Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Lessons Learnt

It is probably a fair comment to say that I never thought I would to be teaching at the front of a classroom. I definitely never envisaged myself doing so in Vietnam. Swapping the corporate life for English teaching has been different and I have had to pick things up as I go.

In Vietnam there is no training before you start teaching which means the students are not the only people learning. I learnt a valuable lesson the other day while teaching a class of kids. After finishing an activity they were all shouting, asking to play a game. Trying to incorporate the just completed lesson of the colours I decided to ask what things in the classroom were a certain colour. For blue they all pointed and rushed to the blue chairs. For white they ran to the whiteboard. They were all having a great time waiting on my every word before rushing in a storm of hysterics towards anything that had the new colour.

Things were going along well until I shouted "black". Some kids ran and pointed to the TV or their school bag. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a little girl coming in my direction and before I knew it............WHACK............!!!

As I was trying to catch my breath and regain some respectable composure I heard a little voice "your pants". With a swinging arm she had hit me right in the unmentionables with brutal force. I am 98% sure the innocent little girl had no evil intentions but I learnt a valuable lesson today. Hopefully tomorrows won't be as painful.

2 comments:

  1. Man! I knew the story and yet reading it here has made me laugh yet again: I have tears in my eyes. You should have seen the both of us laughing our hearts off at lunch when Dan was telling me the story yesterday: a great moment. I tell you, teaching is a lot of fun!

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  2. Je n'ai pas tout compris, alors moi aussi j'aimerais bien rire à "gorge déployée".... céline tu pourrais m'expliquer ce qu'a fait la petit fille ???

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