Lattitude - Volunteer Placements in Vietnam

Morning: Every morning we, my volunteer partner Laura and I, were woken at 5 am by the boarding children bringing us a cup of chai before they began their early morning ‘studying’. We would then go back to sleep until it was time to get up, have a shower (well, tap and bucket wash!) have breakfast and start the school day.

In the mornings I usually taught the younger classes, from Nursery and Kindergarten (3 – 5-year-olds) up to Class 2 (7-year-olds). Usually, Laura and I taught our classes separately but with Nursery and Kindergarten we joined forces, having learned early on not to be deceived by their innocent faces!

We would sometimes take them outside into the ‘playground’ (a small patch of dusty brown earth outside the back of the school building) and try to play games with them but which usually ended up with them just running around and screaming! Still, the exercise and free time were good for them, even if they didn’t learn very much!

Afternoon:In the afternoons I normally had my older classes where I was teaching English, through various means, to different age groups. In my Class 10 (where there were only 3 students!) we spent a few lessons making puppets and rehearsing the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ which we then performed to the school using a makeshift puppet theatre out of a school bench and a sheet! Not only was it great fun, it was a fantastic way to get them practicing their spoken English and improve their confidence in speaking.

With all my other classes I did a lot of creative work, like singing, poetry, drama and arts and crafts. It was a great way to encourage different forms of learning and to improve their spoken and written English. With my Class 3, I spent some time teaching them Clock Time. For this we made clocks with paper plates and split pins and practiced asking each other the time. Then one session, I took them into the playground and we formed a ‘Human Clock’ where they had to work together to move the ‘hands’ to the correct positions. It was a lot of fun and I think improved their learning!

Evening: The first part of our evenings was usually spent leading after school clubs. I taught the recorder on Tuesday’s after school. Before I left, my local music shop donated 6 recorders to the school which I bought out with me and presented to the school much to everyone’s delight. Teaching the recorder was quite a challenge with 6 extremely enthusiastic and excited children all blowing at once, and it felt like a great accomplishment when, at the end of term, they were able to play ‘Hot Cross Buns’ at the school show!

After our extra-curricular activities were over we would take a walk in the evenings with the 9 boarding children through the village where we would often be invited in to have chai with the villagers or would play a game of ‘dice’ that was going on. Sometimes we’d walk to the top of the village, where we could meet the Darjeeling Toy Train on its way back from Darjeeling to Siliguri and hop on it, to ride back down the mountain to the school and jump off right outside the school gate! (It is a very slow moving train!)