The beginning of my journey teaching Vietnamese to foreigners

When I arrived at Tran Quoc Tuan Lower and Upper Secondary School, I was utterly surprised to be entrusted with the responsibility of teaching Literature to Lao students.

At that time, teaching Vietnamese to foreigners was truly new to me. Colleagues who had gone before me shared that such teaching meant focusing on the main ideas and keeping things brief so that students could understand and remember. However, for students to understand any piece of knowledge or content, they must have a certain vocabulary and be able to use simple Vietnamese sentence structures to present their ideas on their own and to ask their teachers to clear up their questions. From then on, I became keenly aware of the need to teach my students Vietnamese more than the literary knowledge I would teach Vietnamese students. My lesson plans and lesson content still followed the curriculum, but they changed in many flexible ways in order to reach the goal of improving the Lao students’ ability to use and communicate in Vietnamese.

My journey of teaching Vietnamese to Lao upper secondary students began with expanding their vocabulary and sentence structures. I aimed to teach them how to explore and expand their own Vietnamese vocabulary by topics suited to each school subject and to the communication needs of everyday life. This helped them take in Vietnamese words actively, with a clear motivation for learning, meeting their daily needs. Moreover, since the sentence is the smallest unit that can fully express an idea, I went on to introduce sentence structures by purpose, such as statements, exclamations, imperatives and questions, so that they could recognise them and use the right type of sentence in their studies and daily life. After the first semester, the students were all happier and more joyful, as presenting and communicating were no longer as hard as before. That was a welcome sign, and also the result I had been hoping for. It proved that my decision to plan my teaching around expanding vocabulary and developing the skill of expressing ideas in Vietnamese sentences was right, and that it solved a practical problem that foreigners learning Vietnamese truly need solved.

After a period of researching and teaching Vietnamese language and literature to Lao students, I have fallen in love with this field. Perhaps, for me, teaching Vietnamese to foreigners is not only a profession but also a blessed stroke of fate in my life. I hope I will have more opportunities to go ever deeper into research and teaching in this field. Every step forward opens up new journeys! Thank you, Vietnamese, and thank you to my international students for bringing me a new gift.