Somewhere between Vox & Hunter S. Thompson
Viewing entries in
ESL Teaching
After a day's train ride out towards the West Indian border from Jodhpur, I arrived in Jaisalmer. From Jaisalmer, I hired a jeep to take me farther out into the nothingness of the Thar Desert, stopping through an old Rajasthani ghost town on the way. The last article left off where the road ended. We had been on rough, gravel roads for hours at this point, so we were on the actual edge of India. From here there would be nothing but sand and shrubs until Pakistan. So where were we...
Normally I’m not a fan of volunteer tourism. I don’t think it does much good beyond making the volunteer feel like a charitable person. But when I was planning my trip to Dhaka, I knew that it was going to be really hard to have an enriching or positive interaction with Bangladesh if I didn’t find some sort of something to plug in with.
What I found was JAAGO.
Considering making Hanoi your home for a while? Awesome! It's a great place to live, but it can take some getting used to, and knowledge is power. This guide should answer all the questions you could have about moving to Hanoi, but if you're still feeling uncertain, don't hesitate to reach out and ask me yourself!
Fast forward about 5 months from Part 1, and we've arrived at Part 2!
My contract was about to end with SET. SET (Supply English Teachers) is essentially Hanoi's ESL pimp. I worked for them and they worked for people that needed teachers. They would send me to various schools and English centers and then take half of what my salary should have been.
This is the first in a 3 part series. This first installment is about my first 72 hours in Vietnam. And I don't write this for the sake of trash talk, (the company in question is earning a bad enough reputation without my help) rather, I write this to let you know some of what can go wrong out here. Working abroad in the developing world carries a different set of challenges that growing up in the West does not prepare you for. Hopefully, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you will have learned a little something about how to sort it out from reading this.
Welcome to the 2nd installment of the ESL Teaching “Story Basket.”
Make some popcorn / get nice and cozy / go to the bathroom now because this one is a bit longer than the last one.
We'll start with the story of me giving a terrified student the "get-out-of-jail-free card."
Most of what happens to me in the classroom isn't enough to merit its own extended blog post. But as the Vietnamese school year comes to a close, I want to share a collection of stories from my classes. This is the first of 2 installments of the teaching 'story basket'. So without further adieu, here are 4 little windows into what class with Peter is like.
We were driving overnight and I was doing my best to sleep but it was tough with our bus driver trying to break some sort of land speed record on the winding, bumpy mountain roads. It didn’t help that I had to twist and mangle my long white-person legs into terrible positions to fit into my seat in the first place. We made it to Mù Cang Chải a little bit before sunrise. This town would serve as our ‘base camp.’
![Peter's First Job [Part III]: Lies, Contract Law & A New Visa](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5876d8d6e3df28c4d83ae377/1485543475579-3V7H4KE704W760N6Q8DL/image-asset.jpeg)
![Peter's First Job [Part II]: False Accusations & More Threats](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5876d8d6e3df28c4d83ae377/1485543474736-7A7XFSFZXRNL55V7N0WX/image-asset.jpeg)
![Peter's First Job [Part I]: Blackmailed With Deportation](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5876d8d6e3df28c4d83ae377/1485543474622-LCG6MRLZ44AXEAKZXR8F/image-asset.jpeg)
