Pot Plant Motorbike Angst
Last Saturday my Vietnamese Language teacher Thao accidently knocked over one of my landlady's pot plants with her motorbike. The pot smashed. Thao called out to the landlady's son who came out and helped her turn her motorbike around. The the landlady came down the stairs. She had the angriest, grimmest face I'd ever seen. Thao took off on the motorbike - she didn't explain anything. Then the landlady waved me away, still with a grim face.
I've been trying to find a suitable, relatively expensive replacement to compensate but had no luck yet. I haven't seen the owners since Saturday.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Where have all the wrinkles gone?
One of the guys who sits behind me at work introduced me to a new toy - GIMP. He does his artwork for his music with this tool. My first attempts below. Where have all the wrinkles gone?
Original photo
After GIMP
I now have white teeth, blue eyes, and no wrinkles.
Original photo
After GIMP
I now have white teeth, blue eyes, and no wrinkles.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Cured Cur
UUhhhrrrggggghhhh!!!!
I had an 8 AM teaching class today and thought I might have time to nip into Casa Mia, a nearby restaurant and get some breakfast before class. While I waiting the 15 minutes to be told the second item I had ordered could not be made this early in the day, a motorbike went past the front window. The woman had a pile of dogs tied onto the back of the motor bike. Large ones and small chihuahua ones; some had teeth bared and snarly faces. However these dogs were all dead, and were bright orange in colour. They look liked they'd been dehaired and smoked.
I felt sick.
I had an 8 AM teaching class today and thought I might have time to nip into Casa Mia, a nearby restaurant and get some breakfast before class. While I waiting the 15 minutes to be told the second item I had ordered could not be made this early in the day, a motorbike went past the front window. The woman had a pile of dogs tied onto the back of the motor bike. Large ones and small chihuahua ones; some had teeth bared and snarly faces. However these dogs were all dead, and were bright orange in colour. They look liked they'd been dehaired and smoked.
I felt sick.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Topics: "Today is Teacher's Day" & "Jackie's new boots"
Today is Teacher's Day.
My desk
Caroline with a bunch of flowers from her students
Jackie's new boots.
My desk
Caroline with a bunch of flowers from her students
Jackie's new boots.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Journey to the Perfume Pagoda
My camera ran out of battery power before we even got there. My photos of the journey there and one photo of the view from the pagoda (before my camera battery went flat) have been added below.
Friday, November 12, 2010
My new teaching assignment
It's still Saturday morning. I thought I may as well continue writing and procrastinate about going back in to work on a Saturday morning. I have another teaching program to develop before Monday - the day after tomorrow.
The university has a new contract to teach English to Vietnamese government officials for 30 weeks. We did placement tests for candidates for the course last week and some were still being done on two days ago.
The classes start on Monday 15th and I am the only person who will be teaching them. This is a bit daunting.
I'll be running two classes five days a week; my last class for the week will end on Friday afternoons at 7 PM. I have a short "curriculum" from Saigon which I must follow, which says: Module One-Introductions; Module Two - Reading a work email; Module Three - Responding to a work email, etc. So I have to prepare material and assessment based on this. I appreciate the document, it's good to have something on which to build.
I've been using any opportunity where I was sitting in front of my computer this past week to try and build a fuller curriculum, or is it a syllabus? from these scant guidelines. I'm padding it out to include a numeracy element, and a train-the-trainer element. I'm using Headway and the CSWE materials as a guide and will try to marry the these with my Saigon "curriculum".
YouTube also has snippets from the Aussie TV show "Border Security" which I'll try to use. Can you imagine the unit on introductions; "What's your name? Where is your passport? Why have you come to Australia? Do you intend working?". This is going to be interesting.
The contract also extends to training lower-level government employees in Saigon, so I contacted my counterpart teacher there. He was very helpful and told me about what materials/books he'd used that he found too advanced or way out of the interest and vocabulary range of his clients. He started teaching the course last week.
The university has a new contract to teach English to Vietnamese government officials for 30 weeks. We did placement tests for candidates for the course last week and some were still being done on two days ago.
The classes start on Monday 15th and I am the only person who will be teaching them. This is a bit daunting.
I'll be running two classes five days a week; my last class for the week will end on Friday afternoons at 7 PM. I have a short "curriculum" from Saigon which I must follow, which says: Module One-Introductions; Module Two - Reading a work email; Module Three - Responding to a work email, etc. So I have to prepare material and assessment based on this. I appreciate the document, it's good to have something on which to build.
I've been using any opportunity where I was sitting in front of my computer this past week to try and build a fuller curriculum, or is it a syllabus? from these scant guidelines. I'm padding it out to include a numeracy element, and a train-the-trainer element. I'm using Headway and the CSWE materials as a guide and will try to marry the these with my Saigon "curriculum".
YouTube also has snippets from the Aussie TV show "Border Security" which I'll try to use. Can you imagine the unit on introductions; "What's your name? Where is your passport? Why have you come to Australia? Do you intend working?". This is going to be interesting.
The contract also extends to training lower-level government employees in Saigon, so I contacted my counterpart teacher there. He was very helpful and told me about what materials/books he'd used that he found too advanced or way out of the interest and vocabulary range of his clients. He started teaching the course last week.
The exams and final Week Ten is finished!!!! Whoopeee!!!!
It's 7 AM Saturday morning and I couldn't sleep in because the Department of Propaganda has decided that 6 AM Saturday morning is a good time to play tradional vietnamese music through the sound speakers that are planted like street light poles all over the city. If, when I am walking the 6-7 km from work to home, and they broadcast through the system, I cannot escape the sound; the loudspeakers atop the tall poles are placed so that a person is never out of earshot. It might be different in the outer suberbs.
Week ten is finished. This last week we had exams from Wednesday to Friday.
All the teachers have to be involved in invigilating and marking exams in pairs. We are not allowed to see the exams until about half an hour before they administered. I invigilated a writing exam, and a reading and listening exam on Wednesday and Thursday. Yesterday, all the speaking exams were run. It's interesting to see how the different teachers run the exam.
One teacher was sick, so I had to get up at 5:30 AM and administer her Level 4 Speaking exams from 8 AM to 12:30 PM. Then at 1:00 PM I had another group of Level 6 speaking exams to attend to.
The students are paired up and the test requires them to speak to each other, introductions, negotiations, eliciting information etc. The teachers have a script which we must use to keep the exams fair and equivalent.
My brain was completely addled by the end of the day. I checked my emails before going home; there was an instruction to write a report for each student who had failed. Bugger, another couple of hours work.
Week ten is finished. This last week we had exams from Wednesday to Friday.
All the teachers have to be involved in invigilating and marking exams in pairs. We are not allowed to see the exams until about half an hour before they administered. I invigilated a writing exam, and a reading and listening exam on Wednesday and Thursday. Yesterday, all the speaking exams were run. It's interesting to see how the different teachers run the exam.
One teacher was sick, so I had to get up at 5:30 AM and administer her Level 4 Speaking exams from 8 AM to 12:30 PM. Then at 1:00 PM I had another group of Level 6 speaking exams to attend to.
The students are paired up and the test requires them to speak to each other, introductions, negotiations, eliciting information etc. The teachers have a script which we must use to keep the exams fair and equivalent.
My brain was completely addled by the end of the day. I checked my emails before going home; there was an instruction to write a report for each student who had failed. Bugger, another couple of hours work.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
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