My first week teaching:
Throughout my travels around Southeast Asia, I’ve been (perhaps naively) stunned by the ease at which I can get away with communicating in English. I’ve written about it here if you want to read more. Last weekend, I left Hanoi to move to Lai Chau, a province in Northwest Vietnam, to teach extra-curricular English to children aged between 3 and 13. I don’t have any teaching qualifications, so I’ve spent this week adjusting to the methods of teaching here, as well as generally getting back into the swing of working life again after a 6 month break. This workplace is different to any other I’ve experienced before, so I think it’s fair to say I’ve been thrown in at the deep-end.
I don’t have to plan any lessons, only deliver them, which is why I felt comfortable giving it a go in the first place. But any teacher will know that teaching entails so much more than standing and delivering a lesson. You have to establish the kind of teacher you want to be, and perform that; balance the teaching side with charisma and a sprinkle of light-hearted humour. This is especially difficult with a language barrier, and no experience.
Because this is a rural part of Vietnam, I am being challenged when it comes to communicating, maybe even for the first time since I’ve started travelling. This means I really have to adapt the way I communicate, speaking slowly and using body language in order to get my message across. It’s challenging me in so many different ways, which is in all honesty, both exciting and stressful. I’m being forced out of my comfort zone everyday, which I’m learning to embrace, because I know that there’s so much to be gained from this, and what a special opportunity it is.
‘The Language of Our Nation’
One afternoon this week, one of the Vietnamese teaching assistants asked me to proof-read a short speech about the importance of learning English, which he was planning to submit in a competition. I was struck by the first line of the speech:
‘There are many important reasons why you should learn English: The language of our Nation.’
Whilst anecdotal, I find this interesting as a contribution to the conversation around the pervasiveness of English around the world. He writes about how learning English can improve job prospects, and help you attain a lifestyle that will allow you to ‘settle down’. He even points out how understanding English can help you avoid dangerous situations, because for example, you will be able to read the labels of dangerous chemical products.
This perception makes sense considering the history of the language, it was spread by conquest, trade and colonialisation. But as Jacob Mikanowski writes in his article for the Guardian, the language became even more prevalent ‘at some point between the Second World War and the start of the new millennium’, when it ‘made a jump in primacy that no amount of “langua Franca” or “global language” truly captures’.
Of course, English is not officially ‘the language of [the] Nation’ here in Vietnam and some don’t see English as a threat to the Vietnamese language. But because of the way the language has been forced upon countries globally, it is interesting that it is viewed with such reverence. Actually, I find it to be quite a saddening prospect. If this is widely perceived to be the case, then what about the importance of Vietnamese? English may not take precedent here, but noteably it is glorified, and associated with knowledge and power, which I find intriguing.
The speech also stated that learning English makes it possible to travel around the world, discovering and learning about new cultures. This is echoed by Dutch sociologist Abram de Swann, who divides language into 4 categories, and who states that English is the one and only ‘hyper central language that holds the language system together’. But isn’t that idea ironic? How much culture and diversity can we experience when we are all speaking the same language? With language comes so much more than communication, so aren’t we missing out on the vastness of human experience if we are only speaking English?
I have felt this paradox whilst I’ve been away, and I know that in many ways I am a massive hypocrite. I am teaching English, and I can’t speak any other languages. But I guess I am exploring something that is much bigger than myself.
Recently, there have been discussions of making English the second official language in Vietnam, with a view to it providing ‘knowledge and power’ and it creating international business opportunities (VnExpress.net). Maybe there is a difference between Vietnam and many other countries that adopt English as a second language, because there is ‘an absence of [a] long-standing association with the language’ (VnExpress.net). I.e. many countries that have English as a second language have been colonised, but there is not necessarily a direct link between Vietnam and the British Coloniser.
The difference here is that the English language may not be associated with violence and erasure in Vietnam, in the same way that these associations are made in countries that were colonised by the British Empire. But arguably, the reason why English is a desired language in Vietnam in the first place, is because of the place that the language holds in history, which is intrinsically linked to colonialisation. So perhaps the two cannot be separated in examining attitudes towards the English language in Vietnam.
The view that English is ‘the language of the Nation’ is the opinion of one person, but considering everything discussed here, it can be seen as representative of an understanding that is held almost globally, that learning English is a necessary endevour.
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