I’m feeling pretty lucky these days, probably because all four of the classes I’m teaching right now are really excellent. Teacher’s Day was great. I got some really, really nice cards that I will keep forever, and enough cake from my Advanced Writing class to completely make sure that I utterly give up that terrible idea I had about exercising and trying to lose weight. I often say that America has no Teacher’s Day because the students are only willing to vote for a “No Homework Day.” But in Vietnam, Teacher’s Day can help wipe away all the frustration a foreigner might be building up over traffic and noise issues. So thanks everybody.
So who are these nice students that gave me these lovely cards, and what’s going on in my little English teaching world? Let’s see, I’ve got two Business English Communication classes running now and I really enjoy my discussions with these classes. I enjoy teaching about the American work ethic, about professionalism, about integrity. Over the last few years, I’ve had some rocky business dealings with various Vietnamese entrepreneurs and those experiences had really soured me on doing business in Vietnam. Working with the students in these two classes has really helped cheer me up a lot. The students are receptive to Western ideas and I know when they go to work (or as they continue working, since many of them are working already), they’re not going to do business in that Vietnamese way that I found so off-putting. There are more than a few students in these classes that I would be happy to do business with – young Vietnamese business people with keen intellects, better business sense than mine, and good English skills.
Everyone knows I despise the phone shops and computer stores in town that play loud music in the street to bring in customers because, as an American, I’m sensitive to all the people in the houses and offices nearby who can’t relax or do their work in peace. Everyone knows that I hate when the other English centres come into Oxford and give out their flyers to our students, or who have the nerve to go to my private blog and post advertisements for their school. Working with these two classes of excellent young business people has reminded me that there are a lot of good business people in Vietnam, too, who understand integrity.
Since I have these two classes on my mind, I want to write about some of the things we’ve talked about. In particular is the general way English is used in business here in Vietnam, and how off-putting it can be to foreigners. Because it really cracks me up sometimes.
First off, we have the Vietnamese tendency to say, “No!” or “That’s wrong!” to people we’re working with. It always makes me laugh when I share an idea or request with a Vietnamese person and they coldly, rudely, at least seemingly so, just say “No!” They look at you and it’s just, “Khong!” but in English, that’s really wrong … we take it as rude.
English speakers always employ tact in business dealings. We don’t say, “No!” We say something more along the lines of “I’m not entirely sure that approach is the best way to go,” or “That may be a good idea, but I think…” It’s much more polite and smoothes working relationships. When we’re dealing with our supervisors, we never tell them, “Hey boss, you should do this or your business will become bad,” (Ugh!) We avoid commanding, insulting, and threatening our partners and our supervisors. We’ll say something like, “In my opinion, it would be a good idea if we..” or just, “I think we should …”
Even more important is the vital aspect of English communication that involves using our voices, our intonation, expressively. Good English speakers use stress and intonation to convey their emotions. When we’re happy, we smile when we speak and you can hear the happiness in our words. When we’re in love, you can hear the shyness, the affection, and the hope pregnant in our stumbling pauses. Many Vietnamese students are so concerned with trying to use proper grammar and correct vocabulary that they completely ignore this issue, such that “I love you,” is spoken with the same emotional inflection as “Pass the salt.” Even simple things like “Yes,” can end up sounding like “no,” which is really confusing.
My intermediate communication class is working on this a lot – working on developing natural English intonation. It looks like it’s going to take a while, but I’m confident these students can do it. If they can it’s going to be great for their futures as I know most foreigners probably feel the way I do – which is that there’s nothing so boring or disheartening as having to fight your way through an English conversation with someone who sounds like a robot. There are far too many people working in the hospitality industry in Hanoi who have developed high-level English skills – meaning they have good vocabularies, good listening skills, and can blabber on in English freely – but who sound like robots. Worse, actually – it’s not just that they sound like robots; it’s that they sound like someone singing off key.
No one can listen to MY singing. It’s horrible. I’m the worst singer who ever lived. Students beg me to sing, then I sing, and then they just absolutely cringe. They can’t stand to listen to it. They’re amazed. How could our funny teacher with the big ears possibly make such horrible noise??? That’s what they’re wondering. Well, the last time I took a guided tour in Vietnam, my tour guide made me feel the same way. He had excellent knowledge of English, but no one had ever taught him what English was supposed to “sound” like. He banged away in English incessantly – sharing with us his amazingly deep knowledge of the area we were touring – and the sound of it was just horrible. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pay him to shut up. His English, I realize now, was just like my singing. Absolutely, terribly, horrifically wrong. English shouldn’t sound like that … so now this is a key focus of mine in the new intermediate class and in all my classes.
It’s working pretty well, too. I explain that English shouldn’t sound like “yOU lOVE mEEE dON’T yOOOU?” but should rather sound more like, “You love me, don’t you?” In fact, as soon as my students realize that this robot-shrieking off-key stuff is not going to fly, they improve 40% in the first attempt. Amazing. How come no one taught them this stuff before? I wonder. The trick is to realize that no one cares if your grammar is a little messed up, if you drop your final “s” sounds, or if you forget a vocabulary word here and there. That stuff doesn’t matter, if the English you speak is pleasant to listen to. That’s what will get you a high speaking score on TOEFL or IELTS, and get you through a job interview, or a scholarship interview. So if your English sounds like a robot with an electrical malfunction of the speech circuits, come to class.
My biggest pleasure may just be my Advanced Writing class though. I love writing – four so far unpublished novels under my belt, a private journal, this blog, my other blog – I love writing. And, I love teaching writing. During this class, I have gotten the most amazing pieces I’ve ever received as a teacher, and that includes all the pieces written by native-speaker students back in America. These students can really write, when they set their minds to it. I’m amazed at the ability of these students to create original, compelling images through metaphor and simile, to capture the emotional feel of life in Vietnam and convey it through the written word. There are future journalists and novelists in this class, and working with them is a real pleasure. My student Michael (yeah, he’s got an English name, but he’s Vietnamese) is a brilliant comedic writer who can invent the most outlandish scenarios and write them perfectly. Ly is also humorous – almost every sentence she writes makes you smile, perfectly capturing the modern teenage voice. Xuan is a poet, so when she creates an image, it’s really compelling. Ngan is an excellent reporter, able to serve up facts and details in an interesting, easy-to-read style. An, the oldest student in the class (despite having the worst grammar by far in this very high-level group) somehow manages to capture the style of the most respected “old school” writers, using simple phrases to share deep, compelling ideas and emotions. An could mess up the grammar in every sentence he writes, it would still be fascinating material to read. Oh, and let me mention Mai, too. Mai not only writes well, with charm and personality, but she also has a wonderful quality that I really appreciate – she can eat a lot! When we practiced making toast with butter and jam in class, and when Linh brought in 400 kilos of cake, Mai was able to eat seconds, and thirds, and fourths – which, of course, made the fat teacher feel more comfortable and allowed me to eat as much as I wanted to! I mention only a few of the students here, but in fact they are all excellent. As advanced classes go, this one is really “advanced.” (And Mai is really skinny – don’t get the idea that she’s fat!)
So, what have I learned lately? Let’s summarize:
1) Vietnamese students can quickly master the art of doing business with Western style professionalism and politeness.
2) Vietnamese students can quickly learn how not to sound like a robot with a speech synthesizer malfunction.
3) Vietnamese students can write. In English. As well or better than their Western counterparts when they set their minds to it.
4) Certain Vietnamese students can eat as much toast as I can, even though they weight only 42 kilograms and I weigh … well, I have no idea. I still haven’t learned the metric system yet. But … 186 pounds.
4) Teacher’s Day is a really nice holiday, and we should try it in America … even if the kids just want No Homework Day.
At any rate, let me close by saying thank you to all my students who keep trying so courageously to improve, and who took the time once again to make this foreigner – and I’m sure many other foreigners at all the English centers with foreign teachers – feel very, very welcome in Hanoi on Teacher’s Day.
This was, believe it or not, my FIFTH Teacher’s Day in Vietnam, and it was also the best one. Thank you.
