Well, quite a lot has dramatically changed in the past ten days!
I had been feeling really nervous about starting a new life in Hanoi and figuring out my future, I really had no idea what to expect or what would happen, with a fear of failure lingering over me. This is something I'd been dreaming about for so long, what if it didn't work out? What if I realised I was actually a shocking teacher and all this effort was for nothing?
I spent every hour of the next two days scrolling through sites and links and adverts to simultaneously find a job and place to live for the next couple of months.
Luckily for us, we're not the only ones who set out to do this in Hanoi. There's a brilliant Facebook community called 'Hanoi Massive - A New Era' (the updated one), which has grown with expat advice and knowledge and events, giving the local know-how and also the best place to find the newest job vacancies. There's another page specific to Hanoi English Teaching Jobs and Hanoi Housing, so for anyone looking to find their feet in this city these are definitely the most useful places to look. I seemed to scroll and send a thousand applications, losing track of all the emails exiting my outbox. At first it seemed never ending and I was getting an increasing number of blind offers for "Great salaries, only three hours from Hanoi!". By Day 2, when I was starting to lose motivation, I was suddenly offered an instant interview for the next evening at Educap English Centre, including a demo class with a nice little wad of cash given at the end. Now it all became real and scary!
Believe it or not I've never actually had a proper face to face interview before, which made me really quite nervous. I was crapping my pants all day. But actually they asked the simplest questions, the class went swimmingly and I instantly got the job. Buzzing!
The next day our luck continued - we saw an apartment advert in the morning, went to visit in the afternoon, then by the evening were ready to sign our short term contract! Moving into our swanky bachelors pad by the lake the following morning, all in time to celebrate Megan's 25th birthday in style. It's all starting to come together!
Megans birthday consisted of food, good food and even more great food. But first of all, moving our rucksack of worldly belongings into our exciting new flat, hello king sized bed, flat screen TV and rooftop view of the city! It felt good to finally have a home for the next two months, everything was falling into place just in time. We starting off our food babies by discovering Joma's bakery (soon to be our regular favourite treat) for a breakfast burrito and bagel brunch, ending the day with a much-craved and very homely sausage and mash at Moose & Roo, I've missed gravy! Then of course a selection of cakes to top it all off. Happy Birthday Megan!
Monday meant another busy week focusing on work - starting with a hectic day of two cancelled interviews (at the very last second of course), two actual interviews (at different ends of the city of course), then when I was about to flop onto my bed in exhaustion I had an urgent call to rush for a last minute cover lesson with one company AND a class observation with another in order to get the position there. This working life stuff is exhausting. Zzzzzz
Tuesday wasn't much better - my first interview got cancelled (again), I cried at my next one (shockingly unprepared), then in my haste to escape I made more rookie errors and wasted four hours waiting for an agency interview, again completely the other side of town. All before my second lesson at Educap, then a mingingly disappointing phô gá to end the day.
Wednesday offered a lazy morning of Bánh Mi and lesson planning for my next trial lesson at Espeed Adult Teaching Academy. It actually went pretty well - maybe I can do this after all?
Thursday just got weirder and weirder. After crying at the interview, having no preschool experience and not even realising I was applying to teach 4 year olds, I got a job at a kindergarten. Sorry what? And not just any kindergarten. A Montessori International School kindergarten. The legendary Montessori philosophy of teaching your children independent learning and an intrinsic motivation to discover. Where the parents are paying two grand a year to have their kids taught by a nerdy English teacher who isn't able to handle a class of preschoolers. Someone pass me the ice cream.
Friday was the real test - an entire day of students ranging from 2-20 years old. Thank god for GrabBikes though - the Asian version of Uber which has enabled me to easily transport between my life of lessons for about a dollar a journey, saving the hassle and time of a bus in the chaotic city traffic. Leaving the flat at 8am, starting with nursery rhymes at 9am, straight to a class of thirty screaming 4 year olds, lesson planning in my break, repeating the hour to a different group of hyper 4 year olds, whizzing to the other end of the city for my original class of 12 year olds at Educap, then braving myself for my Espeed uni students at 8pm, falling into the flat at 10pm. This week has been exhausting.
The weekend meant a Saturday brunch date yesterday with Mr Eggs Benedict, then a trip to the Old Quarter for a bbq, beer and slightly boozy cocktail. Sunday's are for snoozing, so that's just what I'll do.
Day 150 - Monday 7th November 7.53pm
Five little ducks went out one day, over the hills and far away, Mama Duck said "Quack, quack, quack, quack", but only four little ducks came back. Four little ducks...
Round and round and round and round in my head. Hello world of Kindergarten Teaching!
After a few weeks of teaching at Motessori International School, I have discovered I can think on my feet pretty well and I'm not quite as bad at it as I'd dreaded. For my little kids I have to do English nursery rhymes, so yes I sit and sing to two year olds for half an hour. I've found it surprisingly therapeutic (I'm not sure they'd agree with my great singing skills) but when they start to clap or sway along it's so much fun, especially when they try to babble a few words back to you! I repeat my class with four year olds twice in a day, which is bloody hard work. Controlling thirty crying screaming hyper kids, given no resources or curriculum and having to use the limited Montessori wooden equipment, with absolutely no preschool experience, was quite a challenge believe it or not. I have certainly learned a lot from my days at Montessori and it's been a great experience, however I've decided today will be my last day today. I'm just not quite cut out to be a preschool teacher and obviously it wasn't in my original plan. My final lesson actually went brilliantly, the children all engaged and behaved and sang along to the songs and actions I made up on the spot. No one cried and no one screamed and everyone seemed to be learning... Can I do this after all..? Ha don't be ridiculous, I have started to dread the exhaustion of a Monday morning! Nonetheless I'm really glad I gave it a go and now know which direction I'd like to continue. Plus no more nursery rhymes stuck in my head I hope!
I am really loving the rest of my classes though and feel very lucky to have found these jobs at such great places, especially as I've heard some nightmare stories before. I teach various evening classes at three other language centres: Educap, Espeed and Cleverlearn. Most centres in Hanoi are based on communicative language teaching, so it is more about listening and speaking in natural conversation than skills in reading and writing.
I have my lovely little class at Educap every Friday evening still for an hour and a half; six highly intelligent students around 12 years old who make my life easy, love playing games and are keen to chat about anything and everything. We follow a curriculum in Friends and Family 5, alternating their lessons between myself and a Vietnamese teacher. Everything about the centre is really nice and relaxed - the staff, the students and the lessons, plus I don't even need to mark their homework!
Every Tuesday and Thursday I have a two hour class at Cleverlearn with a larger class of eighteen students from 10-14 years old. A bigger group obviously means more varied levels, which was a challenge for me to learn to accommodate in my lesson planning. There's a real mixture of the loud confident giggling girls in the front row to the brainy guy who will quietly contribute and the silent student in the corner who doesn't feel like engaging. So my mission has been to leave no one behind, which is harder than it sounds! I hope with experience and personal development this is something I will continue to improve as a teacher. At this centre I've helped out with quite a lot of cover classes too, boosting my breadth of experience and giving me a few extra dollars for the end of the month. This weekend I agreed to four hours on Saturday and four on Sunday, which doesn't seem too bad right? But with no break in between and the vaguest idea of the lesson plan AND being told two of the classes are kindergarten, my weekend suddenly became a bit too exhausting! I don't know how teachers do it non-stop back home, I don't know if being in another language makes it even more exhausting, or if I just wasn't prepared enough. Still, great experience and learning for me too!
For the rest of the week I have an ever changing timetable for my 18-24 year olds at Espeed. This means I have random classes at different times each week in various centres spread across Hanoi, but it's worked out quite well to fill up my timetable. Espeed lessons are for a couple of hours, lead by a Vietnamese 'Inspirer', with an hour slot for a foreign teacher. The level of English of most of the students is actually a lot lower than my 12 year olds, so my time with them is a slower paced immersion in the language using competitions and games like hot seat, role plays and quizzes. I really like the structure of the lessons here and all the lessons are planned for you based on their conversational curriculum. For example they do 'Experience Days' where they have to introduce themselves to foreigners or buy things at a shopping mall or have a job interview in English, making their learning useful, realistic and personal. I think this approach should be adapted more widely and is definitely the style of English teaching that I'd like to continue using.
It's great fun working with people who are more my age, they've given me really good feedback too which is always a relief to hear. My favourite lessons were when two classes surprised me on National Teachers Day - bouquets of flowers, cute cards and a Teachers calendar to thank me for my hard work!
So that's my TEFL life in a nutshell so far. I have really enjoyed the whole experience and feel it's something I want to continue with in the future. I'm looking forward to the wad of cash I'll be flashing before I leave for Thailand too!
Day 151 - Tuesday 8th November 9.06pm
It has felt like a stressful non-stop ten days (it's not all smiles and paradise believe it or not) and it's made me start the inevitable of missing home. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself to do the best i possibly can, so the constant flow of new things and getting settled and continually learning and developing as a teacher gets my head into a bit of a kerfuffle. I want to make the most of my short time teaching here as it will be such valuable experience for me to take forward when I decide what I'd like to do next. It's been fantastic so far, challenging exciting stressful and rewarding. I've received some really encouraging feedback from fellow teachers and students with tips I'm eager to take on board.
Aside from work, I've tried to make the most of living in here in Hanoi. Last week we finally stumbled across a cheap set of racquets to fulfil mine and Megan's lifelong dream to play badminton, the most loved sport in Vietnam it seems! We gave them a test run on Friday morning, when the sun finally decided to shine after a few foggy freezing days. We found our spot under the blue sky and breezy palm trees, setting off to a disgraceful start, blaming the cheap equipment for our hilarious efforts. But after an hour of intense *ahem* play, the pro's were out and our rally went from a fantastic 3 to a slightly impressive 59. Not too bad for two unsporty amateurs.
I was really excited to be able to visit Phuc Tue again to spend time with my favourite little students, plus a trip to my teacher Miss Nhiens home for dinner, practicing for my kindergarten class with her two small grandchildren!
Finding great food has also seemed to take up a lot of our time - exploring the cafes around the lake, cooking stir fries in our little kitchen and finding the best chocolate cake in Hanoi. Our favourite regulars are a barbecue pork bánh mi with a view of the lake and Bánh xeo crispy pancakes perched on mini plastic stools. However the best cake in Hanoi was discovered on a very special day....
It was my 25th birthday! Feeling old and wrinkly, but we managed to celebrate with another weekend of eating. First was a huge poached egg and avocado brunch at Hanoi Social Club and a food coma nap before the two lessons on my birthday evening. Next day was a full English brekkie at Home 38 next to Tay Ho, leading to the the cake. Joma's chocolate fudge cake, warmed with a pot of cream, cut to the size of a small village. I was in heaven. I loved it so much we even had to go back again the next day... Good job it's a half hour walk away! We went for a beer to celebrate, but ending up like every other night out attempt in Tay Ho - disappointing failure. The one guy we met somehow walked slap bang full frontal into an oncoming motorbike, so that was our night over. Oh well, our next evening of homemade veggie chilli and movies in the rain was a much better idea.
Day 152 - Wednesday 9th November 4.16pm
What a difference a week makes. On Thursday we were sweating under the bright sun and blue skies, the air reaching a beautifully embracing 33*C whilst we topped up our Vitamin D on the rooftop.
Today I am shivering, wrapped up in leggins long sleeves cardigan coat and ditched the flip flops. The Old Quarter has swapped it's hot pants and sunglasses to puffer jackets and woolly scarves. I can't deal with this cold! Twenty four days until I get to cuddle my Mamma in Thailand...
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