The Ninh Binh Kids English Projects, Summer 2015

The Ninh Binh Kids English Projects Summer 2015 came about because of a suggestion by a monk in my village, Minh, and the encouragement of my mom, Mrs. Yen. Through my American mentor, Dr. Mel, I got some information about a similar project tried in Ha Giang Province a year earlier by Thao Dang. He also helped me get a grant from Hawaii International Education Program, Vietnam Hawaii Friendship Society and Bao Viet Securities in Hanoi. The grant was to help pay for educational materials and supplies and a small honorarium for me.  My mom served as a student recruiter, as well as a big source of encouragement for me.

In July, 2015, I returned to my hometown in Yen Mo, Ninh Binh Province and started up two “Free English communication classes” for the local kids in Quang village, Yen Thang commune and Binh Khang village, Khanh Thuong commune.  Classes were held in the pagodas in these villages.

There were 40 students attending these classes.

The class I offered was called: Basic English Communication for Kids

I used the following learning resources:

ü  Books of English stories for kids

ü  Videos of English communication lessons and songs for kids on the Internet:

§  Learn English with Go Go on You Tube channel

§  Rocket English 1,2,& 3 on the online English learning website

§  Videos of English songs

ü  Sets of photos of various themes

ü  Pictures drawn by kids

What did kids learn from Ninh Binh Kids Project Summer 2015?

They learned a lot in a short time.

The objectives of these projects were to teach the rural kids knowledge of Basic English Communication. Specifically, the kids were given a series of lessons of various themes and sentence patterns such as daily conversations. After the class was completed, kids could talk to each other in simple English about personal information, roads, colors, fruits, foods, drinks, free time activities, etc.

All the kids had chances to learn English actively, naturally and inspiringly. Concretely, they could make sentences, learn new words through visual aids, make basic English conversations, and do presentations about pictures and sing English songs.

Through the class kids also  learned how to work in pairs and in groups, learning through playing; dancing and singing. They learned actively and had fun learning.

  v Kids’ assessments

The kids said that they had never had a chance to learn English as actively as learning English in these projects. In addition, they said English communication lessons they got from the project were more interesting and inspiring than their  theoretical and academ ic English lessons at school.

Many kids said that they got more  interested in English after attending the project and they were more confident in their own ability  to learn English.

What Did  I learn from the project?

In teaching English I have learnt these things:

ü  Each class needs a different curriculum. We need to understand requirements as well as perception of every student in each class to adjust the curriculum suitably.

ü  Friendly and active learning atmosphere is very important in English classrooms. Kids learn English better by communicating practically in English to their friends and kids prefer learning through playing!

ü  Using visual aids including photos, illustrations, icons, symbols, figure, etc is completely necessary to get kids motivated to learn English.

ü  Applying technology in teaching (through videos) supports teacher’s teaching and students’ learning in English classroom.

For me, this project  was more than a project of teaching English to  rural kids – it was  absolutely a  life changing project –-changing my attitude and direction of life.

In the process  of working on this project, I have also  realized that kindness is the biggest gift we can give to each other in this life.

It is important for us to teach kids English; but we should not ignore educating them to be good and helpful people in the future. We can teach this by behaving well to them by our sincere love and telling stories of good people for them to follow.

Generally working with the  kids attending the 2 projects made me feel more optimistic in this life and their active learning attitude encouraged me to  do more projects like these in the future.

Furthermore, the kids helped me strengthen my direction for life – do the best thing for not only myself but also for the others! The project was thus a wonderful experience for me, an important life experience!

***

Re the project : We want to do more of these projects teaching English to kids in hometown villages in the summers.  We are trying to rasie funds to support these activities. If you are interested in being a volunteer  teacher, or if you have funds you would like to contribute to support these projects please contact  us:

vnenglishjournal@gmail.com