Please take this seven question English quiz for me

1- We were delighted to get your letter this week.
2- Cool the burn immediately so as to minimize tissue damage.
3- This house was built ten years ago.
4- Drinking cans are brought back to the factory for recycling.
5- Peter is really interested in Vietnamese history.
6- Do you mind if I borrow your book?
7- They get up early to catch a bus to school. ["So as not to" and "in order not to" are interchangeable while "not to" doesn't make sense. A verb is missing so I made one up.]

The first 6 answers are correct as you listed them.
That last one is bull sh*t.
This is a great example of why Vietnamese teachers should NOT be teaching English.

Sorry Ciambella, you got all of them wrong according to this teacher.  You put what I put and they were marked as incorrect.  7 you didn't pick one of the available choices so you got that one wrong so I had to count that one against you as well.

I told my wife I want to go to the school and tell the teacher she is wrong and correct the grade but she wants to drop it.

My daughter kept trying to convince me my answers didn't match what she was taught and I assumed she just didn't grasp the lesson they were studying.  I was wrong.  She showed me in one instance in her notebook that it had to follow a rule such as subject + Verb 2 the verb must include an "S or some such thing for an example. (I couldn't follow the process.)  The sentence the teacher used to instruct the class and my daughter had diligently written in her notebook was "Do you mind if I sits here?"  So the teacher was looking for "Do you mind if I "borrows" your book?" for question 6.

So, what should I do?  On one hand I want to correct it and on the other I'm happy if she just gets the basics and we can fix things at home and when we move to the US in a year.  I'm pretty sure I'll somehow lose the battle with the teacher and it could cause problems with repercussions with my daughter with this teacher.

I've read other threads here where the native English speaking "teacher's assistant" tried to correct the Vietnamese teacher and it didn't go well.

I hope your fees are not very high for that school

If you are paying for any service then you are right to expect decent quality services.

If your wife won't let you go to the school, try posting on their Facebook profile the questions and wrong answers.. someone else who uses the same school will be bound to notice.

Silly thing is the teacher could for free download and install a spelling and grammar checker

Jlgarbutt wrote:

If you are paying for any service then you are right to expect decent quality services.

If your wife won't let you go to the school, try posting on their Facebook profile the questions and wrong answers.. someone else who uses the same school will be bound to notice.

Agree with Jlgarbutt on the FB posting.  Please do that and share with me the teacher and school's names, I'll post them on my page.  All my FB posts are in both English and Vietnamese so there's no misunderstanding whatsoever.

Also agree with Jlgarbutt on the expectation of quality service.  I didn't have to pay for my children's education in the States and still I fought for everything I saw as wrong or subpar.  And won every time.  (When it came to my children's education, I was a force to be reckoned with.)

I think you should correct it, not only for your daughter's sake but also for the sake of the hundreds of children who are, or will be the students of that teacher.  If I were in your place, I wouldn't wait until the family move to the US because it would be difficult for your daughter to correct the mistakes after a year.  In the meantime, if you teach her one way at home while she learns a different way in school, you would only confuse her.

Ciambella wrote:

Jlgarbutt wrote:

If you are paying for any service then you are right to expect decent quality services.

If your wife won't let you go to the school, try posting on their Facebook profile the questions and wrong answers.. someone else who uses the same school will be bound to notice.

Agree with Jlgarbutt on the FB posting.  Please do that and share with me the teacher and school's names, I'll post them on my page.  All my FB posts are in both English and Vietnamese so there's no misunderstanding whatsoever.

Also agree with Jlgarbutt on the expectation of quality service.  I didn't have to pay for my children's education in the US and still I fought for everything I saw as wrong or subpar.  And won every time.  (When it came to my children's education, I was a force to be reckoned with.)

I think you should correct it, not only for your daughter's sake but also for the sake of the hundreds of children who are, or will be the students of that teacher.

I agree with all of this in theory, but from my experience of dealing with teachers, they may make life difficult for your daughter. Teachers don't like to be corrected, even when they are wrong.

Malcolmleitrim wrote:

I agree with all of this in theory, but from my experience of dealing with teachers, they may make life difficult for your daughter. Teachers don't like to be corrected, even when they are wrong.

There's a proverb in Vietnamese that says "Con có khóc, mẹ mới cho bú" (Only when the child cries that his mother feeds him), which is similar to "If you don't ask, you don't get" or "The squeaky wheel gets the grease". 

Remember Dan Hauer whose YouTube videos disclosed how abysmal the local language teachers pronouncing English?  You know what the results were?  His videos have almost 2M viewers, many of them left kudos as well as bad comments.  There are several articles on Vietnamese newspapers applauding his action.  Four teachers and the founder of a language center publicly apologized to the parents with promise to do it better because of his videos.

Generally, one shouldn't criticize teachers in Vietnam.  However, if one is a native English speaker, one has the absolute right to correct a teacher who isn't qualified to teach English to one's children, and there shouldn't be any trouble following one's action.

Malcolmleitrim wrote:

Ciambella wrote:

Jlgarbutt wrote:

If you are paying for any service then you are right to expect decent quality services.

If your wife won't let you go to the school, try posting on their Facebook profile the questions and wrong answers.. someone else who uses the same school will be bound to notice.

Agree with Jlgarbutt on the FB posting.  Please do that and share with me the teacher and school's names, I'll post them on my page.  All my FB posts are in both English and Vietnamese so there's no misunderstanding whatsoever.

Also agree with Jlgarbutt on the expectation of quality service.  I didn't have to pay for my children's education in the US and still I fought for everything I saw as wrong or subpar.  And won every time.  (When it came to my children's education, I was a force to be reckoned with.)

I think you should correct it, not only for your daughter's sake but also for the sake of the hundreds of children who are, or will be the students of that teacher.

I agree with all of this in theory, but from my experience of dealing with teachers, they may make life difficult for your daughter. Teachers don't like to be corrected, even when they are wrong.

W9uld you leave your child with them for educatiin after seeing the standards they teach... post away..

I have no experience of Vietnamese teachers, maybe they are more reasonable than any I have encountered in the UK or Ireland, but I am a father of four so I do have some experience. I think teachers can be very vindictive, they don't like to be challenged, so one always has to weigh up doing the right thing, which is to correct them when they are wrong, with the best interests of the child in the classroom.
I'm very glad my children are all adults now and I no longer have to deal with these issues.

This brings back the tests that my language center used at the end of each segment.  They had similar errors.  I talked about this with center staff (Vietnamese) and they agreed but said that they had pointed these things out to the corporate center with no results.  What I learned to do was simply grade these questions the way I chose to and if need be discount them from the totals.  My center only used a young Vietnamese teacher for adults and teens who were absolute beginners and I know that she did a very good job as I twice taught the next level up. 

My impression is that SteinNebraska was talking about public school instruction.  Where I taught public school, the younger teachers seemed anxious to learn and would chat during recess and lunch, but some of the older ones were set in stone.  Some of the younger ones used to approach me with questions like these.  They would reveal their frustration that they knew the official answers were wrong but that they couldn't change things.  The grammar and reading textbooks are national and so are the examinations.  My last year there, my school dumped the government textbooks and went with ESL books by western publishers.  I don't know how that impacted the school's scores on the national test though. 

As far as being an assistant to a local teacher, I understand that is common in elementary levels but would not do it in middle or high school.  In fact, I did have Vietnamese English teachers as assistants but they were difficult to deal with.  The college students that were employed part-time were a lot better.  One, who was a semi-retired teacher, went ballistic when I spelled 40 as fourty instead of as forty.  Luckily, I was able to find a dictionary entry that listed that as an archaic spelling.   I still like fourty better.   

Time to switch schools.

This isn't a language center.  This is the Vietnamese public school.  It's extremely hard to get into a school in D2 and this is one of the better schools just off Tran Nao Streeet.

Also, the other thing I considered was that this is the first time I have specifically looked at test results in detail.  If there were this many questions that were incorrect in a 30 question quiz how much is wrong every single day?

SteinNebraska wrote:

If there were this many questions that were incorrect in a 30 question quiz how much is wrong every single day?

Have you ever driven in Vietnam? 

cruisemonkey wrote:

Have you ever driven in Vietnam? 

It may explain why I have to correct a lot of English at home.  Again, I just wrote it off to being new to the language and I never thought about it being taught wrong.  I also feel a bit guilty with expectations because my Vietnamese vocabulary is maybe 40 words which revolve around restaurants.  I can have reasonably long conversations with my daughter and have taken care of her for a week at a time with Mom out of the house and we came out of it unscathed.  Generally go to Google once or twice a day for a word but that's it.

SteinNebraska wrote:

I also feel a bit guilty with expectations because my Vietnamese vocabulary is maybe 40 words which revolve around restaurants.

The expectation is not the same.  Your job doesn't require you to write Vietnamese correctly, nor does it pay you to educate young people.

SteinNebraska wrote:

cruisemonkey wrote:

Have you ever driven in Vietnam? 

It may explain why I have to correct a lot of English at home.  Again, I just wrote it off to being new to the language and I never thought about it being taught wrong.  I also feel a bit guilty with expectations because my Vietnamese vocabulary is maybe 40 words which revolve around restaurants.  I can have reasonably long conversations with my daughter and have taken care of her for a week at a time with Mom out of the house and we came out of it unscathed.  Generally go to Google once or twice a day for a word but that's it.

In my experience, when children fail to learn well, it's usually due to poor teaching. Sadly, most people seem to take the view that the teacher is always right.

to get
minimize
was built
recycling
in
borrow
none are correct

Six out of seven ain't bad. Probably, just a typographical error.

"They get up early so as not to [miss the] bus to school."

Not sure why expats have such a strong urge to be so critical of the locals.

How good is your Vietnamese?

johnross23 wrote:

How good is your Vietnamese?

Although I am often likely to take the position of "When in Rome..." particularly with respect to cultural habits like the eating of dogs, I don't feel that is the case here.  Whoever developed the test could and should have run it past a native speaker before giving it to the children.  This is even more critical if this was a test developed for city-wide or even national use.   Even if it was just developed by one teacher for one class, she should have tried to have it proofread.  Look at what I wrote about the center that I worked for.  They had hundreds of native speakers on their payroll across HCMC and never asked one of them to check their tests.  Of course it is mostly a "face" problem but for English instruction they need to get over that, the same way you are taught a little about the native culture when you learn another language.

johnross23 wrote:

Not sure why expats have such a strong urge to be so critical of the locals.

I don't think it's criticism when the teacher refused to accept correct answers from the student, marked them all wrong, and gave the student a low grade.

I also don't think it's criticism when the teacher invented a new grammas that's not acceptable anywhere in the English-speaking world, and she didn't accept the correction.  ("subject + Verb 2 the verb must include an "S or some such thing for an example. The sentence the teacher used to instruct the class and my daughter had diligently written in her notebook was "Do you mind if I sits here?"  So the teacher was looking for "Do you mind if I "borrows" your book?" for question 6.")

How good is your Vietnamese?

It's neither here nor there.  Most expats need to know Vietnamese for communication, not for the sake of education and intellectual development.  The language teacher needs to teach correct English because that's her job and because the children's future depends on her ability to do her job right (doesn't even have to be well, just correctly would've been enough).

johnross23 wrote:

Six out of seven ain't bad. Probably, just a typographical error.

"They get up early so as not to [miss the] bus to school."

Not sure why expats have such a strong urge to be so critical of the locals.

How good is your Vietnamese?

If he was teaching Vietnamese you would have a good point.

Seeing as he doesn't teach the local language your point has very little relevance. 😀

johnross23 wrote:

Six out of seven ain't bad.

Except that the teacher marked all 6 correct answers as wrong ("you got all of them wrong according to this teacher.  You put what I put and they were marked as incorrect.")

Ciambella wrote:

johnross23 wrote:

Six out of seven ain't bad.

Except that the teacher marked all 6 correct answers as wrong ("you got all of them wrong according to this teacher.  You put what I put and they were marked as incorrect.")

Oh, I didn't have time to read that part. I just thought we were analyzing the questions. 

Never mind.

Carry on then...

johnross23 wrote:

Oh, I didn't have time to read that part. I just thought we were analyzing the questions. 

Never mind.

Carry on then...

Ciambella wrote:

The language teacher needs to teach correct English because that's her job and because the children's future depends on her ability to do her job right.

This points to my contention that the government should stress plans to "teach the teacher."  Classes would be a native English teacher with local teachers as students.  The native speakers would need to be trained educators as well, not just the last guy who got off the plane at Tan Son Nhat looking for a way to cover his beer expenses.  Putting native speakers in every classroom sounds like a good idea but I once did a back of the envelope calculation that the number needed for even one period a week would be around 8-10 thousand above any number needed at private centers.  Real professional development for local teachers is a better long range alternative and the best way to avoid fiascos like this.

THIGV wrote:

Classes would be a native English teacher with local teachers as students.  The native speakers would need to be trained educators as well, not just the last guy who got off the plane at Tan Son Nhat looking for a way to cover his beer expenses.  Putting native speakers in every classroom sounds like a good idea but I once did a back of the envelope calculation that the number needed for even one period a week would be around 8-10 thousand above any number needed at private centers.  Real professional development for local teachers is a better long range alternative and the best way to avoid fiascos like this.

When I grew up here, foreign languages in public schools were taught by local teachers who were trained in the UK, US, or France.  I never knew how long or how intensive the training was, but the teachers were competent enough to take us beyond grammar and vocabulary.  We studied literature, gave oral book reports, and wrote essays in our first foreign language (not the second one because there wasn't enough hours of learning).  By the time high school ended, every public school student had approximately 1900 classroom hours of first language and 580 classroom hours of second language (homework hours were a whole lot more).

Back then, only students who didn't pass the national exams went to private schools (if the parents could afford them) so public school teachers were of higher caliber than their counterparts in private schools.  When I applied for a position of teaching French in a private coed high school (public schools were gender segregated), the hiring committee didn't ask about my language credentials at all.  The interview was in French so they knew I could speak the language, but no one asked whether I was trained anywhere (I wasn't, and I was also nowhere as good as my former teachers).

Ciambella wrote:

When I grew up here, foreign languages in public schools were taught by local teachers who were trained in the UK, US, or France.

That would be a full step beyond my suggestion but certainly possible today.  If four years of college would be cost prohibitive, the government should consider one year post graduate fellowships overseas for local English teachers.  Australia and New Zealand should be good locations due to substantially lower airfares than the US or UK.  I have read that AU in particular encourages overseas students because they see their spending as an economic export.  I had a young TA who had completed two years of college in AU, and who spoke flawlessly with a bit of an AU accent.  Unfortunately he came from a rather wealthy family and did not seem well motivated to continue and take full advantage of his overseas education.

Six wrong answers and one blown question, out of 30.   
On this quiz, on this day, in upscale D2 neighborhood school...
Wondering how well math is taught, and history?

The wife's family's first grader spends hours and days on handwriting homework. He fills books with it. Complete waste of time. 
Not surprised teaching is authoritarian, it's the same government.

I had heard that kids were taught English grammar pretty well, rules are easily measured, and only the pronunciation was a fail. Due to Vietnamese teachers learning from Vietnamese teachers, blind leading the blind.

Hoping this teacher is an aberration.
Poor kids. 

For what it is worth, here is a screen shot of the app.  I'm not sure if each teacher completes and uploads their own quiz or if there is some sort of standardization.  This is in the string of answers that they sent back stating that she got them "wrong".

I volunteered at a school to help students with their speaking skills. There was a TA who was totally full of herself and controlled the class. She asked the students their names to which they answered, she then said " How can you spell it", this happened several times before I informed her it was, how do you spell it. Well, she wasn't impressed by me correcting her and told me she had studied English at a university and I was incorrect.

I left that night as it was obvious they didn't need my services any longer.

We were delighted _____________ your letter this week.
to get

Cool the burn immediately so as to __________ tissue damage.
minimize

This house ___________ ten years ago.
was built

Drinking cans are brought back to the factory for __________
recycling

Peter is really interested __________ Vietnamese history
about

Do you mind if I ___________ your book?
borrow


And finally, here is the best one:

They get up early __________ a bus to school
NONE

Pbuizz wrote:

Peter is really interested __________ Vietnamese history
about

Although your bio does not explicitly say so, I suspect that as you were born in 1976 and you speak Vietnamese that you are a second generation American who learned Vietnamese at home and English in grade school.  I used to have a full lesson concerning in/on/at that uses visualizations of a bucket, a horizontal plane and a vertical plane.  These distinctions can be confusing at times even for native speakers.  For instance does one say "in the elevator" or "on the elevator."  Is an elevator a container full of people or a floor surface the moves?  A case can be made for either one.  History is a little more difficult to visualize than most things as it is an abstract concept.  However, my best guess for the reason that the correct answer is "in Vietnamese history" is because the writings of history are 'in books." 

Anyway as you are a banker all that matters is that you are good with numbers.   

THIGV wrote:

Pbuizz wrote:

Peter is really interested __________ Vietnamese history
about

Although your bio does not explicitly say so, I suspect that as you were born in 1976 and you speak Vietnamese that you are a second generation American who learned Vietnamese at home and English in grade school.  I used to have a full lesson concerning in/on/at that uses visualizations of a bucket, a horizontal plane and a vertical plane.  These distinctions can be confusing at times even for native speakers.  For instance does one say "in the elevator" or "on the elevator."  Is an elevator a container full of people or a floor surface the moves?  A case can be made for either one.  History is a little more difficult to visualize than most things as it is an abstract concept.  However, my best guess for the reason that the correct answer is "in Vietnamese history" is because the writings of history are 'in books." 

Anyway as you are a banker all that matters is that you are good with numbers.   

My GF always says "I am on the bed". She swears I'm wrong, but I can't figure out how to explain "in the bed" is correct. It's hard to fault her logic!

Suppobill wrote:

THIGV wrote:

Pbuizz wrote:

Peter is really interested __________ Vietnamese history
about

Although your bio does not explicitly say so, I suspect that as you were born in 1976 and you speak Vietnamese that you are a second generation American who learned Vietnamese at home and English in grade school.  I used to have a full lesson concerning in/on/at that uses visualizations of a bucket, a horizontal plane and a vertical plane.  These distinctions can be confusing at times even for native speakers.  For instance does one say "in the elevator" or "on the elevator."  Is an elevator a container full of people or a floor surface the moves?  A case can be made for either one.  History is a little more difficult to visualize than most things as it is an abstract concept.  However, my best guess for the reason that the correct answer is "in Vietnamese history" is because the writings of history are 'in books." 

Anyway as you are a banker all that matters is that you are good with numbers.   

My GF always says "I am on the bed". She swears I'm wrong, but I can't figure out how to explain "in the bed" is correct. It's hard to fault her logic!

Both are correct in a sense, she could be either on the bed or in the bed depending on whether she was covered up or not.

Suppobill wrote:

My GF always says "I am on the bed". She swears I'm wrong, but I can't figure out how to explain "in the bed" is correct. It's hard to fault her logic!

She may be correct depending on the circumstances.  Under a blanket should be "in bed" but laying on top of the sheets uncovered, as I suspect many in Vietnam sleep, would be "on the bed."  Notice too that one uses the definite article and the other does not.  I know it can be confusing, but if you give it some thought you can usually come up with the logic.  Of course most native English speakers never think about it as it is internalized from years of use.  I know that when I first taught this, I had to think it through for the first time myself.

I live in Ho Chi Minh city.  (Visualize the city as a big container full of people.)
I live on Thong Nhat street. (Visualize the street as a horizontal surface.)
I live at 264 Tong Nhat Street. (Visualize the front of the house as a vertical surface.)

Suppobill wrote:

My GF always says "I am on the bed". She swears I'm wrong, but I can't figure out how to explain "in the bed" is correct. It's hard to fault her logic!

I sit on the bed (with article) when I sort the laundry, but I lie in bed or I'm in bed (both without article) when I read or about to go to sleep.