Ball Pythons and Private Lessons

A few weeks ago, ILA had a petting zoo for the kids in summer school. They brought a bunch of small animals (snakes, rabbits, lizards, gerbils, etc.) to the fifth floor of ILA and all of the summer school classes got 15 minutes to go see all of the animals. I'm sticking in a picture of one of my favorite students, Jackson, holding the Ball Python. Jackson used to drive me crazy until I went on the field trip with the class to the zoo (the real zoo, not just the petting zoo), and he was cracking me up the whole time - wouldn't let go of my hand, kept trying to teach me Vietnamese, and sharing his snacks with me.

He and I got off on a bad foot at the beginning of the class. I told all of the students to make nametags with what they wanted me to call them, whether it was their English name, or their Vietnamese name. Usually when students pick English names, they choose characters out of their textbooks (I have a bunch of Andys and Pollys), a complete white trash trailer name (Cindy, Daisy, etc.), or something random (Catfish, Panda, TV, Balloon, Dragon Sky).

When I saw that this kid had chosen Jackson, and I was excited to have a cool, different name. I called him Jackson a few times during the first class, and he started to get mad. He turned over his nametag I saw that the other side said Michael. He insisted that I call him Michael Jackson (incidentally, my second student who wanted me to call him Michael Jackson). I refused. At the zoo, I called him by his Vietnamese name, and about an hour into it while he was holding my hand, he looked up at me and said "Call me Jackson". Hurray for minor teaching victories!

Another tidbit from the petting zoo...one of the TAs posted a picture on facebook of me holding the same snake. One of the teachers I work with posted the comment trouser snake?, and the TA responded It is "Ball Python". Hurray for American innuendos that go over the head of foreigners!

The other new thing in my life is that I've picked up another private lesson. The woman who does scheduling at ILA asked if I wanted it, and I decided to take it. She gave me the name of a woman to call, and the woman said that they were lessons for her manager, who wanted to work on pronunciation and some grammar. She gave me the address of the company, but said she wasn't working that day and gave me the number of the guy's wife. At this point I'm starting to get really nervous about why they won't give me his number. I assumed that it was because his English was so bad that he wouldn't be able to understand anything or arrange a time for me to come meet him. After setting up a time with his wife, she told me his name was Hoàn and gave me his number. I texted him to confirm the time of the meeting, and he called me (his English was actually pretty decent, which was a nice suprise). I headed over to his office (Khai Hoan Land Office) and the receptionist led me to his office. He hands me his card, and he is the Khai Hoan - Chairman and General Director of a 250+ employee company. Zoinks!

He's a really nice guy - he's studied English for a long time, but never gets a chance to practice. He has a translator for everything, but he told me that he doesn't really like his translator, and wants to get rid of him and do all of his business himself. A serious fellow - I quickly realized that this wouldn't be the kind of private lesson where I could go in unprepared and just wing it... He asked me if I liked Vietnam, and if I'd had any sort of problems since I arrived. I told him I hadn't, and said he was glad, but if I had any problems with anything (police, the government, or anything) to let him know and he'd help me out. A useful contact to have....

Vietnamese lessons are still going well. This past week we did ability (can and can't) and the present continuous. The more I learn, the more it all makes sense (duh), and I've gotten a few basic sentence structures so that I'm able to form my own sentences, rather than just the ones that we're taught in class. The only problem now is that I'll say something in Vietnamese, and the person I'm talking to will answer me in Vietnamese and I'll sit there like an idiot for a few seconds trying to figure out what they've said (I don't even know why I try - I really only know about 50 vocabulary words), then have to tell them that I don't understand. Oops.

In Thursday's class we had to interview two Vietnamese people (in Vietnamese, obviously) who worked at ILA, asking them questions about their daily schedules (what are your work hours; when is your lunch hour; when do you watch TV; how many days a week do you work, go for coffee, work out, go shopping, etc). It was pretty cool that I was able to actually have a "conversation" in Vietnamese and that they could understand me. (Not to mention that one of the people I interviewed was one of my TA's, and the other guy in class also interviewed her, and she said that my Vietnamese was better than his. Boo ya!)

Anyways, think that's just about it, really...