Vietnamese like 'Language exchange' not serious teaching !!

charmavietnam wrote:

Recently I posted an ad in FB to ask for a Vietnamese Language Teacher to come to my company in Q5 to teach as I cannot go for class due to business.
All I asked is a real teacher with minimum degree in Vietnamese language.
Do you guys think I have some mental problem?
Some members in groups commented to ask for chance so I use FB chat function to communicate them. Alas! all of them who contacted me has no degree in Vietnamese language!
I posted very clearly but they just want to try. Of course I cannot accommodate them when I pay. I belief that I have the right to ask for a minimum qualified teacher, right?

I recently posted to a Facebook group that I wanted a THREE bedroom apartment, furnished, with at least two toilets.

EVERY reply I received was for a studio or 1 bedroom or 2 bedroom.

None of them even referred to my request (you know: "Sorry, I don't have what you want, however..."). They just started spamming me with messages about the apartments they do have.

Maybe that's not the same thing, but I definitely wasn't surprised to read your post.

Please note that you may not so much need someone with a degree in Vietnamese language as you need someone who is trained to teach Vietnamese to speakers of other languages.  As you are probably aware those are not the same thing. 

Many universities in the US have changed the name of their ESL departments to SLS or Second Language Studies to match their actual curriculum and student body.   This is particularly true at the graduate level where a lot of foreign students, particularly Chinese and Japanese, are studying in the US to teach their native languages to others.  I don't recall the name but I am sure there is a university in HCMC that is for teacher training.  I would look there.

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

I recently posted to a Facebook group that I wanted a THREE bedroom apartment, furnished, with at least two toilets.
EVERY reply I received was for a studio or 1 bedroom or 2 bedroom.
None of them even referred to my request (you know: Sorry, I don't have what you want, however..). They just started spamming me with messages about the apartments they do have.

Hm, I omitted important thing in my OP

2 expatriates commented by using bad words to harass me and the post!

One was an American guy who 'teach English' (Teacher-Map is his nick name) with no qualification (NATIVE SPEAKER)! He asked me that why I am here in this 'third world country' when he is already here
Second guy is working as some sales department from Guatemala. He teased me " do you have any degree to ask for high degree Vietnamese teacher?" and followed by so many abusive words

To them I was a spammer!!

Don't know why people thinks that illiterate people only come to Vietnam!
Is there any restriction for well educated people?

THIGV wrote:

Please note that you may not so much need someone with a degree in Vietnamese language as you need someone who is trained to teach Vietnamese to speakers of other languages.  As you are probably aware those are not the same thing.

Agree but do you think people who contacted me are 'trained'?
On a second step, I asked, 'a Vietnamese teacher with English major' but that also too much?
Then I am sorry to say that I am not your type to get someone to learn. If I learn, I should have to learn from a teacher, not a $5 girl.

Then again, why majority people here interested in NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHER?
So many 'trained' English teachers are here from all over the world
I am not crying for 'white' skinned teacher
I just want a teacher who can teach me Vietnamese.
It's not free. As I posted before, 'nothing is free in this world'!
So when we pay for a product, we should have to check the quality, right?
I don't think you pay and purchase anything

It's very difficult to find someone who has a Vietnamese language degree nowadays.

I hate to sound like old people who always talk about the good old days, but as far as education goes, it's a sad state of affair now comparing to pre-1975 when every high school graduate had 7 hrs/wk for 7 years of first foreign language, and up to 5 hrs/wk for 3 years of second foreign language, both as mandatory courses and completely free for all students.  At the same time, Vietnamese language (as a subject) was taught in all 12 years of public school, which began with grammar and vocabulary, continued with literature and arts for the eras between 10th and 20th century, and ended with philosophy. 

To find a tutor (I'm purposely not using the term teacher) who is well-versed in Vietnamese language, you would need someone who was educated under the old regime.  Of course, all Vietnamese can speak and write in their mother tongue, but whether they understand the nuance that makes the language rich so they can teach it to foreigners is another story altogether.

Ciambella wrote:

Of course, all Vietnamese can speak and write in their mother tongue, but whether they understand the nuance that makes the language rich so they can teach it to foreigners is another story altogether.

Charma, I don't have much to add, but practically, there are a few Vietnamese language schools in Saigon, so some Vietnamese teachers exist here. Perhaps there is a better place to advertise that will reach these real teachers?

@Ciambella
Are you saying that Universities stopped the course?
I can't believe that cause I just interviewed a Vietnamese language student for part-time job last week!

charmavietnam wrote:

@Ciambella
Are you saying that Universities stopped the course?
I can't believe that cause I just interviewed a Vietnamese language student for part-time job last week!

No, I'm saying extensive Vietnamese language is no longer the main coursework in primary and secondary education, so the foundation has not been taught properly for many years now.   

Then for college students who wanted to pursue a degree in the language, there's no longer a university for that particular goal.  In April 1977, College of Literature (my alma mater) was dissolved.  No particular reason.  The College of Science was also gone.  No justification.

In March 1996, College of Social Science and Humanities was created where the two aforementioned colleges became one and the same, with many of the same courses being taught in dissimilar majors.  Thus, there's a very good chance that a person who holds a degree in Vietnamese language nowadays wouldn't have a substantial knowledge of the language as his degree implies.

Those who object to  posts can feel free to ignore this but I zeroed in on the words "completely free" in the following quote:

Ciambella wrote:

...it's a sad state of affair now comparing to pre-1975 when every high school graduate had 7 hrs/wk for 7 years of first foreign language, and up to 5 hrs/wk for 3 years of second foreign language, both as mandatory courses and completely free for all students.

It is a real shame and, if you like even a betrayal of Socialist principles that a high school education is not absolutely free in Vietnam.  In addition to the general tuition charged for middle and high school, there are special fees for English classes when taught by native speakers.  I won't go into the details because I have given them before but the fees charged outstrip the salary paid to the foreign teacher by several multiples.  Someone is skimming the system and it should be a crime.  I believe the Vietnamese constitution says that education is to be free but that principle seemingly is only applied in K-5.  So much for "to each according to his needs."  Poor children need instruction every bit as much as the scion of the middle and new upper classes.

Then we should have to start a "SAVE VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE" forum

Am going off topic but I know personally some Vietnamese English Teachers who making 100-150 million VND ($4350 - $6500) per month by teaching English part-time
Can a NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHER get from any school/university more than that?

I am not jealous  at all
I don't want to pay money to psychiatrist

Ah, one of them is a member in this forum

charmavietnam wrote:

Can a NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHER get from any school/university more than that?

Probably not, because the native speaker does not control a critical factor which is student grades.  I expect that the parents of those teachers' evening students have an implicit guarantee of good grades.  Another thing is that I expect that most western teachers, if taking on evening tutoring, may have a feeling for keeping numbers low enough to do a good job.  The Vietnamese English teacher in the lane where I first lived packed every seat he could.

The "World Language" is well under way.

     Keep your options open     

charmavietnam wrote:

Recently I posted an ad in FB to ask for a Vietnamese Language Teacher ...

wrong place sorry

When my wife told me that even in poor neighborhoods, teachers expect to receive "presents" and parties for "teacher's day", I realized kids from kindergarten age begin resenting those with "power". Strange way to build a happy society.

To any Vietnamese in the forum, in the US and probably most democracies, giving favors to a teacher or boss is called a "conflict of interest" and is illegal, and causes perpetrators to lose jobs, lose face and sometimes go to jail. My wife thought giving presents to teachers was normal everywhere, didn't realize the inherent corruption.

Sorry if I went  .

interesting...
we don't do that in germany either, and you are also not supposed to have any further relationship with students after school or be friends with them (or any other relationships) - which counts definitely as a conflict of interests...

but maybe, if you consider how much vietnamese teachers (not foreigners) usually get paid (i guess often not that much) a little present might be nice once a year.

the idea of giving presents is also maybe a mild bribe, to make sure the kid doesn't fail the test?

maybe you can ask your wife why she thinks they are supposed to give presents to teachers?

There wasn't a Teachers' Day pre-1975.  The tradition of paying respect and offering tokens of appreciation to teachers only happened on the 3rd day of Tet.  Everyone who had ever been a student on this day came to give bow to the teachers, to thank them for their role in shaping his characters and intellect.  The gifts were given to ALL teachers who had ever had a positive impact on the students' lives.  Every Tet, our living room was overflowed with gifts from my father's generations of students who continued to show their respect year after year, even when they were in their 40s and 50s, decades after they had left school.

Not until 1982 when the new government adopted World Teachers' Day.  Not all countries in the world belonged to FISE (Federation Internationale Syndicale de L'Enseignement, or World Federation of Teacher Unions).  The US is not one of the members.

World Teachers' Day is on Oct 5, but many countries changed the date to fit their purposes.  In Vietnam, it's on Nov 20.  All kinds of award ceremonies and pep talks occur on that day.  Schools are closed so teachers can have a day off to participate in the activities, while students are encouraged to give flowers to their teachers to show their gratitude.  From flowers to other gifts was but a tiny step, especially when the teachers are the persons who give fee-based tutoring sessions to students who need or want the extra boost.

Of course without any sense of bribery, it is a very nice custom to honor one's teachers. My wife had one special high school teacher who was very supportive of her. He knew she was poor and couldn't afford tutors so he helped her after hours, and encouraged her to go to college. Which she did and excelled at. I suggested she try to find him twenty years later, she knew where his house was, but it had changed. Finally I told her to just ask at the local businesses, and success, she found out that he retired and moved to the SFBay area. We are going there in a couple weeks, her first trip to the US, and they will have a reunion. It will be touching.

gobot wrote:

... he retired and moved to the SFBay area. We are going there in a couple weeks, her first trip to the US, and they will have a reunion. It will be touching 

You'll see your hometown (or your last hometown) through her eyes, that's a new experience for you too.

Losing touch with the Vietnamese language is an issue and it's compounded by the fact that the current generation in general does not know how to or bother to communicate. 

At work, I have to force people into 1-on-1 meetings and two minutes after person A said something person B couldn't even tell me what was said.  Heck, half the time person A couldn't tell me what he said.

Additionally, and unfortunately, it's become a worldwide phenomenon where we neither pay, respect, or empower teachers enough to do their jobs.  We use "don't who can't, teach" as an insult but these hands are the hands we put the future of our children into.

Fees for tutoring is definitely a VN thing, but teachers in the US have their ways too like requiring you to purchase their notes from the bookstore.

@OP
It's a society-turned-culture thing.  It's 80% not giving a dam and 20% reading comprehension.  These people figure they have nothing to lose so no harm in contacting you even if they don't fit the bill.

Ciambella wrote:

gobot wrote:

... he retired and moved to the SFBay area. We are going there in a couple weeks, her first trip to the US, and they will have a reunion. It will be touching 

You'll see your hometown (or your last hometown) through her eyes, that's a new experience for you too.

Followup: We just returned, 3 weeks in Northern California. It was a long visit with her old teacher, at least an hour of chatting, She brought him a kilo of Robusta and a copy of her book about growing up that mentions him. He moved to Hayward with his wife, after he retired, and live in a house with his daughter and family.

The hometown visit, actually my parent's hometown where I have inherited the house, in Mendocino county mountains had the coldest winter in 25 years. Wife got her first taste of snow, over two inches that stayed the ground for a couple days. We were housebound because of icy roads, then another snow repeated. She adapted to the cold (down to -4C) quite well and liked the deer and ravens and Mexican food. Glad to be back though.

Sounded like a wonderful trip.  It was down to -15°C (5°F) in Southern CA last week.  Unreal.

Ciambella wrote:

Sounded like a wonderful trip.  It was down to -15°C (5°F) in Southern CA last week.  Unreal.

Global Warming!!!

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

Ciambella wrote:

Sounded like a wonderful trip.  It was down to -15°C (5°F) in Southern CA last week.  Unreal.

Global Warming!!!

https://www.iied.org/climate-denial-populist-right

Andy Passenger wrote:

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

Ciambella wrote:

Sounded like a wonderful trip.  It was down to -15°C (5°F) in Southern CA last week.  Unreal.

Global Warming!!!

https://www.iied.org/climate-denial-populist-right

I don't deny Climate Change or Global Warming, and I do understand how isolated extremes in 'weather (not climate) change' seemingly contradict those realities.

I just deny significant "anthropogenic" warming for a number of very valid (yet routinely overlooked) reasons, not the least of which I call "The Spock Conundrum".

In Star Trek IV: The Journey Home, everyone is desperate to figure out what message is being sent to earth's humans by the destructive alien space probe.

Spock says:

"Only human arrogance would assume the message must be meant for man"

(it was meant for whales...)

I definitely believe in human arrogance, especially when influenced and propelled by political forces.

As a U.S. Forest Ranger in the Northern California redwoods posited to me years ago:

"What if the earth has not stopped it's cycle of warming since the last ice age?"

He was explaining how (contrary to contemporary thought) the loss of redwood forests has little to do with humanity and is almost totally related to natural global warming since the last ice age.

He taught how the entire North American continent was once covered by various types of sequoias and other great trees as ice was receding, leaving a perpetual fog bank across the entire continent, the perfect habitat for thriving redwoods.

Then, as the continent warmed and the fog banks receded northward and to the coast, the great trees began to die of thirst.

From where do you think the Petrified Forest of the Arizona desert originated?

What if the earth was always destined by the forces of nature to become warmer until it gets as hot as predictions say it might, making certain areas of the earth totally uninhabitable by surface-dwelling humans 50 years from now?

It's certainly happened before, according to real science.

I do believe in human arrogance (and the economic driving forces behind politics) and it amazes me that we are deluded enough to believe that the earth can somehow have it's warming cycle interrupted, because the climate sweet spot for humans is inexorably slipping away.

Totally ignored are things such as "Chandler's Wobble" and it's effect on volcanic activity (increased), or the rapidly increasing shift of the earth's magnetic "north", affected by shifting and swirling forces deep within the earth, far from humanity's ability to influence matters.

Also, this started centuries ago.

I'd venture that most people are not aware that when Alexander The Great conquered civilizations as far east as modern-day Afghanistan, he SAILED there from The Mediterranean Sea.

You can't even begin to see that route today, because almost all of the waterways they used are totally dried up, having done so long before the industrial age began, as the earth continued warming following the last ice age.

There are no political forces fighting volcanic activity or changing magnetic fields because there isn't any way for anyone to economically exploit those changes.

So when I interject "Global Warming!!!", I'm not denying the phenomenon; I'm ridiculing the arrogance of my fellow humans, born of ignorance.