opposed to an interactive environment that is supportive of making mistakes as a means of learning the language better.

In other words, the students are afraid to interact becuase they have been in a teacher-centered system that discourages interaction.

Your thoughts?

[Tu cong Van]

Tu is my name :) hehe You can call me Van - not a big deal :)
Because they dont want to lose their face infront of their friends or colleagues. Thank god that I don't have that problem:)

[Triet]

I think the students in Ho Chi Minh City are similar. Public school teachers lecture, lecture, lecture as well as most English teachers.

Therefore, students feel most at ease when I sit up front and talk. Any time I ask a question, everyone's eyes hit the floor. Choosing a student is like telling them to walk a plank--they'll do anything before finally opening up.

Why? Well, it's as you said--they are used to lecture, and (as Tu said) they don't want to lose face. Vietnamese familial culture reinforces this. My wife must bend over backwards to get the children she works with to talk about how AIDS has affected their lives, because they have been taught through negative feedback not to say anything that might be incorrect or shame the family.

It is not a language barrier issue, because those of us who speak the language get the same reactions.

I would say that over the last three months I have overcome some of their reticence. To do so, I have taken them as far outside their comfort zone as I can--changing who they sit next to, the direction seats are facing, and acting like a fool in front of them. This, plus constant positive reinforcement for any speaking and reminders that no answer is incorrect, has started to create a more dynamic learning environment.

[Duong Lam Anh]

Yes, you mentioned the blind men feeling the elephant, then why don’t we put our minds together so that we can see the whole elephant as it is? (Though I know that is really a big one.)

I am with you that students here are less active; they speak less and seem to participate less in class. I agree that many students have been in a non-interactive environment, especially at lower levels; and I don’t deny the fact that many classes here are basically lectures as opposed to an interactive environment. But a closer observation finds the same thing in other meetings also, not only in the class; not only in a foreign language but in the mother tongue as well. (I’m curious to know what HanoiMark saw at staff meetings? And what difference?) Obviously, there is something more than that; something culture-based that people can’t see at first sight and on the surface and a good teacher should investigate the issue to find out what is the proper way to do.

Certainly it isn’t because students are discouraged to ask questions by the teacher, at least in language classes. It is true that in the past, the English textbooks at high schools here were, for the most part, grammar-based and translation-based and some teachers did *lecture*. But today, English textbooks have put on a new face. Teaching materials partly determine teaching methods. I can’t imagine teaching those textbooks the other way… I wonder about the language teachers that Triet mentioned in Ho Chi Minh City. They can *lecture* a content-based/ dialogue-oriented textbook? And doesn’t the change in chair type at Hue College of Education that Doug mentioned mean something? Doesn’t the fact that the English Department used to divide the class into halves to make them smaller say something? (Not this year, for some reasons.) Certainly students are not discouraged to speak in English classes by the teacher.

Tu hit a good point of losing face. Yes, the Westerners focus on GUILT, the Easterners emphasize FACE. The Americans say they *agree by disagreement*, the Vietnamese think *silence means consent*, the Westerners *speak out their thoughts*, the Vietnamese *curl their tongues seven times before saying * (Americans may argue they do say *think twice* but the Vietnamese say *seven*.) If only you could see the *push-and-pull* in a Vietnamese student wanting to say something in class. That can’t be seen but just be felt; that can’t be examined from outside but from inside. Yes, we *learn by mistakes* but the notion of face plays a big part here in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese concept of modesty should be acknowledged, too. Have you ever noticed the fact that when you, as a teacher, asked a question in class, no one answered, but if you took nerve to call a certain name, very likely, he/she gave you a perfect answer? Didn’t you ask yourself why? Have you ever seen that the silent ones in class might talk more when you put them in small groups? Did you feel surprised and ask yourself how come? Have you ever questioned yourself why an individual in the class knew the answer very well but kept mute and urged his/her friend to say it out loud for him/her?

Of course, I’m not saying this to defend passive learning. I just take this opportunity to pose questions for debate and supply some food for thought. A single factor means nothing but they altogether count.

And…Once in my graduate class in Boston, a male student from (?), who is among the more silent in the class wrote in his journal that American teachers tend to judge students’ participation through what he/she says in class but they don’t know that people don’t say in class doesn’t necessarily mean people are not working. They are working in their minds!
A-ha!
Yes, that folk was and his response was eye-opening, at least to me…