INTRODUCTION

The following document is a collection of posts made on the Facebook page

Hanoi English Teaching Jobs during the months of July and August, 2017.

When I started shouting at the start of July I didn’t know it would take this long
to stop. Yet, it would seem, that one man’s manifest hatred of poorly punctuated
job ads and parasitic CV farms can lead to quite extraordinary places.

Along with information on topics for the yet to be employed, such as; job posts,
expected salary ranges, types of employers, and how not to suck, this document
also gives helpful advice on where to find materials and how to develop games
and activities for your classroom once you have a job.

If that wasn’t enough I’ve also included over 150+ games and activities, most of
which are flexible to any kind of content a lesson can throw at you! If you are a
musical type there is also a playlist of 100 ESL songs along with a basic
methodology on how to teach them to young learners.

And lastly, if none of that was useful in anyway at all to you, we round things off
with some more thoughtful pieces on employment discrimination and mental
health in regards to teaching in Vietnam.

CONTENTS

1. Money Talks – a brief guide to native speaker pay grades (page 2)

2. Everyone You’ll Meet When Looking for a Teaching Job in Hanoi (page 4)
3. A Terrible Teacher’s Guide to Not Sucking at Your Job (page 9)
4. Job Post Dos and Don’ts (page 11)
5. I Got Interviews! What do I do? (page 15)
6. A Teacher’s Bag – Essential materials, and where to find them (page 17)
7. An Introduction to Flashcards (page 20)
8. Flashcard Games (page 21)
9. The Zen of Game Creation – through the medium of target games (page 31)
10. An Introduction to Flexible Activities (page 34)
11. Target Games (page 36)
12. Grid Games (page 36)
13. Dice Games (page 37)
14. Card Games (page 39)
15. Projector Games (page 40)
16. Non-Game Based Activities and Responsibilities (page 42)
17. A Concise Guide to Teaching Songs to Children (page 45)
18. A Luddite's Guide to Technology and the Classroom (page 46)
19. A Whiteman's Guide to Employment Discrimination (page 48)
20. A Nutcase’s Guide to Not Going Insane whilst Teaching in Vietnam (page 52)

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Money Talks

A brief guide to native speaker pay grades, what they tell you about a
job, and what kind of employee they will buy you.

$16-$20 per hour

Job Seekers - if you are being offered this amount of money you are likely
being recruited by a middleman who is taking some of your wages to fund their
business. If you are being interviewed in a place with no/or few classrooms this
is almost certainly the case. The jobs themselves are usually hard to fill due to
the type of class (generally short kindergarten classes) and the length of the
class away from the main expat hubs. No one tends to offer less than this as you
are moving into the rate of Filipino teachers, and then bilingual Vietnamese staff
and maybe a few other nationalities besides.

Employers - This rate will likely get you a white person who has just arrived in
Vietnam, has no idea about the job market, and signs the first thing he/she
sees. If the applicant has been around for a while expect them to lack
qualifications/experience; native speaker, degree, CELTA - or a mixture of all
three. Naive teachers will move at the first opportunity, as will teachers who
have been here longer. You may have a few drunks, stupid or lazy people
hanging around because they know they don't have to put in too much effort for
that much money.

$18-22 per hour

Job Seekers - this kind of pay range usually indicates that you are not going
through a middle-man. It is the kind of pay range a franchise school would give,
as it's considered 'competitive' but they're still making a good profit. If the place
your interviewed feels like a corporate office-come-school, you know I'm right.
These places are generally efficient, with good support staff, curriculums and
they pay on time. Occasionally they have western management, training, and
other perks.

Employers - This rate will likely buy you a native speaker with some
experience, a degree and a CELTA. Again, it is likely they will move on after their
contract has finished or sooner unless you a) offer them a raise or b) offer some
other perk, such as seniority, or training (CELTA, DELTA etc.).

$23-25 per hour

Job Seekers - A salary, not usually given as a range, but above franchise school
offers, is usually an independent or small center. They can afford to pay a bit
higher because they are less profit driven (a lot of these 'centers' are simply
converted rooms in family homes, where the owner's kids learn). There's less
support, and things can get a bit chaotic, especially without lesson plans and
TAs. But if you want to choose your own books, and teach your way, they're
great places to be.

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Employers - This will get you a native speaker, with a CELTA, degree and a few
years experience - at least some of that in Vietnam. If you have a good
relationship, and are able to create a schedule both of you want (i.e. lessons
close to home, lesson plans or materials, friendly staff, good atmosphere) it's
likely they will re-sign with you.

$20-25+ per hour

Job Seekers - larger pay ranges, typically between $20-25 per hour, especially
in August/September, signify some kind of public school work. The pay range is
larger because 1) The skill level of the students ranges from grade 1 to 12 and
2) The classes are bigger and thus more profitable, there's a lot of competition
from recruiters for schools and contracts. They want to show they have a good
team of teachers to the school boards, and are willing to be more flexible on the
salary if you look good on paper.

Employers - As with before, the higher you pay the more

experience/qualifications an applicant will have, and they will be more likely to
stick around. $25 per hour will get you an applicant with a few years experience
in Vietnamese schools (and most likely the type you are working in), a native
speaker, a CELTA and a degree. If you have good communication (e.g. telling
teachers when lessons change/cancelled, well laid out curriculum, responsive
support staff) it is likely that they will re-sign with you.

$25+ (for general English)

Job Seekers - Be warned, this is not money for nothing. People who pay
between $25 and $30 for general English classes usually expect a bit extra. This
might be day trips out with the kids, endless e-mails about what you think about
this that or the other, constant monitoring/suggestions about lesson plans etc.
However it will get you nice work, for example private classes who want the best
teacher, not just a teacher, work with gifted students, business classes and test
prep.

Employers - Most of my work is in this range. I have 6 years experience (4 in

Vietnam), native speaker, CELTA, and degree. You may get more qualified
applicants with majors in Education, MAs or even a PGCE (if they haven't found
the international schools yet). It is very likely they will work with you for a long
time as this is above the market rate.

$30+ per hour

Job Seekers - This puts you into the realm of specialised teaching, particularly
test prep (IELTS, TOEIC). It's a cut throat world so don't be surprised if you lose
your job because you forgot to iron your shirt, or have a beard. Everyone wants
high pay and challenging lessons with adults so it's not like these places struggle
to find people.

Employers - This gives you the opportunity to find the correct candidate for
specific jobs. Teachers who already have jobs will apply for your job at these

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sorts of prices. This means if you are looking for a very specific type of skill,
experience and qualification (and your customers don't mind paying) then you
will have no trouble finding and keeping the perfect applicant.

Jobs Paid Monthly

Job Seekers - these types of jobs are usually a) Not in Hanoi, and packaged
with other perks such as accomodation, travel and food or b) Recruiters trying to
disguise that your getting paid $16 per hour. The rural life provides you with an
opportunity to enjoy the real Vietnam, and prices are a lot cheaper out in the
sticks - especially if your main living costs are covered. Hours range from 80-
120 teaching hours per month and salaries are from about $1200-2000 per
month. The key word is 'teaching hours' here though, having worked salary
contracts in other countries it's surprising how much homework there is
compared to pay per hour gigs.

Employers - I'm not quite sure what 100 hours at $1500 a month gets you. But
it's less than a recruiter pays for doing any lesson in Hanoi. Anyway, you always
sound pretty desperate when you e-mail/phone me. Such postings might attract
an older teacher, or someone who doesn't enjoy the hustle and bustle of city life,
is here for the experience, or isn't all about the money.

The prices above are from my own personal experience of applying for hundreds
of jobs and working for dozens in my 4 years in Hanoi. They may not be
indicative of the current or future market (e.g. over-saturation of both schools
and teachers leading to a net reduction in wages, we are already seeing this on
job sites with waves of 'Hi I'm blah 23 just got here...' posts and myself,
personally, having to go through A LOT of centers that simply won't go above
$20ph anymore in recent job rounds (even with my experience).

Everyone You’ll Meet When Looking for a Teaching Job in Hanoi

1) Recruiters (company)

These guys get to you pretty quick as they type ‘send your cv to
name@company.com’. All the companies are three word acronyms that sound
like infectious diseases, or futuristic places where you would go to euthanaise
your gran. After a brief back and forth e-mail session you’ll be invited to an
office. It’ll be pretty clear right away that you’re not in a school, as there is
usually an absence of classrooms, or certainly not enough for the line of
individuals in front and behind you to be teaching in. The dead give-away is the
application form you’ll be asked to fill in, where you’ll write all the information
that is on your CV which you sent them plus your available hours. It’s becoming
standard practice to do interviews/demos in one go, even without preparation,
as these companies rely on a sense of urgency to get you to sign a contract – on
the day you first meet if they can.

Pros – Recruiters get you work fast and can often fill time slots that other

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companies cannot (for example daytime work outside of public school hiring
season). You’ll often end up in some wacky places too! For the new arrival, it can
be quite an adventure in terms of where you travel, and what greets you when
you get there. Some are better than others so you may get pre-prepared lesson
plans, a TA, or work permit help depending on the company.

Cons – Recruiters are middlemen, they’re taking a cut from every hour you
teach. I’ve taught students after contracts have finished with this type of outfit
so I know the difference is between $5-7 per hour. It might be more or less
depending on the type of class. As well as pay the conditions suck. They have
these lessons for a reason, because the school can’t find teachers themselves.
This is usually because the school is too far away from the main expat hubs, the
lessons are short, low paid, or undesirable in some other way (working
environment, class age etc.). Expect to travel long distances, for low pay, and
little after-service after you’ve signed your life away.

2) Recruiters (individual)

It’s not just companies who have worked out that they can link schools and
teachers together, lean back in a big old leather chair, then count the money and
laugh. Private individuals are at it too! They’ll meet you in a coffee shop or an
office where they work and offer you a range of classes depending on their
connections.

Pros: Some people are nicer than others so an individual recruiter may take less
of a cut than a company would. You may even find that you get a better deal
than going directly to market, to a larger, more profit driven, franchise school.
Among the low end kindy jobs in Ha Dong and jobs out in the regions there
might be a few interesting bits and pieces that they have. It’s worth meeting
them to know. There might be a chance to cut your teeth teaching another
subject, or get some experience teaching academic English.

Cons: Same as the recruiting companies. They’re taking a cut from every hour
you earn and they do even less. Chances are you’ll only see them once a month
when they’ve collected the tuition fee from the students, taken their 10%, and
handed the rest of the envelope to you.

3) Language Centers (franchise)

These places are easy to spot. Big shiny glass doors and classrooms which look
like fish tanks. The logo has a professional design to it, and it’s branded on
everything in sight. Thanks for the Apollo Juinior beer mat, I did not know I
needed that.

Pros: If you are a new teacher, go to these places, if you are new to Vietnam, go

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to these places. The one thing they have over everything else is organisation.
There’s generally an army of backroom staff sat behind the reception desks, plus
Western management if you’re lucky. You’re also likely to get a TA, or even two
in some cases. Your schedule will be clear and won’t be altered last minute, and
there’s usually other nice things like teachers’ guides and resource packs lying
around the place.

Cons: These places often feel a bit more like a business than a school, I often
refer to them as ‘child factories’. The management are profit driven and they
have everything set up the way they want. They’re not going to refuse nor lose
money whatever your protestation. The pay is better than a recruiter’s, but
‘competitive’ – they have an exact figure in mind when they interview you and
they won’t go higher, no matter how good your demo lesson is. It’s not all their
fault, as these places are big, they do things by the book - you may be
subjected to 20% emergency tax and 10% income tax after that.

4) Language Centers (mom and pop shop)

A little rougher around the edges than the franchise centers, mom and pop
shops tend to look more like converted houses than schools. Look at the walls to
check for drawings and dirty finger marks, and make sure there are lots of shoe
racks, just in case you made a mistake and you’re in a recruitment office.

Pros: This kind of school flies under the radar when it comes to the taxman so
expect to get your full, gross salary in an envelope on pay day. Also, you’ll likely
be interviewed by the manager of the center, if you wow them with your demo
lesson they’re more willing to go a couple of dollars higher than the franchise
centers. There’s a little more freedom in terms of the curriculum, and if you have
a problem there is a more direct link to management.

Cons: These places are a lot more disorganised than the franchise schools.
Expect to be asked to swap classes last minute, or receive a schedule late. It
really does depend on the school though, some have all the resource packs, CDs
and a nice little toy kit for you to use, others don’t even give you a book.
Sometimes the interview can be a good indication of what the school will be like.
Late interviewer, late pay. Didn’t think of any questions to ask you, won’t send
you the right schedule either.

5) Public school recruiters

Between July and September you will be invited to offices that look and feel like
recruitment offices, however there is one key difference – they are recruiting for
public schools.

Pros: Daytime hours! Sweet, sweet daytime hours! And all at a rate that is equal
to or above what you get paid for giving up all your evenings and weekends. The

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lessons are generally short (35-45 minutes) and there are only a certain number
of grades, so you don’t have to prepare much in advance.

Cons: Choosing the right company matters here as conditions in public schools
can be the worst you will experience in Vietnam. With classes up to 65 students
it’s hard to teach anything, especially in 35 minutes. Also there is a disconnect
between the recruiting office and the school – they are not the same thing. This
means that the schedule you’re given may not match the schools, you may show
up to lessons that have been cancelled due to special events, and neither you
nor the company will know when holidays are so if you’re planning on going
anywhere for a few days…keep a bag packed and buy an open return ticket I
guess.

6) The private individual

The private individual is someone who wants tuition for themselves, their child,
or for children they know. They generally meet you in a coffee shop, their home,
or their workplace. They’re golddust in the industry as they’re not concerned
with the money and, even if they were, are relatively ignorant to hourly teacher
rates.

Pros: You can really control a class like this. It’s great if you get a private when
it’s just started up because you can pick the book, level test the kids, use the
materials in the resource pack etc. Also, with kids, the parent/guardian acts like
a super TA – the kids know that they know their mothers, so they give you no
shit. As I’ve already mentioned the pay tends to be quite good.

Cons: Be wary of single adult learners. They’ll cancel classes if they have literally
anything else to do or are tired. Also, you can run into private individuals who
want to control the class more than you, and expect more of you. Extra
homework grading or last minute topic changes (because they need to review
this section a little more) are par for the course in this kind of class.

7) Universities

So despite having no qualifications in English higher than a CELTA I do get

interviewed by the odd university from time to time to be a…professor?...I guess

Pros: It looks good on paper. Also, you’re guaranteed to be working with adults
(well, nearly) learners and there will be more than one so they can’t cancel on
you like a private. As well as general English you might gain some useful
experience teaching English for specific purposes or even test prep.

Cons: Yeah, it looks good on paper, but at the interviews I’ve been to you get
half the money you get for playing games with kids all day. Also, one wonders
about the value of a Vietnamese university being on your CV when you enter

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another country’s job market – it’s not exactly Harvard, is it?

8) International Schools

OK, OK, Mr. I majored in English and did a post-grad education course – there
are plenty of options for you. Well, all of the other options plus fancy
international schools. Look for big shiny buildings with security guards and gates
that would stop a tank. Immaculate paintwork with solid gold typography
stamped on the side – that sort of thing.

Pros: I’m not suitably qualified so all this info is second-hand but international
schools pay well. Like $1k per week well in some cases. From the looks of the
outside the inside of the building is going to be good. No dodgy air con here, no
photocopied textbook for you sir – you get an original copy all for yourself.

Cons: It’s a real job. Yeah, you may only have 13 contact hours a week, but
you’re doing a 40 hour week. Not that bad if you like prepping lessons, grading
homework, and writing tests I guess.

9) IELTS, TOEIC etc.

These places usually get approached, or approach you, after you have 1 or 2
years’ experience under your belt and/or another piece of paper to add to your
collection of expensive pieces of paper that make you important. Easy to spot –
they usually have ‘IELTS’ and ‘TOEIC’ written outside of the school.

Pros: Short of networking and somehow scheduling seminars with 30+ students
in your class by yourself test-prep offers the best pay out there. Wages start at
around $30ph and, if you’re good, go all the way up to around the $60ph mark
for high-level learners or learners who need to get a certain score fast (and you
have a track record of doing this). The highest I ever heard was someone getting
$100ph doing seminars to 100 students at a time.

Cons: The pros are pretty sweet. More money, adult students, so your ass is
expendable. Expect feedback sheets to be handed to the students like every
three seconds. If you score a 4 out of 5 you are out, because everyone wants
high paying classes with challenging curriculums and adult students. Also, you
can feel like a bit of a faker when you start as you’re still doing a glorified GE
class but with an IELTS book. I’d feel guilty, but don’t hate the player, hate the
game. I didn’t progress too far into this field – I prefer teaching kids.

10) Jobs in the regions!

So it’s been 2 seconds since you posted your CV and job ad and your phone
rings. On the other end of the phone is a rather desperate sounding voice telling
you they’re calling you from somewhere you’ve never heard of; Ninh Binh,

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Quang Dan, Boom Ting – they’re probably all places, rarely check, as I know the
names of all the districts within an hour’s drive of me and I have a room I rent
so the conversation rarely gets past a few sentences.

Pros: You came here for the experience right? Well you’re not going to get that
hanging around with the exact same crowd of people you did back home just
with more humidity and air-pollution. Get out to the country! Be the only white
person around for a while, it might grow on you. Also, the salary can seem lower
than you get in Hanoi, but prices are cheaper in the sticks, plus the farmers are
too busy harvesting rice to shittily customise your Honda Win or get you a
cheeky NOS balloon on a Thursday night. Free accommodation, transport, and
meals are offered with some packages. So you may end up spending next to
nothing.

Cons: Isolation. Let’s face it, your Vietnamese never really progressed much
past ordering a coffee so you’re going to feel more alone in these places than
you would elsewhere. Also, really difficult to get a burrito delivered to your door
at 4am – total bummer.

A Terrible Teacher's Guide to Not Sucking At Your Job

We're not looking for excellence here people, you've all made and are making
awful life choices and we gotta keep this train on the tracks somehow! I have
been there, I have done that, why the hell am I not wearing a t-shirt? Here are
some life hacks and other sage words for you young uns...

1) Show up

Sounds simple enough, but you are so wrong! There is this very dangerous
period when you just arrive when you think 'I've hit the jackpot here!' when you
start getting big blocks of hours at language centers on a Saturday/Sunday
morning for more than you were making sat on your mam's couch back home.

Coupled with this you are in a new place, and there are all these super cool
trendy people around, and it's like 2am and you know you should leave because
you have a lesson at 7am but that Berlin house music is like so acid, then you
meet a cool guy and you go to the all night beard waxing and bum fluff barber in
this like totally soviet era train station.

Anyway, long story short, you're in a dive bar, it's 6am and you're not going to
make it.

Anyway. The people who've been here a while shed their weekend lessons for
the above reasons (or can hold their damn drink), so let's assume you have to
take them for a bit longer. Nights in Hanoi move in between bars and clubs at
certain hours, so the best thing you can do is bid your farewells after a certain
establishment.

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If people mention the names Birdcage, Nameless, Spy Bar, Dockers, Rastaman
and (to a lesser extent now) Hanoi Rock City - get the hell out of there. Have a
few drinks at Sidewalk and call it a night.

The second is just to power through. Everyone has their varying ways of doing
this. Vietnamese coffee, Sting (Vietnamese energy drink), Efferelegren
(parecetamol/codeine tablets), a full English, a bloody mary or a good ol'
fashioned cold shower. Just get yourself feeling good enough for the 30 min ride
to the center and the kids will do the rest, no joke, you always feel a lot better
after you've taught a lesson to a bunch of 4 year olds after an all nighter.

After you do it once, don't do it again, get a better schedule or sort your life out
you total WASTEMAN.

2) Don't try to be a teacher, try to be you!

Urrgh! That sounded like some mantra from one of those hideous American self-
help gurus. Anyway, people (including myself) come into teaching thinking that
to be a teacher you have to be a certain way, 'firm but fair', 'strict',
'compassionate'. And for a good few years I tried to pretend to be something I
was not. Kids are real good at spotting a faker. I struggled for years with
classroom management because I was doing 'fake angry' not 'real angry', I just
wanted to mess around and play games as much as the 8 year old kids in the
center. So that is what I do now, for $27 per hour. Ha. Classroom management
issues have gone down, enjoyment/progress are up and due to this when a kid
does step out of line they can sense my anger/disappointment is real.

3) Yeah you got skills, whatcha gonna do about it?

Hanoi attracts a certain type of person. Because a 'full time' job here is
considered 20 hours a week there's a lot of time for other pursuits. There are
talented people, and they're only getting better. Having no artistic ability myself
I'd encourage all of you to bring your talents into the classroom (or out); be that
painting, drawing, football, writing, cooking - the list goes on. Vietnamese
students don't have much access to these types of things in public schools due
to poor funding and large class sizes, so they really enjoy such things when they
do come along.

4) Flexibility beats organisation every time

The 'sink or swim' test of whether a teacher is going to make it will come very,
very shortly into their first contract where they will find that they've been sent
the wrong lesson, or have to cover short notice, or the projector they wanted to
use for their whole lesson is broken, along with the photocopy machine.

The incorrect response is to turn into a complete pre-madonna, throw your

carefully laid plans up in the air and mince off out of the classroom and on to the
next place, where the minutiae of life will cause you to do exactly the same
thing.

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The correct thing to do is to roll with it, go with the flow, make something up.
Use the resources you have in front on you and all your brain-power to stick it.
At first, it's going to look ugly. You're going to walk out of a class room red faced
and irritable. But after a while, you live for these situations as they break from
the norm and often force you to think of solutions beyond your tried and tested
routine.

5) Work Culture

Beyond turning up for classes on time you don't have to adhere to the same
rules and standards as your Vietnamese co-workers (controversial one this) as a
lot of your behaviour is put down to "Oh, he/she is a crazy tay." - the rules of
Vietnamese society do not bind you is what I'm saying, however here are a few
exceptions.

- Don't shout. Your wages are out by a bit, don't shout at the poor receptionist
who's working their part time to help her uni studies. Sit and be patient and
speak clearly until the problem is resolved.
- Write down the names of all your TAs and colleagues when you meet them. At
some points I've been working in up to 8 schools at a time and I swear everyone
is called Linh. Following that it's good to keep a bit of friendly banter with your
TAs as they report back to the managers about you. Also, if you have a problem,
they're the first person to hear about it.
- Contracts don't mean anything. Oh, the amount of times people come on the
internet because their contract was broken and they want to sue, to sue so bad.
No one ever does, of course, because the cost of finding a lawyer who speaks
enough English and Vietnamese to help you is more than the money you are
owed by the company - so you just look like an idiot on social media which, by
coincidence, is my favorite hobby.

I gotta get better hobbies. And better friends. Why the hell am I typing this in
Namele...NOT AGAAAAAAAAAAAIN!!!

Job Post Dos and Don’ts

DOs

1. Pictures – I took a sample of the 10 most recent 'lessons wanted' posts on a

popular Hanoian Facebook job page, only two of these have pictures. If you are
new to Vietnam you may not be aware that appearance matters a lot. 'Native'
teacher is often conflated with 'white' teacher and things such as tattoos,
piercings or unusual hairstyles can still lose you jobs to your more clean-cut
brethren. But have no fear! You need not lose your individuality, the two posts in
question (as well as my own I might add) show the teachers working with
students. You might want to add a personal profile shot with your best clothes
on and a fancy Instagram filter, or a paparazzi shot through your bedroom
window, hard at work, grading essays. Cultural shots also go down well too, hire
an Ao Dai for the day, go nuts!

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2. Grade your language. In my sample of 10 posts we had such wonderful words
as 'adore', 'cognitive', and 'choreograph'. Wonderful as these words are you
should take into account your target audience – the center manager who speaks
English as a part of a job, not as a passion or the recruiter ploughing through
mountains of e-mails an hour. Such people have no time for frivolities, nor the
verbose, which brings me to my next point.

3. Stick to the basics. This can be broken down into three categories – basic
information, qualifications and experience

a) Name, age and nationality. That's it.

b) Qualifications: employers in Hanoi generally ask for two types of qualification

1) A degree 2) A teaching certificate (e.g. A CELTA). The only time you should
mention what your degree is in is if it is relevant to education. In fact in some
cases it may hold you back, here is a quote from employer on said subject on
another Facebook group.

“I received this CV today from an actual (English Teaching) job seeker... "Studied
Aboriginal culture, visual arts, gender and sexuality, and environmental food
security" and she expects to 'teach' English ...we are doomed as a species....or
she was too stupid to realize she will NEVER get a job with her degree...”

So, my advice, as far as degrees goes is to simply say 'I have a degree'. Then
the employer can tick that prerequisite box. Later, in the interview, of course you
are free to discuss your education if the interviewer quizzes you about it. If you
are a new teacher try to think of what transferable skills you have in case this
question comes up.

Next, teaching certificates, there are many out there; online, offline, 120 hour,
140 hour, CELTA blah blah blah. Only real snobby places differentiate. Again, just
say what type of teaching certificate you have and the number of hours.

c) Experience. First list the number of years you have been teaching, if you have
never taught before then emphasise your teaching certification more, or mention
job roles which require similar skills sets (e.g. Public speaking, explaining
complex ideas simply, working with non-native speakers).

Next you need to say where you worked and how long for. By 'where?' I mean
country and institution. Once you've been teaching a while it becomes
impossible to name check each institution, there are a few ways around this.
What I do is list the age group/type of English taught (e.g. Kindergarten, IELTS
band 4.0-7.5) you can also add other elements in here such as; class size,
technology used, books, and other materials. There are certain 'types' of schools
in Hanoi, and not very many at that, so if you drop in the word 'public school',
'Montessori Kindergarten', or 'language center' then it provides a good flag for
employers to show prior knowledge of establishments such as their own.

4) 'So, how long do you plan to stay in Vietnam?'. This is one of the top
questions asked by employers in interviews and over Facebook messenger

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across the land, the reason? Simple. You're here funding your hedonistic gap yah
round SE Asia and are just stopping for a couple of months to make bank so you
can go puke on a temple in Cambodia somewhere. Children need stable reliable
people to add structure to their lives and the parents/schools/centers want you
to hang around long enough so you actually start caring about the snot nosed
little brats. So there is a disconnect. Over half of my 10 post sample had words
like “I've just arrived...” “I'm new to...” etc. This needs to be cut out, and
replaced with something to show that you are established or establishing
yourself in the community (even if that is a lie); mention your Vietnamese
girlfriend, play a guitar? Good, go join a band. The longest serving residents of
Hanoi are usually the ones who have something going on outside of teaching
kindy classes in Ha Dong and drinking Bia Hoi, so get on out there and do
something! You never know how long you'll be here.

DON’Ts

Bad Spelling

Let's start with spelling, this should be pretty easy as there is a little red line
underneath words which are spelt incorrectly in most word processors and
browsers, you click on the line and correct your error. If you're still not sure
there are things called dictionaries.

However such technologies don't catch everything, be careful with homophones

(e.g. I have a miner in English (what he digs for words or something? Crap, now
we have some funky parentheses action going on (and I'm about to talk about
punctuation (sigh!)))).

Other than such 'miner' things (see what I did there?) the usual culprits are the
ones we all know; their, they're, there/your, you're, umm...yore?/two, to, too.
Proof read your post, or better yet get someone else to look over it, even
pedantic clever twats like me get things wrong from time to time, to.

(see what I did there?)

Next...

Grammar

Here is an actual post from a job site in Vietnam...

Any job
for CELTA qualified teacher?

That's 6 words and almost as many mistakes. I mean the sentence has no verb.
This future educator seems to have either missed the lesson on a) articles or b)
plural nouns at school. Also, I did not add the line break. He pressed enter all by
himself. Which makes me think this is punk poetry.

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He's not the only one, I'm going to look at the top 3 posts on this page right now
and see what holes I can pick in them...

1) 'Myself and ... just moved to Hanoi 4 days ago' And ya shoulda spent that
time brushing up on reflexive pronouns rather than devising new and ingenious
ways of smuggling biltong into the country, or whatever else it is South Africans
do on a Tuesday morning.

'We are...native english speakers' - shame you failed to realise the name of the
language you want to teach is a proper noun. Herpaderpaderpa. This mistake is
really common by the way.

OK, let's lay off these two besties here. They put an accent on the word
'resumés' and their photo looks like they could hack teaching all the snotty 3
year old kids in some shady language center on a Sunday morning which I turn
down. All power to ya girls. NEXT!

2) Despite having an entire paragraph devoted to all the different types of dance
this applicant is good at this post wasn't too bad. However, there it was! In the
final few sentences 'I will send you on my CV' (should be 'I will send you my CV'
- as I said before - proof read.

3) 'I have a bachelors degree'

but you have no apostrophe
'Fuck off guy, you're so creepy'
punctuation, you're love to me!
'That's why there wasn't any...'

The 4th person on the site made the same mistake...starting to think I might be
wrong here *frantic googling*, but at least we created something, together,
through the absence of another thing.

And finally...

Punctuation

So we've already covered apostrophes, but there are many, many more mistakes
out there. As with spelling and grammar there are also several ways something
could be written yet still be the same sentence. Anyway, here are a few of my
pet peeves.

a) Comma usage. An (incorrect) example might be "In university I studied

maths, science, drama." I would put an 'and' before 'drama'.

b) Ellipses (...) - these dots are used to show 'something missing' or a silence,
however a lot of people seem to have them confused with 'etc.'. So taking our
example above - 'In university I studied many subjects; maths, science,
drama...'

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In my opinion neither device has a place in a job ad, surely you want to
decrease rather than increase ambiguity so as not to waste you or the
employers' time.

c) Capitalisation. Some issues are easy to resolve (e.g. english/English or the

names of people or countries), however some are a little trickier. I mean, do you
capitalise the title of your degree? How about previous job titles? What about the
title of your post? I'd recommend consistency over anything else. For example, I
saw a post which had 2 previous job roles 'Art Director' and 'fashion stylist'.
There's a joke in that somewhere, or it will all come out in therapy one day...

"I just felt (holds back tears) ... as if the 'f' and the 's' were somehow less than
the 'A' and the 'D'...especially the 'D' because I really like that letter, but now,
now I have learnt that we can all capitalise on our success and commiserate
failures with a tear falling to the floor as an apostrophe from a bachelor's
degree."

I Got Interviews! What Do I Do?

1) Take a look at your surroundings. Does the paint seem a little fresh on the
walls? Not many fixtures and fittings? Chances are you are in a start-up and they
have zero clue about what they're doing, and may be promising you lessons they
haven't got yet.

Similarly, are there 2 members of staff with constantly ringing phones that
disrupt your interview and a mountain full of paperwork next to them? Yep,
chances are they're not going to be very forthcoming with support when you
sign for them and will be disorganised at the best and damn right incompetent at
the worst.

Are you in a queue of people? All with man buns and Beer Chang tank tops, UV
paint fresh from a Koh Phangan full moon party the day before. Are you filling
out a generic job application form, the information of which you sent via e-mail
earlier? Yeah, you're in a recruiter's office and they are taking $5ph off you for
doing sweet FA all year.

1st impressions matter and are, in my 6+ years of experience, indicative of the

job you will be taking for the next 9 months, so... if you like doing whatever you
want go for the chaotic office, if you like a bit of structure go for the place with a
3 stage interview process.

2) Contracts. Be wary of people who push contracts in your face on the first
meeting. They are generally recruiters. They employ simple sales tactics of
immediacy ("You have to sign today, the classes start on Monday" etc.). Also,
don't fuck with contracts with punitive clauses. Such things include charges for
early termination of contracts, being late, or a list of 'how a teacher should act'
which are ambiguous at best. There will be phrases like "The teacher will uphold
the standards of XYZ company at all times" which will be used against you later
when they want to fuck you over. Also be careful of 'skimming' this is where
companies use an artificially low (usually fixed) VND rate against the dollar. At

15
the least get the dollar/vnd rate from Vietcombank at the start of each month
you're paid, even better get your pay rate in VND.

3) Dress to impress. A guy in a Beer Lao tank top and a man bun actually
laughed at me for wearing a shirt, tie, smart shirt and trousers at an interview.
Yeah have fun getting paid $16ph at MIC mate, I'll laugh at the bank later.

4) Questions. The weird thing about going to Vietnamese job interviews is that a
lot of them are pretty ad hoc, if you've got all the right documents and they've
read your CV then they really don't have much to ask you which leaves this
awkward ass silence. Here's a list of things I like to ask...

- How many children are in each class?

- What books do you use?
- Do I have a TA? What is his/her experience?
- What technologies/materials are in the classroom? (projectors, aircon etc.)
- Do you offer any additional training?

And the #1 question

- How much do you pay per hour/month? (net, always say net, some give you
the gross figure because they are scumbags)

5) Send all your job applications at once and give a 2 week period for
interviews/demo lessons. Last September I sent around 100 e-mails to different
people, after frantic e-mailing I sorted out all the probables and staggered them
every 2 hours every day for 2 weeks. This is great, because by about a week in
you work out what you're worth, and you have offers on the table. By the end of
week two you are confident to the point of arrogance and start to say things like
"Well XYZ company offered me this..." it's amazing how many more dollars you
can get per hour from desperate recruiters with classes and no teachers. This is
especially true for the start of September. It's a gauntlet though, leave it too late
and you might lose out/be left with some pretty crumby companies.

7) The demo lesson. The demo lesson is truly dying, due to instant
communication, companies simply can't do 2 meetings because good teachers
get snapped up quick. So now demos are usually part of the interview. An
approach I've been working on is going in blind, telling them to pick a book off
the shelf and choose a page and I'll do a lesson on the spot for 15-30 minutes. If
you're not so experienced then do a CELTA style lesson plan and stick to it. It's
worth writing grammar analysis and staged plans if it's going to get you some
nice conditions/pay/perks for the year. Also, don't be a self-righteous prick and
insist on being paid for a 30 minute demo lesson. You're not that good, people
aren't looking for a free lesson, they just want to see how you operate. Get over
yourself.

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A Teacher’s Bag

What to put in it, and where to buy once you’ve ‘bagged’ a job

A native speaking English teacher in Vietnam is very much like a turtle, very few
of us are lucky enough to get our own classroom, so all our teaching materials
have to fit on our back. Over the years I’ve worked for schools where I don’t
know what I’m teaching day to day (or I’m lazy and haven’t prepared) so most
of this will fit into a medium to large rucksack.

I use a North Face Surge 2. There is a North Face outlet on Ma May if you would
like the same bag, and dozens of other fake shops around the Old Quarter which
are easy to spot. I would suggest buying a bag with lots of zips and pockets so
you know exactly where your pens, magnets, ball etc. are. A place to put books,
paper and a laptop are also essential.

Anyway, here’s a big list of what is in my bag and where to find it, and some
other information about uses and so on…

The following you will be able to find in any large bookshop. There are many
situated on Lang Street and the surrounding area. Personally I use ADC books
on Hoang Dao Thuy – because I used to live near there.

Pens and chalk – Lots of colours are essential in both cases. Keep your chalk in a
sealable container (I use an old chewing gum pot) so they don’t make a big
mess in your bag, get the fat chalk not the thin chalk - they don't break so
much. If you don't like having dry skin you can also buy chalk holders. Not all
board pens are the same. If you can buy Airline 517 pens - they are more
expensive but they last forever.

Magnets – Magnets are essential because most whiteboards are magnetic. I’d
recommend getting a set of ‘clip’ style magnets as they double the amount of
things you can put on the board…as they have clips. Magnets can also be used
for other things such as counters in board games, or rewards as an alternative to
stars. I have a set of smiley face magnets, magnets with the numbers 1-10 and
some smaller magnets in my teacher kit.

Colours – Do yourself a favour and buy crayons. Felt-tip pens run out very
quickly, and pencils require sharpening. A few boxes of 12 is all you need as
children in Vietnamese public schools all have colours themselves. Colouring is
often an essential part of kindergarten/grade 1 workbooks (and other materials)
and children don’t always bring a set.

Stickers/Yu-Gi-Oh cards and other rewards – to give the kids when they have
the most stars in a lesson. At 3-4,000VND a set they’re inexpensive. However,
there are a range of fancy stickers, and a small toy store in a lot of book shops.
A lot of schools/teachers have sticker sheets, when the students fill up the sheet
they are able to pick a larger prize.

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Scissors – ideal for cutting up scrap pieces of paper to make flashcards, or
cutting out masks at Halloween

The following is available at 244 Kim Ma. A weird kind of joke kids shop that sells
a few teacher supplies. Unicorn stationary in Tay Ho stock some of the same
items if you can't bring yourself to leave Tay Ho (2nd hand information, I've
never been inside).

Stickballs/magnetic darts – go for the stickballs with more suction cups, they
stick to the board better so you spend less time bending over to pick them up.
Replace your balls every so often as the suction cups dry and then fall off. Don’t
allow the kids to pull the magnetic darts away from each other, as the magnet
gets torn from the flight.

Dice – They come in a range of colours and sizes. I recommend getting a few
different ones. Smaller kids may not be able to handle small dice, or you might
want to give each team a different colour dice.

Magnetic dart board – The ones they at Kim Ma are a bit heavy. I bought a
cheap, lighter one from a toy shop on Lang near the corner of Le Van Luong
many years ago (not sure if the place is still there). It got so old all the plastic
broke, however my taped-up version takes up less space and is lighter so I’ve
kept it ever since! I also have a Velcro target (sorry, can’t remember where that
came from) which serves the same function.

Giant playing cards – Double the size of normal cards they’re excellent for
playing game on the board. Either laminate them or don’t let the children touch
them, they’ll rip in 2 seconds. There are also some A4 sized playing cards
available at a stall outside the Syrena shopping center at the weekend market.

Big C – Tran Duy Hung

Plastic hammers – Excellent for getting small students to recognise vocabulary

and, more importantly, get all their rage out by hitting the board and each other.
They come in several sizes. The small ones are too brittle and the large ones
take up too much space in your bag. Cover the hammers in tape otherwise you’ll
be buying new ones every week (they’re not the best quality)

Mini boards – as in mini whiteboards. Most come with pens and erasers. The
smaller the better, to reduce the amount of stuff you are carrying. I keep 3 or 4
in my bag although they are pretty cheap so you could buy them for a whole
class if you are in one place.

Notebooks – Keep it small and thin. Just a place to jot your lesson plans, or lined
paper in case a student hasn’t got any for a writing activity. Also available in
bookshops, but there is a big range to choose from here.

Small plastic tray – I use this mainly to hold crayons or as a place to throw dice.
Other things will do the same job – an old box without a lid for example.

18
Ball – Keep it quite small so it doesn’t take up too much room in your bag, but
large enough that (smaller) students can catch it. Avoid inflatable or foam balls
– they don’t last long.

Basketball hoop – Kids just love throwing stuff at stuff

Other crap from other places

Nerf gun – fun alternative to stickyballs/darts. There is a gift shop near the
cathedral on Nha Chung which sells them. There are also similar things available
in Vietnamese toy shops, as well as other weaponry such as bows and arrows,
disc shooters, and ball shooters. I once owned a large (poked out of the end of
my backpack) blue, AK47 style sticky gun which was dope, all the kids loved it, it
got banned from 2 schools so it must have been good.

Daiso – Daiso is a Japanese store which you can find in the Vincom center on
Nguyen Chi Thanh (as well as a few other places). It’s a lot better for stationary
than most book shops. A few things I have bought there include coloured printer
dots (which I use to stick to flashcards that haven’t been laminated, so I can
indicate something (like a number of stars for each colour)) and word cards (a
keyring with lots of small pieces of paper to write vocabulary). There is also a
small toy section where they have things like large foam dice and giant playing
cards.

Audio/Visual – As well as carrying a computer to my lesson I also own a portable

speaker and projector. I’ve been teaching for a while so I invested in very
small/high quality equipment so that I can play listening files really loudly in
large, noisy public-school classes, and show videos in well-lit rooms. The
speaker I have (minirig) is only available in the UK, and is the best you can buy.
Similarly the projector is a Pico Genie, which I am not sure you can buy in
Hanoi. If you are looking for this kind of stuff head for Thai Ha and have a look
around – this is ‘computer street’. Make sure to get a HDMI to VGA adapter (or
vice versa) as not all projectors are the same. Also, it’s helpful if you can run
everything you have off battery as power cuts are not uncommon, also a phone
with wifi hotspot/tethering can be invaluable if the wifi is slow/not working in
your school. If you download a browser called Coc Coc you can also download
YouTube videos in browser if you don’t want to use up your data plan, or your
school has no internet.

Word tiles – I have a set of ‘scrabble style’ word tiles. I bought them from the
UK. However, they are easy enough to make – just print the alphabet onto some
card, cut them up, and have them laminated at your local photocopy shop.

Things I don’t use so much – above is what I carry in my bag regularly, however
I have a whole crate full of things which I use rarely or I’ve decided doesn’t
serve much function other than one or two games. It’s good to get a selection of
games for special days or last lessons, things like Scrabble (bought in UK,
sorry), Uno (244 Kim Ma), or Taboo (left in an old house I lived in) are excellent
for this. Chopsticks (umm like any restaurant), glue (bookshops). origami paper
and guide (Daiso), bluetak (bought in UK, sorry), those little cones you used to

19
dribble footballs in between (can't remember) – loads of crap. The main point is
to have a look around a bookshop, toyshop or big supermarket every once in a
while (particularly at the toy section) and think “What could I use that for?”

Things you can get for free – not a lot in this world, but scrap paper is an
abundant resource! You may also find yourself getting a lot of plastic polypockets
which schools have put your new contract in. Use these to separate the scrap
paper from the worksheets and to keep everything from getting damaged when
you stuff it into your overloaded bag.

As a final point, if you can’t find something remember the 4 magic words;
Bookshops, 244 Kim Ma, Big C, Daiso.

An Introduction to Flashcards

The basic definition of a flashcard is a piece of paper or card with a picture on

the front. Some also contain words on the front or back of the card. They are
generally used to teach vocabulary although most publishers now have phonics
cards for their books, and there is nothing to stop you using these cards during
grammar activities either. There are several things that can be done to
flashcards to increase the number of activities you can do with them, and to help
or enhance the learning experience. Let’s start with the best and work our way
down.

The best types of flashcards are the ones which are sold in the resource pack of
the book you are teaching. These are typically printed on card, in colour, and are
A5 in size. They are also laminated (by the school, not the book publishers).
Here’s why they are the best.

It is important that the pictures in the book match the pictures on the flashcards
so that students can follow along in their book. One need not use the book
during class (in fact I don’t when teaching vocabulary) however most books
have companion books which are set for homework and the student may be
confused if you have taught them a word relating to one picture and there is
another in the book. This is especially true as the students get older and learn
tricky things like abstract nouns.

It is very helpful if the cards are laminated for a number of reasons. Firstly,
some games are very rough, for example there is a game called ‘ostrich’ where
you clip a flashcard to the back of 2 students and they must try to grab each
other’s flashcard and say the word. Do this with paper or card and your
flashcards won’t last a lesson. Secondly, you can draw on laminated flashcards.
Maybe you want to write a number of points on each card or ticks and crosses to
say how students should answer for a yes/no grammar structure.

Coloured flashcards are preferable mainly for aesthetic reasons, they’re more
pleasing to the eye, more stimulating. However, for lower levels, i.e. ones that
are learning the names of colours, they can be crucial. This is because you might
want to review previous lessons with the flashcards from the lesson you are

20
teaching. A5 flashcards are good for small center classes of up to 30 students.
However, you might want to scale up your flashcards to A4 if you are teaching in
large public-school classes, or down to playing card size if you would like to use
them in group games or for individual activities.

A lot of schools provide flashcards which vary in quality to the optimum I

described above to some black and white A4 printouts the TA prepared a few
minutes before the lesson. If you can’t persuade them to come around to my
way of thinking, do the best with what you have. But what to do if there are no
flashcards at all?

I am very bad at drawing; however, I can draw any vocabulary item typically
taught to students up to and including grade 3, a few minutes before the lesson.
After this you’re going to have to prepare or ask your school to buy some
flashcards (groan), words like ‘hate’ and ‘alive’ are not so easy to graphically
represent yourself. The process is simple enough though. Go to Google, click
images, type the word and find the most suitable picture. Commit copyright
fraud, insert them all into a PowerPoint presentation, scale up or down
accordingly and print. Common vocabulary sets can also be found online, so
Google ‘[topic] flashcards’ to check someone hasn’t done the work for you
already. Most of the major books have had their flashcards scanned and
uploaded to some dodgy Russian site, so you can get it there too. Also, there is
a site called Scribd where most are available, you get one month free when you
first sign up and it’s $9 a month after that.

Wow! Didn’t think there was that much to know about flashcards, huh? That’s
what happens when you stand in front of a board repeating words day in, day
out for 6 years. Get out while you can kids! Follow your dreams! If your dreams
fail, sell drugs! Not the bad drugs, just the good drugs! And sell them to
consenting adults! Not children! That’s totally lame! Yep…

Flashcard Games

Here’s a list of all the flashcard games I have in my possession. Most were
copied from various websites across the internet so excuse the change in style.
Also, to help me in my lessons (this was a working document once!) I shortened
descriptions where necessary and added abbreviations like FC for flashcard, T for
teacher and Ss for students. There are 78 in total. When I first made the list I
carried it around for a few months to see what worked, after you’ve played the
game a few times you remember the methodology so now I have a list of about
50 flashcard game titles in the back of my book which I do from memory. It’s
good to put a tick next to the ones you’ve done so you don’t repeat the same
game too often.

Adverb Action: T writes on the board an activity like "brush your teeth." S/He
picks one student, they come to the front of the class. The T then shows the S a
card with an adverb written on it, such as "slowly". The chosen student then
does the activity in the way of the adverb. The other Ss have to guess the

21
adverb. The one who guesses right gets a point and mimes the next action which
the teacher writes on the board. To help them you can give them a list of
options, if you think they need some help.

Alphabet Line Up: This is a good way to teach the alphabet to your class. Give
each S an alphabet flashcard with a different letter of the alphabet on it, starting
at "A" (e.g. if you have 7 Ss, give flashcards A through to G). Have them move
around the room to music. When the music stops, they must line up in order.
You can also play with missing letters (e.g.. Give a "c", then an "f", a "k", an "o",
etc). That way they are really learning the order, not just memorizing.

Alphabet Soup: Place plastic letters in a bowl. Divide flashcards by their

beginning letters. Each student draws a letter from the bowl and then finds the
flashcards associated with that letter.

Alphabet Wave: Divide the a-z flashcards among all your students. Put Ss in a
line and play the ABC song. As it plays each student must hold up their
corresponding alphabet flashcard

Backs to the Board Game: This one is good for higher level kids. Make two
teams and stand one S from each team in front of the board, facing away from
it. Place a flashcard picture on the board (e.g. "hamburger") and the Ss have to
explain that word to their team member (e.g. you can buy it in McDonalds, it's
got cheese and ketchup in it). The first S out of the two standing in front of the
board to guess the word wins a point for his/her team.

Basketball: Ss take a shot at the trash can/box/etc. First show a flashcard to

S1. If s/he answers correctly then s/he can have a shot at the basket. If the S
gets the ball in the basket then s/he wins 2 points. If the S hits the basket
without going inside then s/he wins 1 point. The person who gets the most
points is the winner. This can also be played in teams.

Basketball Card Line-Up: This game is like basketball game but more
educational. Place 2 lines of several cards. You need 2 players and a basket far
away. To shoot the basket from far away is hard so the players need to say the
card and make their way closer and closer to the basket. When they feel that
they can throw and hit the basket, they make their attempt.

Battleship: Age: 4+, Level: All levels, Target: Vocabulary, Phrases, Listening
and Conversation. Make a grid. The size of the grid depends on the number of
students and the time limits of the class. Basically the students pick a grid
reference, as " A1" or “ B7”and then you reveal the card.

22
Bean Bag Toss: Lay out flashcards face down up the floor. Ss toss the bean
bag and identify the flashcard it lands on.

Catch me if you can: Have students sit in a circle. After reviewing the chosen
set of flashcards, place them in a pile in the center of the circle. Take the first
card and show it to everybody. Have one student walk around the outside of the
circle saying words from the specific subject – like fruits or days - while touching
each student's of the circle on the head. When the "magic" word is said, the
student whose head is touched at that time, must stand up and chase the
student who touched them around the circle. The first one to sit in that spot
remains seated and chooses the next "magic" word. The student standing begins
again; "Sunday...Monday…"

Charades: Have a S come to the front of the class and show a FC or whisper a
word to that S. The S then acts out that word and the first S to guess can be
the next player. This works very well with action verbs. Variation:divide the
class up into teams - the first S to guess wins a point for his/her team.

Concentration: You need 2 sets of flashcards for this game. Place both sets
face down on the floor. Ss take turns in turning over 2 cards (saying the cards
aloud). If the cards match then the S keeps the cards. If the cards are different
the cards are turned back over again in their original places. The S with the
most pairs at the end of the game is the winner.

Concentration 2: Level: requires basic reading. Make a set of cards. On half

of them put a picture of a theme related subject (for example body parts, food,
furniture etc) on the other half put the word relating to each picture (ex. nose,
mouth, lips, eye...). Laminate if possible. Place all cards face down on the
table. The first player turns two at a time (or three for the very young) over to
match the word to the picture. If it matches the player can keep the pair if not,
the cards are returned and then next player goes. These cards can also be used
so that a child or team simply matches the words to the pictures.

Cross the River: Place flashcards on floor in winding manner. Each represents
a stepping stone in the river, as students must say word/phrase/question/etc in
order to step on it and cross the river!.

Darts: You need a magnetic dartboard (you can get in cheap $1 stores). Place
flashcards on the board and number them. Divide class into 2 to 4 teams. Then
ask, "What's picture number 3?". If the student answers correctly then s/he may
throw a dart for points. You can also say the vocabulary word and have students
point instead of speak if their are younger or at a more basic level.

23
Easy Hard: You need at least 20 cards to play which you divide into 2 piles face
down: An Easy and a Hard pile. Give each team 50 points from beginning. Pick
a student and ask if they would like an easy or a hard card, also ask how many
points they would like to risk on knowing the answer: Easy 1-5 and Hard 5-10.

Fast as rabbits: T puts some flashcards on the board. Then a pair of students
go to the board facing the flashcards. T says words (from the flashcards) and the
2 children must touch the correct flashcard as fast as they can. The winner is
who touches more flashcards first.

Fish: Before this game you need to have the students in pairs draw and cut out
a picture of a fish for each pair. While they are doing that put 2 parallel lines of
tape on the floor a few meters apart. Have Ss play in twos - each student
behind a different line. T shows S1 a flashcard and asks what it is. If the S
answers it correctly s/he can blow once to propel the fish forward. Next, T asks
S2. The S who blows the fish over the tapped line is the winner.

Flashcard Fun: Hold up a flashcard and elicit the answer from a S. Ss can win
the flashcard if they answer correctly. The S with the most flashcards at the end
is the winner.

Four Corners: T hangs a flashcard (4 in total) in all 4 corners of the room. One
S is chosen to stand in the middle with his/her eyes closed and counts to ten
while the other students scramble to one of the four corners. At the count of
ten, the S in the middle shouts "STOP" and picks one corner by naming it's
corresponding flashcard. The students in that corner are "out" and must sit
down. Continue game until only one student remains; he/she is then "it" (the
counter in middle).

Give Me Game: You can use with flashcards or objects. Elicit the different
flashcards you have. Then place all the flashcards around the classroom. Once
the Ss have collected the flashcards (they'll probably do their best to hide them
in their pockets, etc.) T says "Give me a (bus)". The S with the (bus) flashcard
should approach the T and hand it to him/her: "Here you are". Avoid having the
flashcards thrown back to you as they can go anywhere and takes a long time to
finish this game.

Guessing Question Game: This is good practice for asking simple questions. T
hides any flash card behind his/her back and Ss try to guess what the object is
by asking questions: "Is it a dog?", "Is it a ball?", "Is it a book?", etc. until they
guess the flashcard.

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Hint Animal Game: As a review of animals flashcards, T holds some cards
without showing any to the Ss. Then the T tells the kids that they are going to
receive 3 hints, so they need to listen carefully. For example: 1. I am yellow. 2. I
have long hair. 3. I am strong. Who am I? Well, a lion of course! You can make
it in deferent levels depending on how much English you use or which vocab you
use.

Jump On It: Spread out flashcards on the floor and have Ss stand at one end of
the room. Shout out a card and the Ss have to find the card and jump on it. The
first S to do this wins a point. Variation: Make 2 teams for a relay race. The
first 2 Ss try and jump on the flashcard first to win a point for their team.

Karuta: Lay flashcards on a table or the floor, picture side up. Teacher calls out
the word/phrase/etc. and students compete to be the first person to grab or
touch the card. If they touch it, they keep it. Game continues until all cards have
been picked up.

Keep the in Order: Each student has a set of cards (pictures with names)
similar to the teacher. The teacher places his/her cards in a particular order in
two or three rows, and so do the students following instructions. T starts calling
the cards in pairs so that the two cards named change positions. Make a few
changes in this way (don´t let students see the changes, they must follow them
only by listening carefully). Afterwards, T. calls a student to say the cards in
order. If all the cards are well placed the student can lead a new game. Students
love the game and learn a lot of vocabulary.

Lightning Flashcards: T stands at front of class with flashcards. Ss form two

teams standing in a line. Two Ss go first and face away from the T, T says 1.2.3.
what is it? and Ss quickly turn around and the first S to call out the correct
answer wins a point for their team (good for review of vocab).

Line True or False: Put a line of tape on the floor and designate one side "True"
and the other "False". Hold up a flashcard or object and say its word. If Ss
think that you have said the correct word they jump on the True side, if not they
jump on the False side. Incorrect Ss sit out until the next game.

Musical Flashcards: Ss walk around some flashcards in a circle as some music

is playing. When the music stops T shouts out a flashcard and the Ss must race
to step on that card. The first S to step on it keeps the card (1 point) and the
game continues.

Musical Chair Alphabet: Place chairs in the form of musical chairs with
alphabet flashcards placed on them. Start the music when the music stops the

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students pick up their flashcards and have to read the sound on the flashcard.
The child who is unable to read is out of the game.

Ostrich Game: This game is really good fun. You need some clothes pegs. Pair
up Ss and peg a card onto each S's back. Both Ss face each other with hands
behind backs waiting for T to shout "Go!". At this point they must try to
discover his/her partner's hidden flashcard without letting their partner see
theirs. When the S finally sees his/her partner's card s/he has to shout it out to
become the winner. The Ss look like ostriches when playing this game.

Over-under: Line up the kids in two teams. Give the two kids at the front each
a flash card. When you say go, the first in line says the word and passes the f/c
over their head, the next kid says the word and passes the card under between
their legs, the next kid over, then under, etc. The last kid in line races to the
front to hand the f/c to the teacher and says the word. The first team to do so
gets a point.

Paper Rock Scissors: A good vocabulary game. Teach students the new
vocabulary (E.g. clothes, colors, animals, etc.). Spread the flashcards in a row
on the floor. Divide Ss into two teams. Have students walk on the cards from the
opposite sides repeating the vocab just learned. When they are standing on the
last card from their end the T says "1... 2.... 3" and the students have to put
their hand in front in the form of paper or scissors or the rock. Scissors cut the
paper, paper covers the rock and rock break the scissors. Repeat the activity
with each student from different teams. The winning Ss can play again.

Pass: Sit the Ss with you in a circle. T holds up a flashcard or object and says
its name (e.g. "Pen"). T passes it on to the next S who also says its name and
passes it on to the next S. Variations: change directions, speed rounds, have
many objects going round at the same time.

Pictionary: Good for reviewing vocab. Pick a S and show him/her a flashcard
picture or whisper a word into his/her ear. The S draws the picture on the board
and the first S to guess the picture gets to draw the next picture. This can also
be played in teams with a point system.

Picture Recognition Game: Have all the Ss stand at one end of the room and
the T in the middle. Hold up one picture flashcard and Ss come forward and
whisper the word in the T's ear. If correct they can go over to the other side of
the room. Ss can have as many guesses as they like.

Quick Peek: T holds a flashcard with the picture facing towards him/her. T

26
quickly shows it to the Ss for a quick peek. The S who guesses the card wins a
point.

Race Track: Lay out the flashcards like a race track with a start and finish line.
Ss play in pairs or teams. S1 rolls a dice and moves a counter along the track.
The S must say the flashcard landed on and if wrong must move back to the
original position. Variation: put in some 'throw again' cards (e.g. brightly
colored cards) and a nominate a 'crash' number on the die (e.g. if Ss throws a 6
they crash and must stay where they are and miss a turn).

Roll that Dice: Split class into 2 to 4 teams. Place flashcards on board and
number them. Younger Students: T says: Point to the ______. S should point to
that card. If correct then S rolls dice for points. If incorrect S gets help from
team. Older Students: T says: What's picture number 4? S says the vocabulary
word. If correct then S rolls dice for points. If incorrect S gets help from team.
(Submitted by Tania Bibbo).

Rope Jump: you need a rope for this one! Have Ss stand behind each other in
a line. Hold a rope (have a S hold the other end) at a height that the Ss should
be able to jump over. On the other side of the rope spread out some flashcards
or objects and a box. Call out the name of one of the flashcards/objects to the
first S. S/he has to jump over the rope, pick up the correct flashcard and put it
in the box. For other rounds you can hold the rope down low, so Ss have to
crawl/roll under.

Shopping: This can be used with a wide range of flashcards (food pictures work
well). Gather all the Ss and show them all the flashcards you have. Ask a S
"What do you want?" (or maybe "What would you like?" to higher levels). The S
should reply (e.g. "a hamburger, please"). T then says "Here you are" and the S
finishes with "Thank you". At the end collect the objects
by playing the 'Give Me' game.

Slam: Sit the Ss in a circle and place some flashcards in the middle of the
circle. Tell Ss to put their hands on their heads. T shouts out the word of one of
the flashcards and the Ss race to touch it. The S who touches it first get to keep
the object. The S who has the most flashcards at the end of the game is the
winner.

Slow motion: T holds a pack of flashcards with the pictures facing towards
him/her. The last card should be turned around so it is facing the Ss but is
hidden as it is behind the pack. Slowly pull the flashcard up inch by inch so the
Ss can only see part of the flashcard. As the picture is slowly revealed Ss try
and guess what it is. The first S to guess correctly keeps the card (for 1

27
point). Variation: To make it a little more difficult turn the flashcard upside
down.

Snap: You need 2 sets of flashcards all shuffled together. Sit the Ss in a circle
and deal out all the cards to the Ss. S1 places down a card in the middle of the
circle and says the word aloud, followed by S2 placing his/her card down to form
a pile. At some point 2 identical cards may be placed on top of each other and
the Ss race to slam the pile and shout "Snap!". The S who slams last takes the
pile. Ss should try and lose all their cards. The last S left with all the cards is
the loser.

Speed lines: Have the students in two lines facing the teacher. The first
students in each line are the players. Show a flashcard and the first student to
correctly name it is the winner. These two students then go to the back of their
respective lines and you repeat the process with the next two students. If both
students say the name of the card together let them quickly Janken to decide
the winner. A very important ingredient is the speed. Have lines of unequal
number so that on progressive rounds the students are playing with different
people. This way you don't have to worry about pairing slower students with
quicker ones.

Spin the Bottle: Sit Ss in a circle with a bottle in the middle. T Spins the
bottle. When it stops spinning the S it is pointing to is shown a flashcard and
asked to say what it is. If the answer is correct then that S can spin the bottle.
This is a good vocab review activity.

Tic Tac Toe: Place 9 flashcards (representing words, phrases, questions, etc)
face down and numbered (or letters of alphabet) on a large taped grid on the
floor. Students call out number or letter to see flashcard. S or team with correct
response claims that space with an X or O.

Touch: Place flashcards around the room and have Ss run around the classroom
touching the flashcards that T orders them to do (e.g. "Touch the car" "Touch the
bicycle" "Touch the bus").

Tornado: Supplies: flashcards (pictures or questions on one side, numbers on

the other), 'Tornado Cards' (flashcards with numbers on one side and a tornado
picture on the other). Stick the numbered cards on the board with either
pictures or questions on the back (depending on the age group) facing the
board. Also include 6 Tornado cards and mix them in with the picture cards.
Students then choose a number card. If they answer the question correctly then
their team can draw a line to draw a house. If they choose a tornado card then
they blow down their opposing teams part drawing of a house. The first team to
draw a house wins. (submitted by Sally Lloyd).

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Up and Down: You need 2 sets of flashcards for this game. Give each of your
Ss a flashcard from one set. T keeps the other set. Arrange the Ss so that they
are all sitting down. T holds up one flashcard and the S with the same flashcard
stands up and says the word and then sits down again. Play the game at a fast
pace so that Ss are standing up and sitting down rapidly. Variation: Give each S
2 or 3 flashcards.

Uncover: After the vocabulary has been thoroughly taught sit and slowly
expose a flashcard until someone can guess what it is. Reward everyone as they
will tend to guess at the same time. (Submitted by: Gregory Stein)

Vanishing Flashcards Game: place a number of flashcards in front of the Ss.

Give them a few moments to memorize the pictures and then tell them to close
their eyes. Take away one of the flashcards and then tell the Ss to open their
eyes again. The first S to guess the missing flashcard can win that flashcard (for
1 point) and take away a flashcard in the next round.

Vocabulary Tunnel: Make a tunnel for Ss to crawl through. T stands at one end
and holds up a flashcard for the first S to say. After the S says the correct word,
s/he can go through the tunnel. Then hold up a flashcard for the next S.
(submitted by Kim Horne).

Window Game: You can only do this if your classroom has a window that you
can stand outside of and look into the classroom (don't try this on the 10th
floor!). Model first: stand the Ss in front of the window and go out of the room.
Wave to them through the window and silently mouth some words (so it seems
like they can't hear you through the glass). Look at a flashcard and then mouth
the word a few times. Go back in and the S who first tells you the word you
were saying can have a turn.

Zoo Game: This is a fun activity for young learners on the topic of animal
noises. After teaching the animals and their noises sit each S in a different part
of the classroom and assign them as different animals (to make it clearer you
can give each S a flashcard of the animal they are representing). Walk around
the room and talk to each S, who can only reply as an animal. E.g. T: "Hello
Yumi", S1:"Moo! (cow). T: "What's your name?" S2: "Roar!" (lion). T: "How are
you, Kenta?" S3: "Bow-wow!" (dog).

Flashcards at dawn: Place 2 Ss back to back with FCs held facing the walls.
Count and have them walk with each number. When you shout ‘draw!’ they turn
around and say the other S’s FC.

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Mr Wolf: You stand on one side of the wall, Ss stand opposite. Ask yes/no
questions about FCs. If no Ss walk forward. If yes you chase after Ss. (basically
What’s the time Mr. Wolf?)

FC Exchange: Ss sit in a circle with a FC. One S stands in the middle with no
FC. Call out FCs to exchange seats. S with no FC must try to sit down in the
other’s seat. The S in the middle takes the FC and the last S with no FC repeats
the process.

Sumo: the Ostrich Game (see above) with a ring and a sumo stomp at the start.

Chinese whispers: Whisper a word into a Ss ear, they must whisper to the next
S, and then to the next until all Ss have heard the word. The last student says
what word it is.

Hot Seat: One S sits with back to the board. Put FC on board. Other Ss describe
what it is.

Hopping to meet: Place FC on floor, in two lines. Ss hop on each card and say
it.

Math game: Number FC 1-12. Ss roll die, say vocab and add numbers.

Picture game: Place a piece of paper with slits over each FC and have Ss
guess.

Question game: Ss guess what the T is holding by asking questions.

Spiders and candy: place spiders/candy (of pics of) under Fcs, have students
turn them over and guess. Point for candy, lose a point for spider.

Shark danger game: Ss on one side of the room, T on other. Hold up a FC for
Ss to say. Students jump one step forward if they get it right (onto pieces of
paper). Make a shark card, when it appears Ss rush to opposite side of the
room. Chase and catch.

Socks on hands: Ss need to put socks on their hands and try to pick up Fcs.
Name afterwards.

Hide and seek: Place FCs around the room and ask “Where is the...?”

Chopsticks Race: Ss name a FC to transfer a sweet (with chopsticks) from one

plate to the next.

Tag: T chases Ss, when tagging the S must say a vocabulary item. Change to S
to S tag.

30
Flashlight Word Game: turn off the lights and illuminate one FC with a torch
for Ss to guess.

Fishing: Make fishing rod with skipping rope and magnets, put other magnets
on FCs. Fish!

Airplane competition: Make paper airplanes. Assign points to certain objects.

Ss perform language task to throw.

Pass the parcel: Play music. Ss pass FC around in a circle, stop music. S with
FC says the vocabulary item.

Alphabet soup: assign FC to groups of letters in the alphabet. Ss draw letters

from bowl and say the corresponding word.

Balancing act: Ss lie down and balance an object on their head whilst saying a
word you show them. Increase difficulty of objects.

Body Parts Musical Madness: Play music for 30 seconds then say [body part]
to [vocabulary item]

Blind Toss: Blindfold student and get them to toss a beanbag onto FCs on the
floor. Say vocabulary item they hit.

The Zen of Game Creation – Through the Medium of Target Games

In Mahayana Buddhism thee is a concept known as ‘emptiness’ which means

that all things are intrinsically empty in existence and nature. A little too esoteric
for you? Let me give you an example – a wooden chair. I can be pretty sure
everyone reading this now knows what a wooden chair is, but what makes a
chair a chair? What if we take the legs away? Is it still a chair? How about the
back and the seat? No, now it is a pile of wood. We can break this down further
of course, say we burn the wood, or maybe we pulp it – it has ceased to become
wood.

There is also a dual concept called ‘interconectedness’. In my mind this means

that because all things are intrinsically empty in nature and existence it is only
the relationships between these things that give them their nature or existence.
For example, think of yourself, think of how you might introduce yourself. You
may say your name (given by your parents), your age (given by the movement
of the planets and stars), or your nationality (given by your location at birth on
Earth or where you are now, what official bodies or states you registered with
and so on). ‘You’ are in fact empty without the connections you have made to
other things across the universe.

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Still, humans have lots of clever ways to break things up! Drawing on the work
of Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs determined 16 personality types based on 4 key
parameters, whether the subject was; Introverted/extroverted, sensing/intuitive,
thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. This gives you a big list of 4 letter
acronyms to define yourself by. I am INTP by the way, which means I’m useless
at empathy, but I very much enjoy working out systems (never gets me
anywhere on a 1st date that one). So, we should probably get on with that…

You’re probably thinking ‘why is this guy babbling on about Tibetan Buddhism
and psychological test methods, I came here for the games, man, I CAME HERE
FOR THE GAMES!’

Well, here I’ll try and encourage you to engage your grey matter and think of a
few games yourself, showing you how easy it is to innovate games through the
tiniest amount of critical thinking and/or creativity through the medium of target
games…

Target Games

So you’re probably thinking ‘target games? What’s to know? You get the thing,
you throw it at the other thing, you get points. Simple.’

And, for many years, I was with you on this point. Target games, as with a lot of
my games, are a reward for producing a controlled practice language task by an
individual student. However, as time wore on, this idea became untenable. One
of the main reasons is not because of the students, but because of myself, and
my own sanity. A lot of teachers in Hanoi public schools do up to 35 periods a
week. Sometimes they may be teaching with the same grade for one or two
days and have the same lesson plan. Even if they are teaching other lesson
plans they may be efficient with their activities and so do the same set of
activities for each class.

So let’s take darts, a simple game everyone knows. In this scenario you have 4
teams, and 6 desks on each team with two (possible) players, you pick one from
each desk so that’s 24 players per class. Each player gets 3 darts to throw. So
that’s 72 dart throws per lesson. By the end of the week you watched 2,520 dart
throws. I actually developed clinical depression from doing this, stop me in the
street and I’ll show you my Prozac prescription if you think I’m lying. Here’s a
few things you can do to get a little more creative with such a rigid target…and
to stop you going batshit insane too.

Targets

A dart board is one of many targets, but we’ll cover it first to continue the
example. Most teachers simply tally points up or down for the game. However,
the numbers on the board can be used to indicate different things. For example,
maybe you have a large ‘action verb’ vocab set – each verb could correspond to
a different action 1- jump, 2 – throw etc. If your vocab/grammar set is not that
big then you can split the numbers down (1-5, 6-10, etc.) or use odd and even
numbers (perhaps even numbers are positive stars and odd numbers are

32
negative stars). Dart boards also have colours on them too – black, white, red,
and green in my case.

Just as there is variation within a dart board there are also a variation of targets
you can use. Generally 7 year old kids do not appreciate the nuances of
receiving a sticker for every prime number. Here’s what I have in my pack –
magnetic dart board, Velcro target, basketball hoop, and bowling pins. If you
leave your bag at home one day there are also a lot of targets you can use in
class – draw on the board, flashcards, and I have even used myself as a target
once! Technology is very quickly creeping into classrooms also. I often use
images or videos as targets. As the mention of ‘video’ suggests, targets do not
necessarily need to be static either. If you are going to go for the traditional
route you will need to have some way to affix the target somewhere. This is
where the magnetic clips I recommended in my post about ‘A teacher’s bag’
come in handy. Blutak and pieces of string can also work too.

Projectiles

OK, so now we’ve covered targets we have to think about what to throw at
them. These are called projectiles. In my teacher’s bag I have a stickyball, a
Velcro ball, a regular ball, magnetic darts, and a nerf gun. I’ve also trialled other
things such as; bows and arrows, ball shooters, disc shooters, and elastic band
guns – all of these were discarded for two reasons 1) They were not very
accurate 2) Smaller children lacked the motor skills to use them. Obviously
certain projectiles go with certain targets, but you can swap projectiles in a
game to add interest, or play a 2nd round (the same can be said for targets).

Player and the player’s position

OK, now we have a thing and another thing we need a player. The traditional
way of playing target games is to place the player at an arbitrary distance
between them and the target, directly opposite. This need not be the case
however. For example, basketball. Firstly, in the interest of fairness, you may
want to adjust the height of the net depending on the height of the player. If all
players are scoring a bit too easily maybe move the throw line backwards. Also
you could add elements where students can score more points from moving
further away, or have to complete language tasks to move closer to the target.

The player’s condition

You can also add additional elements to the game through the player’s condition.
Let’s say you’ve drawn a simple target on the board and are using a stickyball as
a projectile. Perhaps after round one the player must turn around and shoot
backwards, maybe they could be blindfolded, or perhaps they have to spin
around really, really fast before throwing. Before you know it you’ll have kids
juggling 3 stickyballs on their feet before lighting them on fire and destroying
the target Hadouken style.

Hopefully, that is enough to get your creative juices flowing for now. Go meditate
on a Honda Win, grasshopper...

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[10 minutes of wax on/wax off later]

Still not come up with anything? Have no fear, I’ve got a big list of target games,
as well as other flexible games, once I give a brief outline of what those flexible
games are.

An Introduction to Flexible Activities

Along with target games there are several other flexible activities teachers can
use for seemingly any language point. Let’s run through the general idea of four
such activities before we get to the endless variety within each

1) Grid Games

A grid game is similar to a target game, however it is more a game of chance

than a game of skill. Most grid games involve a sectioned shape (for example a
4x4, square, grid) the players use a projectile (e.g. a stickyball), pick a grid
reference (A1, B4 etc), or place a magnet on a particular section of the grid.

Each section of the grid represents something different – for example you may
have 8 flashcards, and 8 words which go with those flashcards. The students
may just have to say those words, or do something with those words (like make
a sentence) – it depends on the class or level. They’re pretty flexible too, a large
4x4 grid on a board means you can add more information than you can in say a
target you’ve drawn on the board. Say you are reviewing all tenses, it’s hard to
write ‘present perfect continuous’ into a small, dartboard style target, but
infinitely easier in a large grid.

Once the student has picked a grid reference and done the language task,
something is revealed. This is known only by the teacher, and jotted in the back
of your note book. This element of chance is important because some students
are better at certain things than others, there will always be a team who is
better at throwing a ball at a target, or quicker to put their hand up – but when
you add an element of chance there is a level playing field and the weaker
students do not get despondent.

The most common grid game is ‘Typhoon’, which I’m sure a lot of you know but
take a look at the .pdf attached to this post to see how flexible this form of game
is. Remember to think outside the box too! A grid game need not be square. A
circle would be a better shape to teach time, don’t you think? Also, feel free to
add more cells, or take cells away, so that they fit the content of the lesson you
are teaching.

2) Dice Games

Dice games work in a similar way to grid games in that there is an element of
chance. Also, the numbers 1-6 can be attributed to anything; vocabulary,
structures, phonemes and so on. Dice games also require less creativity than
grid games because they have been around as a cultural artefact for centuries.

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All you need to do is Google ‘dice games’ and loads of stuff comes up, if it’s not
too complicated you can usually hijack it for an activity in an English lesson.
Obviously boardgames spring to mind first, but there are a lot more you can do
with dice, see the .pdf for a few pointers.

3) Card Games

As with grid games and dice games there is an element of chance with playing
cards. Also, different cards can be attributed to different things. Cards are more
flexible than dice because they vary not only in terms of number, but in terms of
suit, and in terms of colour. So, for example, you have 2 grammar structures to
teach – you assign each grammar structure a colour (red or black). The next
lesson you may have 4 grammar structures to teach so you assign them a suit
(heart, diamond, spade, club). You could even go so far as to assigning each of
the 13 cards (14 with jokers) a task and play that game. Again, see the .pdf for
some examples, and my post about materials for where to buy giant playing
cards. As with dice, cards are a well-established cultural artefact so you can
apply a lot of games that already exist into your classroom. Strip poker anyone?

4) Projector Games

Unlike the previous 4 types of games, projector games are not that flexible at
all. The difference is that the internet has allowed us to make all the information
on Earth (well, most of it) available to all people. Enough time has passed
between the advent of Java and Flash for some webmaster to create a webpage
full of simple games aimed directly at the vocabulary or grammar point you’re
teaching that day. If I must spoon feed you more, simply typing ‘[language
point] esl online game’ into Google should yield results for most kid’s lessons.

You can also mix it up here a lot. My favourite type of school is one with
computers linked to projectors. Say we are playing a ‘pick pair’ game, where
students must link words to pictures to score points. Why not throw the ball at
the screen rather than use the mouse? Also, there are apps on your phone which
can turn your phone into a Bluetooth mouse to pass around the classroom. Got
some ancient smartphone you don’t mind students destroying? Use it for that.
Also, bad idea throwing stuff at smart TVs.

However, a word of warning from a male over 30, technology often goes wrong.
If the internet is down, the computer doesn’t boot up, or the HDMI cable is all
twisted, you’re going to have to rethink your approach to things. Most people
plan a backup activity. In my case I have a portable speaker, projector and
laptop which run off battery if I am having issues with the equipment at the
school and I tether it to my phone’s data if the wifi is down. You can check out
where to get those things in the materials section (listed in the comments).

OK, that’s the basics kids! You can have your treat now…

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Target Games

Magnetic/Velcro Target: Stick the target to the board so that it is at eye level
for the players (using magnets, bluetak, string etc.). Put a chair in front of the
board and have students stand behind the chair (to avoid cheating). Adjust the
distance according to player ability. Ss then throw darts or Velcro balls. The
number of projectiles is up to you, as is whether you use triples, doubles, or the
bullseye on the board. To add interest move the throwing position backwards in
certain rounds, or have players shoot from different angles.

Whiteboard target: The whiteboard target is not dissimilar to darts. A simple

game would have 3 ever smaller circles with points in, the smallest circle
representing the most points. However you can make the target different as it is
not fixed (like a dart board). So you may want to draw balloons, or fish, or stars
etc. for the Ss to hit instead. Couple this with changing the position and
condition of your players and you can create some really interesting games.

Basketball: Typically this game is played with a basketball hoop fixed to the
board somehow (either on the top, or with strong magnets) the player
completes a language task and shoots. You can change this however, for
example if you don’t have a hoop and ball you can use a bin and a piece of
scrunched up paper. You can move players further away, or closer to the target.
You may want to add another player to block, or more players still – if the
classroom is big enough. The points may be higher if someone is further from
the net, and lower if they are closer. You may want to add additional language
tasks for them to get closer.

Stickygun – the stickygun is used the same as a sticky ball, but worth its own
mention! Kids really enjoy this one, and as long as the bullet is made of foam it
can be great for having moving targets – i.e. yourself or the other students. Can
get a bit silly.

Grid Games

Each of these games require you draw a 4x4 grid on the board (i.e. 4 rows, 4
columns). The student uses a projectile to pick the grid reference, or places a
magnet, or simply say the grid reference to choose the cell they want to work
with (e.g. A1, C4 etc.). Each cell contains a language task, such as a vocabulary
item or grammar point, which the student must do something with in order to
reveal what is behind the cell, the answers of which are written in your
notebook.

Positive Stars: Each cell has a number in it, from 1-16, the students pick their
cell, complete the language task, and get that number of stars for their team.

36
Negative Stars: The exact opposite of positive stars, students must try and find
the lowest number in order to lose as few stars as possible for their team.

Positive/Negative Stars: A mixture of the above two games. There are both
positive and negative stars secretly hidden behind each cell.

Heart, gun, bomb: Hidden behind each cell is either; a heart, a gun, or a
bomb. A heart gives the team one star, the bomb loses the team one star, the
gun allows the team to shoot another team’s star.

Typhoon: There are two typhoons in the grid, and two hurricanes. If a team hits
a typhoon, then the other team’s points are erased to zero. If they hit a
hurricane, their points are erased to zero. The other squares are filled with
numbers (both positive and negative). It’s best to make these numbers starting
in 1 (1, 10, 100, 1000 etc.) to make the addition easier at the end. Personally I
use a range from -10,000 to 1,000,000.

Spiders and Candy: Behind each square there is a spider or a candy. A spider
means the player/team loses a star. A candy means they get a star. Excellent for
Halloween.

Battleships: In the grid place a number of ships, 2 cells in size, the number of
ships should correspond to the number of teams. The ships can be placed
vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The idea is to sink the other teams’ ships
by hitting them. Two hits on one ship means a team is out of the game.

Multiplier: Similar to positive stars. However, instead of adding stars, stars are
multiplied. Give each team one star to begin with. It is unwise to have a
multiplier higher than x6 as the maths gets a little difficult. Have more lower
multipliers (x1, x2) for the same reason.

Roll/Try Again/Stickers/+stars/-stars – Students pick a cell from the grid

through whatever means you deem fit. They can either gain stars, or have them
taken away. Students may also hit a ‘dice’ cell where they can roll for stars. They
may also hit a ‘reward’ cell where they get a sticker, candy or so on. You can
also add other elements like ‘try again’ where students must pick another cell.

Stickyball clock – not a grid this time, but a circle, great for teaching time.
Split the circle into twelve and ask the student to tell the time based on the
throw. Each segment reveals a hidden number of stars for their team.

Dice Games

Boardgame: A boardgame can be played in two ways. The first way is on a

piece of paper. When using this method it is useful to print a boardgame with
blank squares, this means you can add things to the boardgame when you want

37
to reuse the activity (e.g. one week you might colour the squares to teach
colours, another you may number the squares to teach numbers). Blank squares
can also add interest by adding things like ‘go to start’ or ‘go forward 2 squares’.
Personally I play paper boardgames with coins as counters. This is excellent in
Vietnam as there are no coins, so students become interested in the activity
before it has started.

Paper boardgames, played in small groups, can cause a lot of problems. Usually
this involves; whose turn it is, where the counter should be placed, how many
squares someone has gone etc. so I tend to scale the boardgame up to a…

Whiteboard game: Exactly the same as a paper boardgame but more

controllable as you move the counters and check the students are performing
the language task. As well as a simple ‘start to finish’ game you can also do
adaptations such as ‘snakes and ladders’ or add things to squares like stars or
things the students must do. Use your imagination. Use magnets as counters, or
different coloured pen marks if not available.

Roll for stars: Students perform language activity and roll for stars for their
team

Beat That!: Students perform language task and roll, the other team does the
same and rolls. They have to beat the opposing team to continue. If they get
less they lose the game, and the first team wins, if they get more then the other
team plays. If they roll the same number they must roll again.

Mountain: Draw a mountain on the board and write the numbers 1-6 on the
board. 1 mountain for each team. Students complete a language task
(depending on what they roll, or not, it’s up to you) and roll. When they roll a
number it is struck out. The 1st team to strike out all 6 numbers wins.

Mouse: Similar to mountain except that each number corresponds to a part of a

mouse 1 – the nose 2 – the head 3 – the ears 4 – the body 5 – the legs 6 – the
tail. The students must roll and complete the language task (depending on the
number, or not, it’s up to you). The first team to complete their mouse wins.

Balloon: Again, variations on a theme, this is exactly the same as Mountain and
Mouse except each team gets 6 balloons. The first team to pop all 6 balloons
wins.

Positive/Negative Dice: Assign some numbers as positive (e.g. odd numbers)

and some as negative (e.g. even numbers) or play one round where the dice is
positive, and the next round where the dice is negative. Students complete the
language task in order to roll.

Multiply/Divide Dice: Exactly the same as Positive/Negative Dice but stars are

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multiplied/divided depending on the number or the round.

Grid Games with Dice: You can use most of the grid games listed above with
dice. Instead of writing a vocabulary or grammar point in the squares write the
numbers 1-6. Students roll and pick one of the squares with said number in. This
is what I’m talking about with game flexibility! You just added the following
games (and more) to your list – all with the roll of a dice…

- Heart, gun, bomb with dice

- Typhoon with dice
- Spiders and candy with dice
- Battleships with dice
- Positive stars with dice
- Negative stars with dice
- Positive/Negative stars with dice
- Multiplier with dice
- Roll/Try Again/Stickers/Positive stars/Negative stars with dice

Roll for grammar/vocab: Number vocabulary/grammar 1-6 and have students

roll, say the linguistic element they rolled.

Catch up: Each team rolls for stars. However, if a team rolls a 6 then the dice
moves to the other team. Again the number of the dice can relate to a language
activity the students must perform.

Boston: Roll 3 dice, keep the 2 highest, roll again, keep the highest. Total the 3
highest dice. Students must produce language depending on the numbers.
Perhaps you want to test three students at once, alternatively you could have
one student produce a language task corresponding to the number of the last,
highest die throw – it’s up to you.

Card Games

High Card Wins: 2 students (1 from each team) perform a language task, they
then pick a card, the highest card gets a star for the team.

Red or Black: A student performs a language task then chooses red or black,
the teacher draws a card, if they chose correctly they keep playing. If they were
wrong the play switches to the other team. The team with the most cards at the
end of the games wins.

Higher/Lower: Exactly the same as red or black except the player must decide
if the next card will be higher or lower than the previous one.

Pick a card: Can also be played with flashcards. Students pick a card, the card
will correspond to a language task (a word, a structure etc.) which they must

39
produce. To make the game more competitive tally up the numbers on the cards
at the end to get a winner.

Beat That!: Exactly the same as the dice game. A student completes a task
then draws a card. The opposing team does the same. If the card is higher the
play goes back to the first team, if it is lower they lose and the first team gets
the point. If the card is of the same value they must draw again.

Balloon: Similar to the dice game, place a number of cards on the board with
balloons around them. Students draw cards and complete language tasks (based
on the cards, or not). Cards are eliminated either by number, suit or colour until
there are no balloons left. The team who pops all their balloons first wins.

Catch up: Are you seeing a theme here? Same as the dice game. Students draw
a card and complete a language task (based on the card or not). If a student
draws a certain card, or cards then the play moves to the other team (e.g.
hearts, or aces).

Boston: Same as the dice game. Draw three cards, keep the highest. Draw two
cards keep the highest, then draw one card. Students must produce language
depending on the numbers, suits or colours. Perhaps you want to test three
students at once, alternatively you could have one student produce a language
task corresponding to the last card - it’s up to you.

Positive Hearts, Negative Diamonds, Multiplied Spades, Divisive Clubs:

Each team starts with a number of stars (make it small so you can do the math).
They draw a card and perform a language task. Depending on what suit they
draw you either add, subtract, multiply, or divide based on the number/suit on
that card and the number of stars they have on the board. May require a
calculator.

Pick Pairs: Get a whole load of magnets and stick all your cards on the board.
For a shorter game make the pack smaller, but check you have pairs of
everything you are using. Students perform a language task then try to pick to
cards of the same type. This can either be in number, suit, or colour.

Uno: Playing cards are not the only type of cards out there. Uno is a popular
and easy to understand game across the world. As with regular playing cards
each card has a colour and a number, there are also special cards. As well as a
reward or final day activity you can use the same logic as above to create your
own games using this classic card game.

Cards Corresponding: For large vocabulary/grammar sets, or perhaps as a

review game, you can have each card corresponding to a certain thing. For
example action verbs! If your language set is not big enough you can break it
down into suits, odd and even numbers, colours, and so on.

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Games you know (for advanced students): There’s a good chance you know
a lot of playing card games yourself! However, Vietnamese students don’t, and
explaining the rules to them can be quite difficult. However, if you have a high
level class you may want to experiment playing; poker, blackjack, rummy,
bridge, shithead (or ‘donkey’ if they’re kids) or any other game you know! In
return try and get them to explain the rules of ‘Attack/defence’ to you, and you
will understand how card games played in one part of the world are very difficult
to translate to another part of the world.

Projector Games

The world gone digital boi! As well as all these classic IRL games above there is
a wealth of online games to play should your classroom have a projector or
smart TV for the students. I’m a little long in the tooth so I don’t have many at
my disposal, also a word of warning as regards to the ‘rise of the machines’

A lot of things can go wrong with computers. The Wifi is OK in the lobby but not
so good on the 4th floor, there is a power cut every day in summer when your
lesson is on, the projector bulb is broken and they don’t keep spares on site
because they cost a lot of money and might be stolen, a kid thought pulling on
the screen was funny and it fell off the wall – I could go on.

Anyway, if you’re going to plan an activity using technology, plan a backup

activity that doesn’t. If you are lazy (like me) invest in miniature
speakers/projectors/laptops which run off battery power. Anyway, here are a few
things you can do with your projector…

Enhanced target games: It’s generally a bad idea to let kids touch your set up,
they’re slow and they mess things up. So, why not load up a game like ‘Angry
birds’, have your kids throw a stickyball at the screen and shoot for them? There
are loads of games like this, such as ‘county fair shooting’ type games or my
childhood favourite the ‘coconut shy’. Also, moving targets can now be deployed.
If you think that someone has not made a 24 hour video of stars shooting
through the sky, or fish swimming in the sea, or zombies walking towards you –
you are wrong. They are all uploaded to YouTube, ready for your wannabe
snipers.

ESL Gaming Sites: As well as doing what you did before in a slightly virtual
way there are also dedicated sites for ESL gaming. Just type ‘[language point]
online game esl’ into Google and they’ll come up. Eslgamesplus.com is a
favourite of mine. Lots of flash and java games for elementary – intermediate
child learners.

Game Adaptations: There are also ways you can adapt games you played in
your childhood online. It is very hard to find Buckaroo! IRL, but has someone

41
made it online? Of course they have. There are also games which you, or most
likely your students, will find which you think ‘I could use that’. A good example
of this is ‘Akinator’ – check it out, great for yes/no answers. Coupled with that
there are a hell of a lot of other resources you can use just by using the search
bar. From ‘name the country’ flag quizzes, to music genre rounds on YouTube.
Just use your noodle and Google.

Non-Game Based Activities and Responsibilities

So that’s all the games covered. What about everything else?

This is going to be a quick summary because my approach is to try and make

everything into a game where possible. I cut my teeth in South Korea where rote
learning, and having children sit in neat little lines repeating after you is still
very much the done thing.

After 2 years of that I moved to Hanoi. I didn't know any better so I kept up
these practices for a bit, but after a few training sessions and some lesson
observations, it became clear that Vietnamese children were allowed to have fun
in class, Korean children - not so much.

After mixing the skills I had from Korea with this new approach I quickly realised
that the games were the best part of the lesson for the kids, and for myself so I
just said "fuck it!" bought a big bag of toys and made lessons out of them.

It's one approach among many. So you may want to do the following things
more or less depending on your style/preferences. As a personal note I think fun
comes before learning, if the students (and you) are having a good time then it's
going to make the process a lot more enjoyable for the both of us. The trick is to
teach them something yet let them feel like they've left the class having done no
work at all. That's the art.

Drilling

Drilling, or modelling and repeating as it is also known, is when you get students
to repeat a vocabulary item, grammar structure, or phoneme after you. It's
about as interesting as the definition would suggest, and generally very tiring for
the learner (just watch those heads drop down to the desks, the increasingly
monotonous tone etc.) and yourself (try saying the same word 100 times a day!
TRY IT BITCH!

Generally what I do is go through the flashcards and have the whole class say
them twice. I then get them to say them once in groups. Then I check each
student individually by showing them one or two cards to see if they have
remembered the vocabulary item or grammar structure.

Obviously saying the words as a class is the most efficient, but in larger classes
it's hard to make out who is saying the word and who is not, or to pick up any
pronunciation errors. In groups this is more possible, and you can make

42
corrections if necessary. The individual recall is more a test of previous
knowledge, or the pace at which they can learn the words. If the whole class can
recall items accurately then you don't need to play too many games based on it
after, if they're all struggling maybe you need to add another activity.

There are a few other ways you can make drilling fun, all of which are based
around variation of voice. Have the students shout the vocabulary, or say them
really quietly, or say them really slowly, or increase the pace of repetition, or
slow the pace and so on. Really though - I'd hurry this through and get to some
controlled practice flashcard games.

Stories

A lot of kid’s books come with a story page. In it there are usually a number of
story panels with sentences either in speech bubbles or below each story panel.

In general what I do is brainstorm the pictures in the story and/or ask simple
questions depending on the learner's level. Then I get the whole class to repeat
the story after me, I then split the roles into groups, for longer classes you can
switch the roles and repeat the process, after this I get each student to read a
line individually to check reading/pronunciation. If you have more time, or prefer
amateur dramatics to games, you can get the students to memorise the story
and act it out as convincingly as they can. To produce more natural speech you
may also ask students to retell the story in their own words.

A lot of the resource packs come with story posters, if you don't have this try
and get the .pdf and blow it up on the projector/smart TV, or failing that take a
picture and e-mail it to yourself for later use. This is useful for the brainstorming
part of the exercise, acting, or retelling the story. Some books even offer videos
to go with story as part of their multiROM CDs. Very few schools stock these
though.

Resource Packs

Most of the major publishers provide additional resources for their books. There
is at least a workbook in most cases but usually the school knows about this,
and it is homework. However, there are other things such as; grammar books,
photocopy master books, writing tasks, activity books, number books, letter
books, guided readers which they don't know about. Have a look at your book
and track down the publisher's page online to see just what is available. Most of
it is downloadable for free from sites like vk.com or over subscription services
like Scribd.

Generally what I do is have a worksheet task in the last 15 minutes of the

lesson. It settles the kids down after they've got all excited about the games, so
they're ready to give back to their parents again. Also, it allows me to tidy up all
my materials which are, at this point, all over the room and get ready for the
next lesson. A quick sit down, and a drink of water is usually needed at this
point for a man of advancing years.

43
Word of warning though. Don't ask permission to do the worksheets, or get the
school to print them off for you. A lot of places want you doing
speaking/listening skills only and, if they didn't know about extra stuff they can
give the kids for homework, they do now! There goes your 5 minute sit down
and drink break. At the same time - don't take the piss. If you have an hour long
lesson, don't give the students 4 pages of the grammar book to do over half an
hour while you play on your phone, you need to guide students on some
worksheets whereas others are self-explanatory.

If the book you are using doesn't have worksheets there are lots available online
if the subject is simple. The more complicated the subject the more difficult it is
to find worksheets that fit exactly. Even with something simple like 'school
things' (grade 1, unit 1) you have variations such as rubber/eraser and the
crossword might have a pencil case rather than the school bag in the book. It's
making problems for you because you're going to have to teach extra stuff,
rather than clearing up your work area and having a rest like you were supposed
to.

If you're really sadistic you can make your own worksheets. It takes a very
dedicated teacher to make a worksheet for each lesson of each book they teach
- but all power to you if you have the diligence! Most of us go for the resource
pack option or, failing that, Google however I have experimented making
'flexible worksheets' in much the same was as I have tried to make/find 'flexible
games'

I've uploaded what I have to Google Docs, and added some classroom rules
posters as a bonus. There aren't many there because they didn't go down so
well. I lack basic graphic design skills and I was too lazy to work on the concept
- then I discovered the resource packs, and had a broader knowledge of lots of
books so, even if I didn't have a worksheet for one book, I knew the exact place
I could find something very similar if not the same.

Anyway, here that is if you're interested in the concept, perhaps you have the
talent to develop the ideas more fully or they provide inspiration for your own
'flexible worksheets'

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0gn5pqdGp49Y0Vud3JWc1ZoV3c

Testing

Tests come in two forms - placement tests, and aptitude tests. Placement tests
are given to new students when entering the school, to see what class they
should be in. If the school hasn't prepared something for you then you should
see how old the student is (say they're 8) then grab 3 books and flashcard sets
(one for grade 1, grade 2, and grade 3) to see where they are at. I've only been
asked to do these fairly recently, it's perfectly acceptable to say "no" here - the
teacher who's taking the class will thank you later, when they don't have
massively different levels in their class. Usually the center manager, or most
senior teacher does this.

44
Aptitude tests are more common for you to perform, as you are their teacher, so
are the best judge. Again, a lot of schools provide you with a print out which you
read through on the day and it's all nicely split up into grades. All you need to do
is think of a comment for the end. Generally something short like; one thing the
kid did well, one thing they didn't do so well on and how to improve. Some
schools don't do this so you have to use the book. Go through the units they
want tested and cover up words/grammar structures with a piece of paper then
ask simple questions. If the scoring is out of 10 I tend to grade from 5-10. 5 is
no response, it should be zero, but parents want to know their kid is learning
something, and they're paying for it, so we lie! 10 is absolutely perfect.
Generally most students cluster around the 7s, a few 6s for the weaker students,
a few more 8s than 6s and 1 or 2 9s are what you're looking at.

Carrot and Stick - Rewards and Punishments

The posters I've included in the Google Drive folder are 'class rules' posters -
although I've kind of mellowed to kids yelling 'me, me, me' over the years, a lot
of people want to keep some semblance of order. You might want to include in
your class some rules, or reminder of them at the start of the class before you
begin.

One thing I still do is keep a star system (students receive stars for their team
for doing well/playing games). This is the reward aspect, but can be a
punishment also, if all the kids start standing up and shouting - bye, bye stars.
The star system is a competitive thing between teams, and there should be a
small reward at the end (usually stickers or candy, although I've used other
things - such as Yu-Gi-Oh cards - before). In the Google Drive file there is also a
'sticker sheet' printout. A sticker sheet is somewhere the students can collect
their stickers, once it is full they get a larger prize. The older the student gets
the less impressed they are by a sticky pink star the size of your thumb, so they
can often be crucial when moving up to grades 4 and 5 and beyond into middle
school. I noted down where to buy stickers earlier, when we looked at classroom
materials

A concise guide to teaching songs to children

I talk too much, let’s sing a song! Should wake up all the TL;DRs out there.
Here's a concise guide before we start, and a playlist of 100 songs for children
aged from kindergarten to elementary to choose from.

1) Listen to the song and watch the video

2) If the song/video has actions (I've tried to include as many as I can in my
playlist) then replay the song and do the actions with the children
3) Play a third time, do the actions and sing
4) If time allows, mute the video and have the students sing acapella

Easy as that, here's 100 songs to chew on...

45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv1JkBL5728&list=PLZnxPO1j6B-
33f1Ju5VvjAZJXdILuD0bP

It's by no means complete, but it's a good start, if you can't find what you are
looking for type '[language point] song esl' into YouTube and something will
come up. There are some stand out channels...

Dream English - videos look kinda old now, but Mr. Matt has got actions for
everything.

Super Simple Songs - not all ESL based, but the ones that are have slick
animation and production

Maple Leaf Learning - I go there for the hand puppets alone

Rockin' English - Crappy animation but amazing song writer, this dude makes
possessive/personal pronouns catchy.

Technology and the Classroom

Technology can be scary, and not in a good way, scary in a demeaning way (oh,
spank me harder, robo-mistress). I remember back when I was a nipper giving
my granddad an old Nokia phone and talking him through it. He really didn't get
the whole press-the-green-button-to-answer thing. Then the same thing with my
dad with the video cassette player. Now me, as I know there may be people
reading this who are unsure what a video cassette is. And for good reason. Who
gives a fuck? That's in the past. Roll over and die granddad, the world is ours.
Yeah, well you're going to have to explain anime sex robots to me in a few
years, I will be too far gone with dementia at that point to care about my pride.
Plus, we have a problem in Hanoi now! That problem is...

Classroom Consistency (or lack thereof)

Unfortunately a 'classroom' is not a easily definable space in Hanoi, nor are the
technologies within them that consistent as well. You might start your day at
public schools where there are a mixture of VGA and HDMI projectors that either
work or don't work depending on the day. Oh and the power cuts off on
Thursday afternoon - gotta remember that. Then you move to a language center
with a smart TV and a CD player, then you round the day off teaching a private
with your computer and no board.

Also, dodgy wiring and heavy-handed kids are a fact of life, so you're going to
have to be able to use the full range of technologies available to you when
teaching for practical as well as aesthetic purposes. So let's start low and go
high

Low Tech

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Rubbing a bit of rock on another bit of rock is about as simple as it gets, but you
can still mess it up. Chalk boards are commonly found in public schools in
Vietnam, the chalk is commonly found in a locked cupboard. The home room
teacher is nowhere to be found. So best to have your own chalk. The same goes
with any other 'stylus' technology. Bring your own board pens, because every
teacher swaps out there shit pens for the fresh ones. Pens, paper - you get the
idea - if you want to be sure - bring it with you. I've already written about what
to put in your bag so I won't dwell too much on that. Your next question is
probably - but what if you can't bring it with you? High tech stuff?

High Tech

Though not exactly the highest of tech it is possible to carry around portable,
battery operated kit that does the job when the system in the classroom is
missing or not functioning properly. Personally I carry around a laptop, speaker,
portable projector, and smartphone. Unless you need a touch screen surface
(interactive white boards or touch smart TVs) this will cover you for most things
and, even if you were planning an interactive activity, you can mix high and low
tech. For example, Angry Birds...but with a sticky ball to choose where to shoot.
I have a list of games you can play with projectors elsewhere. The last thing I'd
say is invest in good equipment. Laptops should be light and slim, speakers
should be loud and clear, and projectors should be bright and work from far
away. Pay 200k a month for the sweet data plan - go nuts.

For computers and phones it's best to go to a large retailer as most offer a one-
year warranty. There are a lot situated on Thai Ha (computer street). Big names
include Tran Anh, FPT, and The Gioi Di Dong. Even the cheapest model there will
be powerful enough to play a few kids songs/flash games. The same can be said
for phones, you just need to play audio from it, and use it as a mobile hotspot if
you have no WiFi signal.

Also there are places in Hanoi that will fix busted computers/phones for next to
nothing, going diving in Koh Tao with your iPhone was a bad move - ProCare is
often recommended as a go to Tay Ho solution, English speaking staff so you
don't have to worry about translating what an idiot you are. They also do laptop
repair, but I usually go to this place http://www.suachualaptop24h.com/ - even
if your computer's not broken it's good to reinstall the operating system every
now and again (Windows). They're totally cool with having Google Translate
conversations too.

Speakers are a bit more tricky, you want small and loud, but the smallest,
loudest speakers are only available in the UK (Minirig) so you'll have to put up
with what's out there. I mean, really low quality speakers will be OK in most
settings. Public schools require a little more 'umph!'. One of my students sells
some nice Bose all-in-one units, if you're interested, let me know, and I'll pass

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on the business. The projector I have is a Pico Genie, there are Pico shops in
Hanoi, go check out their range! The key with your projector is brightness, and
the width of the image as you are dealing with natural light or far off myopic
students.

Uses and Misuses of Technology

As well as being a problem with humanity in general, this is also a problem in

class. Although you might want students to use their phones/computers to look
up words they don't understand if they are 11 years old they're more likely to be
playing Roblox. IELTs students, less so. Just use your common sense and a bit of
discipline when it comes to things like this. Also, teachers can go a bit
overboard. Sitting on your ass flicking through a PowerPoint presentation for 45
minutes might be the best way for you to pass the time, but chances are the
students' chins will slowly sink into their hands. It also tends to be the case
(with me anyway) that when there is a new bit of kit available I use it too much,
it's best to incorporate the activities you have with any new technology so you
have a range of activities in class, and the new thing doesn't lose it's novelty too
fast.

Schools also misuse technology. The main issue I have is stream of

consciousness e-mailing about classes, or other non-related issues (oh, can you
mark this work from another class for me etc.). Also, I'm increasingly being
recorded (either for quality purposes, or to post on a website for advertising). I
find this a little intrusive and Orwellian, and it means more work outside of class
however, I largely accept it as it's better than South Korea - where online
speaking tests, and head office CCTV monitoring were a part of everyday life. If
you do have an issue with then it's best to ask what your responsibilities are
early on or be a dick about it when something isn't your responsibility.

The Future?

The future? ...is not something I thought much about as I did this to avoid me
having to deal with Bumble. That's something bees do, the word Tinder has
already been associated with 'failed expectations and low self-esteem'. Why does
the thing that bees do have to mean that as well? Aye, aye, aye. Well, at least I
have a greater range of women I can date now. Before there were just 3D
women, but now it seems (somewhat) acceptable to be romantically involved
with a 2D one as long as you can deal with fedoras and people calling you a
weeaboo all the time.

As for teaching, don't take your eye off the ball (like I did with dating apps),
looking forward there are some big changes coming. We're already seeing a big
rise in online teaching jobs, as the salaries increase, and the time it takes you to
get to IRL lessons increase, a lot of us might be heading that way.

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Anyway, I'm thinking a classroom full of people with VR head sets and me
throwing words around the class, which have timers and explosives strapped to
them, or synaptic feedback suits to shock the children if they misbehave. I'll
delegate all my power to the AI in the shock suit - brave new world, dude.
Brave. New. World.

A White Man's Guide to Employment Discrimination Among Teachers in

Vietnam

To misquote Lao Tsu - 'The people who know the least often have the most to
say'

As I prepare my lesson on jobs for a grade one class it's good to see that Oxford
University Press (Family and Friends 1, Unit 4) has taken a multicultural
approach to their illustrations. There's a few out-and-out honkies but in general
all the jobs seem to be quite ethnically neutral, ranging from white to black in a
number of different tones. It's good to see the doctor is a woman too, equality
can be achieved in the workplace after all! Well, in the minds of those geniuses
over at Oxford...you'd think.

As a white, middle-class, British male teacher I feel I must complain about the
female teacher first. I'm perfectly capable of nurturing children! How dare you!
[writes 'shooting game' as activity for tomorrow, where children must shoot
other children with a nerf gun to pick them for the next round]. Yeah? Whatever!
[swigs neat Jim Beam]

If that doesn't get you mad, ladies, have a look at all the gender specific terms;
housewife, fireman, policeman. What is this, the '70s? It would seem that the
colourisation of the characters was a cynical ploy to sell books, and gender roles
in the workplace persist after all.

One wonders then, if the book smart types at Oxford can't get it right, what
chance do we all have, out in the real world? Well, I don't know much about
much, but I do know about white privileged Western men, so we'll start with
them and move on to things I know nothing about like; being a woman, and
racism (oh the comments section is going to be so fun)

Whities

OK whities, first off you got it pretty good, even if you are not a 'native English
speaker' there's a good chance of scoring a job based on the amount of non-
native English white speakers I have worked with compared to native black
English speakers I have worked with. Also the advertisements for 'European
teachers' on here would suggest that there is a market for you. However, you're
still an immigrant and, if my country is anything to go by, there will be a lot of
perceptions about you based out of ignorance and broad stereotypes.

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"How long are you planning to stay?"

This is one question which comes up time and time again in job interviews, it
comes from the assumption that immigrants don't want to stay in Vietnam. It
seems an innocuous enough question, but at the root of it makes sweeping
generalisations about the person you are, so much so that the Vietnamese have
a word for 'backpack foreigner' (tây ba lô), in fact we're all grouped in the word
'tây' which I find pretty darn offensive! It might give you a sense of what it is to
be a woman or black.

Unlike actual discrimination though, there are things you can do about this (for
my sake, please do, I live here). First off - either stay a bit longer, or don't come
at all. It sounds a bit harsh, but working nights in a factory in your hometown is
much better than letting down little kids all the time. Also, trading in the
elephant pants for some smart clothes might be a good idea. And tattoo
removal. Stitching up the guages in your ears. Undread what is dread. Actually,
scrap all that, I used to have dreads, I really miss them in an I-culturally-
appropriated-this kinda way. Anyway, I understand your right to individual
expression, I'm just saying that your employers may not and at least you can
change/hide all these things - which you can't with skin colour and gender.

Another thing is that immigrants often complain if they are lacking pre-requisites
to teaching (a certain passport, a degree in anything, a teaching certificate). The
argument being that a BA in Philosophy has nothing to do with teaching, or that
you know more about grammar because you are non-native and had to learn the
language, or you've been teaching for 10 years, why do you need a certificate?

However, this is not discrimination, it's perceived discrimination. This is because

you can get a degree and teaching certificate, very easily in fact, they sell them
on Khao San Road in Thailand. As far as being a non-native speaker is concerned
- I agree with you, English is a global language so a diversity of accents should
be welcomed, not ignored. The market doesn't seem to think this though, so it's
up to you to change the market. Instead of hating the player (schools, parents,
teachers, learners) hate the game! Find a school that hates the game too, and
be twice as good as any other teacher in the place to show them you're welcome
here and just as, if not more so, hireable as anyone else. The same logic can be
applied to other groupings.

Men/Women...and all those other genders I know nothing about

First off, men, you will find that there are lots of job ads on here that say
FEMALE TEACHERS ONLY. If you want to get into the specifics, these roles are
usually for younger children, as women are seen as better at nurturing children.
Women, you have the opposite problem, when you start teaching
adults/academic subjects you might notice that there aren't that many other

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women around you. Men are perceived as being more capable at teaching
'serious shit' which is completely untrue, we're incapable of everything, as you
all know. So male kindergarten teachers and female IELTS teachers, you know
what you got to do! Work twice as hard as the others or redefine your gender to
something else, there are like a million now! It's great. I am an antigirl.

Skin colour (it's not black and white - it's a spectrum)

As with many Asian societies skin colour is important in Vietnam, even among
Vietnamese people. Dark skin is associated with outside, manual, and poorly
paid labour whereas lighter skin is not - much in the same way as 19th Century
England. It is less a question of historical links to slavery, or European
expansionism - as it is in the West. Whatever the reason is there are shelves full
of whitening cosmetics and motorbikes full of women wrapped head to toe to
protect themselves from the sun. The point is, if there is discrimination of skin
colour within Vietnamese society, what are the outcomes for you?

Well, for certain groupings, it's not so bad at all. Filipinos are a good example. If
you've been to the Philippines you might know that overseas Filipino workers are
seen as national heroes. As they have left their homes in search of better
employment abroad, to send money back to the Philippines. In my country (the
UK) they mainly work as doctors and nurses, in Vietnam they work as teachers.
Filipinos have got themselves a good reputation for being teachers who; work
harder, stay around, and work for less that there are whole companies that have
been built off the backs of their efforts (looking at you GLN). In fact you now
have job ads saying 'looking for Filipino teachers', and are starting to get paid
higher and higher wages because of it, even more than me in some cases I
know!

Anyways, I don't see many people bitchin' about being Filipino that often - either
on Facebook, or in real life. They were willing to take lesser wages to provide a
viable alternative to 'white native teacher' and are thriving because of it. It's a
different thing when you get to teachers with Western ideals who are more
accustomed to equality (under the law, or certainly more equality than here) and
more importantly see themselves as individuals rather than a national/ethnic
grouping like Filipinos often do...well, I'm taking a guess at that, you could be
chatting shit in Tagalog behind my back (feel free to correct me in the comments
btw).

I think there is a real market out here for that sort of thing. You see small
language center classes only become economically viable when they have 6
students or more (when employing a white native speaker). Our main problem
(as white natives) is that we are expensive. Also, there are an increasing
number of schools, but the birth rate in Vietnam is decreasing, so classes are
becoming smaller (don't believe me? Whity here had to take a pay cut recently
because of this). This is particularly the case when you move out of the cities.

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Hanoi is rapidly expanding, but what about all those sparsely populated
schools/classrooms in the countryside that are left behind? Well, judging from
the desperate sound of the voices I hear calling me from the provinces - they
really need people!

If you're not working with private center start-ups in the city, or schools outside
of the main urban centers then at least do something! This can range anywhere
from individual effort to collective action. I mean I worked out a few ideas in the
few minutes it took me to write this and I'm the very definition of privilege, if
you've been a systematic victim of oppression your whole life then I'd like to
think you have a lot more ideas than me. If not then you start to sound like the
sense of entitlement you often rile against.

Still got that nagging sense of 'it's not fair! wahwahwah', huh? Yep, damn sure
ain't bro, and in the short time you're in Vietnam it may not change that
much...same amount of people bitching about race on Facebook as there was 4
years ago anyway. But let me share an example of a country that has effectively
pushed the white man out.

In South Korea, where I started teaching, being a 'native speaker' gets you
about the same wage as everyone else. Also, public schools no longer recruit
native speakers, because it's cheaper to hire bilingual Koreans who have studied
abroad for a long period of time (gyopos). They work for less, they work twice as
hard, and they're not a liberal arts graduate with a TEFL and no experience, just
looking for a place to get drunk.

Vietnam is getting richer, and a lot of Vietnamese students head overseas for
study/work. If they can shake their accents then this could be the development
model of Vietnam in the next 5 to 10 years. In the mean time we all have to
take a look at what we are doing here so that we don't render the employment
of future foreign teachers redundant; that goes for everyone, by the way
(although I'm particularly looking at you whitey, don't screw this up for me).

A Nutcase's Guide to Not Going Insane whilst Teaching in Vietnam

As someone who takes to social media in the wee small hours of the morning,
shouting at anyone who dare to listen, you might think I'm not the best person
to be talking about mental health...or teaching for that matter. Well, I am (clear
megalomaniac here, ooo and there are two voices, split-personality disorder -
he's got that too, yep).

Anyway, before we get underway I must do something first [shouts angrily at

cloud while shaking fist]...there we go, much better.

Now for the serious bit - mental health, it ain't no joke fools! I've shattered my
knee into 6 pieces, had my nose broken so badly it required 2 operations to get
fixed, and thrown my face into a road doing 60kph with no helmet. Yet all that

52
physical pain is a lot easier to deal with than teen angst, existential dread, and
clinical depression (ahhh, we were wrong, clinical depression...he fooled us with
the two-voice thing, doh! He's using humour as a way to deal with the
world...ha)

Although mental illness is common all around the globe and, in most places,
under treated and misunderstood, in Hanoi you have a very particular set of
problems you are going to face when it comes to your mental health when
teaching. I'm going to split these into external factors (i.e. things outside the
classroom) and internal factors (i.e. things inside the classroom) and then give
you some options if you are struggling with mental health issues at the end.

External Factors

Physical Health

'Healthy body, healthy mind' - there's some truth to that truism (why would they
call it a truism if there wasn't?). We all know the score by now - eat right, do
some exercise, get a good night's sleep, and don't put things that aren't so good
for you into your system too often! Easy? Nope.

Eating

Most Western people come from places where eating out is a luxury. The price of
a meal out is higher due to higher wages, rent, tax - all that stuff. So we cook at
home more often! Well I certainly did. Now I can get a plate of fried rice for a
dollar, yet if I try and make that fried rice myself it costs more because all the
ladies at the market see I'm white and charge me more.

Once you start making bank price doesn't even matter, as native speakers earn
10 to 20x more than your average worker depending on your workload. Also, no
ovens! That's like half the dishes I know how to cook - gone! You discover eat.vn
and bang! There goes your waistline. It's tasty, but knowing people who've
worked professionally in kitchens (there are a surprising number who have made
the career change to English teachers) it's tasty because it's loaded with all the
good stuff - salt, oil, sugar etc. A lot more than you'd put in at home.

About a year ago I weighed 7kg more than I do now, 6 months before I was the
same weight I am now - because I just got back from travelling around a bit.
Walking from place to place with a backpack, climbing up a volcano or two, some
snorkelling here or there - it didn't take much to keep the weight off. Which
brings me to exercise.

Exercise

In Hanoi there are few opportunities to get natural exercise. My commute here
involves me walking 2 meters out the door, getting on my bike, walking to the
lift and then another 10 steps to the classroom. In London, I'd have to walk 10-
15 minutes to get a bus to the tube station, then walk to the train for another 10

53
minutes. Get off the other end and do the same thing, I've walked at least 30
minutes to get to work.

Also, compared to most deindustrialised cities in the West, and certainly the
countryside (where I'm from) there is a lack of green space. In cities this means
parks, towpaths, riversides etc. to have a kick about, or walk your dog in on the
weekend. In the countryside - fields, walking trails and so on. It's hard to go for
a jog outside, even on the pavements, because they are just extensions of the
road for motorbikes or used for commercial enterprises.

With a lack of natural exercise, and exercise you can do for free outside your left
with one option - the paid option. The most obvious thing would be to join a
gym, and this worked for me, however a lot of people find the idea of lifting
things an arbitrary number of times a bit too much. There are lots of exercise
courses out there that might be more interesting to you; yoga, muay thai
boxing, public pools, personal trainers - you have options. Just do what the
doctors say - try and be out of breath for 30 minutes to an hour each day and
you'll be grand!

Sleep

Public school classes start a little earlier than school classes where natives come
from. Usually around 7.45. However you've got to factor in the time to get there,
so depending on how fast you can get out of the house you could be getting up
as early as 6am. Then there are evening classes, which generally run to about
9pm, again you have to factor in travel back to your house, eating, and
preparing to do it all again the next day - also you have to wind down when the
kids have wound you up all day, this takes a good few hours/beers. If you don't
have evening classes you can go to bed earlier, but I prefer to do what the locals
do. Most public schools have a 3 hour lunch break so a 20-30 minute power nap
gets you energised for your afternoon/evening lessons.

The Bad Things

In much the same vein as food, alcohol is cheaper here than back home,
especially compared to bars/clubs. You could go out every night of the week and
still have money for rent and bills - and many do! It's the mentality of the place,
a lot of people here are not career types, just having a year of fun before they
do some unpaid internship at some soulless social media marketing firm before
pressing on with those other milestones of life; wife, mortgage, kids blah blah
blah - it's enough to make a man drink! Which is what they do.

Also, English teaching is a great profession to have if you are an alcoholic or are
a social drinker - you can stay up all night, all you need to do is show up for your
evening lessons which start at like 5 or 6pm. You can live really well on 20 hours
a week, so you're not really feeling how much the booze is hurting you as your
boss drones on about sales targets and shit at 9am - like they would back home.

There are other bad things you can put into your body too! Cigarettes are a
dollar a pack. Go to my country and buy a pack of cigarettes, just don't expect

54
to be able to afford the flight home. Also, local cigarettes, they feel a lot worse
for you (anyone got anything scientific to back this up). You can smoke inside,
and it's culturally acceptable to do so. So you're probably having a few more
tabs than you'd estimate each day. Drugs aren't actually too much of an issue in
Vietnam, well, compared to the UK. There aren't that many about, and they are
expensive, also drugs vary in terms of harm to the user - most drugs found in
expat circles are 'party drugs' which are a lot less addictive than booze or
cigarettes. All the water is full of heavy metals though, so chances are you are
fucking up your insides a little every time you have a cup of coffee, or bowl of
noodle soup - just without the rush of IV heroin...actually Pho is pretty good,
better than a warm flow of smack up ya arm, even with the heavy metals it's
worth the risk.

Social Factors

So that's the physical side of things out of the way. Now to societal factors. First,
you are moving away from home so you are taken away from your regular
support network - family, or friends who've been with you through bad and
good, thousands of miles away. VOIP technology can mitigate this a bit, but a
Skype call to your mum is not a hug from your mum, when you lose your job,
fall off your motorbike, or are generally just having a shit time of things.

Now to your new friends! Looking around the bars and clubs of Tay Ho you're
dealing with a bunch of hedonistic white folk in their mid-20s. Anyone younger is
still working on that degree or travelling a bit, any older and they've gone home
or have settled down here - never to be seen again. To say that such people do
not lack wisdom is bullshit, it is often the very young which give me the most
profound impact into my existence due to their lack of worldly conditioning. Even
those 5 years younger can put a smile on my face, with the energy and
enthusiasm they bring to what they do, both things which I've lost of late.
However, the problem is that if you haven't been here for long then you do not
have the same connection, in terms of time or life experience, to these people.
This is why a lot of people are 'fair weather friends' - they like you, they're good
to be around, but when you start smearing your shit all over your butt-ass-
naked body in the middle of To Ngoc Van early on a Tuesday morning - they ain't
gonna help ya.

I've been lucky enough to have 3 friends live in Hanoi who I've known since I
was at university (10 years ago) who are around when shit hits the fan...or gets
smeared over my body, which ever comes first. Also, it's a good litmus test when
something bad happens. See who gets in touch with you over Facebook, or visits
you in the hospital, those are your real friends. If you haven't had the same luck
as me forge new connections, I know it can be a drag getting past the whole
'small talk' phase but the expat slums of Hanoi are small places - you'll see the
same faces again, and again, and before long you'll find people to confide in
when you start seeing faces in the trees and stuff.

Other than that external factors can vary in terms of how much they affect each
person. For example, I'm from the countryside, middle of nowhere, I have to
walk 2 miles to get a pint of milk - that sort of thing. I miss the stars, and the

55
feeling of total silence. However, I'm also partially deaf in one ear so when the
chickens and angle grinders get to work at 6am I just roll over onto my good
ear. This sends others up the wall. Just as there are many external stress
factors, there are many types of mental illness. There is no right way to treat
them all, in fact there are multiple ways to treat each different type - and even
those are disputed. This list is by no means definitive but looking after your
physical health and having a good support network around you are some of the
most basic things you can do if you have a mental illness, or want to avoid one.

Internal Factors

Added to the stresses and strains of the outside world comes a whole different
type of hell - the interior of a classroom! And you thought driving through Cau
Giay at 6.30am was bad, boy are you in for a surprise!

Let's start with the kids first, as they are the most likely to give you a nervous
breakdown. 7 year olds have yet to grasp the sit down, shut up, and open your
book idea yet - they're youthful, eager for change, they're like 'fuck the system
man!' but infinitely better at it than their conditioned teenage brethren. The
number one problem teachers face in their classroom is classroom management.
A bad class can break you, a good one can send you home feeling like a hero.
Here's some simple ways to control the class.

1) Don't control the class, let the TA do it for you. You don't speak the language
and, if you're new to the game, the TA has been doing it longer than you. So,
first lesson, walk up to them and say 'Your job is to control the kids, I will do
everything else' and watch them go. Some are better than others (e.g. some TAs
are your Vietnamese co-teachers who've been doing this for years, some TAs are
final year English graduates who have never worked with kids) and some have
funky methods (stress positions, corporal punishment, telling kids they won't
love them any more if they are not quiet - it's all par for the course here) but, in
general, they do a wonderful job and are worth much more than they are being
paid.

2) Oh shit no TA! TA just plays on phone at back of class! What do I do? What do
I do? Unfortunately each kid is a different beast, and methods that work on one
beast on one day may not work on the same beast the next day. It took me 2
years before I had enough ideas about classroom management in my head to
manage a class without a TA with little to no classroom management issues.
Some common tactics I use include; arranging seats into a horseshoe shape
(where possible) so you can get to any one student quickly and use your
physicality to get them to fall in line, taking shoes off and sitting young learners
on the floor so that they are not uncomfortable on chairs designed for adults,
altering my voice in terms of volume and tone so, even though they have no
idea what I am saying, they understand the emotion I am conveying and
designing/finding games kids actually want to play rather than following some
boring ass syllabus designed by someone who has never been in an actual
classroom.

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Right! There's some ideas on how to keep the kids in line, now to your
employers - an equally disorganised bunch of hooligans, to be sure.

Flexibility vs. Organisation

The best way I can explain the work ethic when teaching in Vietnam is 'be
flexible', this is because everywhere you work will screw things up. Organise a
lesson on one thing, and they'll say they learnt that with X teacher last week -
you're doing the next lesson, maybe your co-worker didn't show due to their
savage hangover, your kindy class gets swapped with an advanced teenage class
which you have no experience with - because they're more likely to notice that a
native speaker was not present than a 4 year old.

This is not to say you shouldn't be organised as well! It just means you need
flexible activities (which I’ve handily given you a bunch to work with). Anyway,
those with anger/anxiety issues are just going to have to adjust to this fact. You
will be left in the shit, but you can develop tools to deal with these situations.

More Employer Nonsense

Coupled with the shit you take in the classroom, you're gonna get some from the
people hiring you too. It depends from company to company but things like;
getting paid late, getting paid in a dollar to VND rate that is most definitely not
the dollar to VND rate, not being informed about cancelled classes or holidays,
zero effort made to address any type of classroom issue (autistic children,
missing materials, broken A/C...you name it)...I could go on. The point is that
they really grind on you. In public schools you often only meet these people
once a month on pay day, and that's when the meltdown occurs. Again, anger
management issue types, take note. I've never been an angry sort but it's
unwise to get angry in any Asian country, you're losing face, and it is your lack
of self control rather than the incompetence of the people you are working for
that is to blame (in the eyes of the Vietnamese receptionist you are shouting
at...who has nothing to do with that issue anyway). So yeah do what you got to
do before pay day comes; smoke a bowl, do some yoga, mindfulness - all that
crap.

THE MONOTONY OF IT ALL!

Some of you haven't realised this yet, but what we're doing here on Earth is
exchanging pieces of paper over and over until we die. If this concept isn't
ludicrous enough then to get that paper most of us need to repeat the same
thing over and over and over until we're too old to enjoy any pieces of paper we
have left. And you wonder why I have clinical depression.

Anyway, that was undiagnosed, and perfectly manageable with a healthy dose of
taking the piss out of everything, and nightly consumption of alcohol but
teaching - that pushed me over the edge man.

In my early teaching days (I can't believe I did this) I'd have the same
games/activities which I could apply to every lesson (maybe 2-3 hours worth)

57
and run them on a loop. So say I have 20 hours, I may have repeated the same
activitiy 10 times a week, week in, week out for a couple of years. I see where
my enthusiasm went now, fuck it!

Necessity is the mother of invention though, after a while I scoured the internet
and used my own brain to create a couple of hundred activities I can do by
heart, that apply to anything. I do repeat myself, but more like every 3 months
if I have a 2 hour class with 2 classes per week. So that's 48 hours of flexible
activities commited to memory.

Yet still the job is monotonous! Let's take a full elementary public school load.
That's 35 classes, 35-45 minutes each, 7 classes a day, 5 days a week. You have
5 grades. Often what you do is design a plan that fits all the classes because it is
more efficient, it's easier to keep a tab on what activities you have used, and
you don't burn through all your activities so quickly. Some sick bastards teach
the same grade all the time as well, imagine singing the "Hello Song' 35 times in
a week, it repeats itself in the song by the way, and you might repeat it 3 times
per class for; listening, actions and singing - madness.

Anyway, how to combat this. One method would be to rotate through your
activities. Can be troublesome though as some activities do not fit the material
or grade - also you might find that when you loop you're in a class that you did
the same activity with last week! Another method would be to plan more and
keep meticulous notes of what activity you did with what class then go back over
these notes when planning future lessons - sounds like a ball ache to me.

This is what led me to have a prozac prescription by the way, so not quite sure
of how to deal with this myself. When talking about flexible gaming we came
across the idea of variations within a game. So, for example, you have a
stickyball target game. Mix it up - one class they play facing the board, the other
class they must throw backwards, the next class spin the kid round real fast
before they throw - just joke about, it's what I do, and have done, for the past
10 years for undiagnosed clinical depression - I ain't exactly successful, but I'm
functional.

OK, so there are some internal and external factors that could affect your mental
well-being and a few tips on how to mitigate against these factors. But what if it
does all go south? Where do you turn to? You walk in to your office and your
manager says 'why don't you smile more?' or a kid at your school says 'Are you
sad?'. Your Vietnamese girlfriend is not entirely sure why it took you 2 days to
answer her messages, nor the need to turn off all the lights when you enter the
room - so you're kinda thinking that nothing or no one can help. That is the very
nature of mental illness, a thought process (or chemical imbalance) in your brain
that makes you feel the way ya do.

Luckily there are people who are out there that understand better than others.
Here's how to track them down. You might want to seek out a medical
professional - this is a good move, but unfortunately it's hard in a country where
the majority language is not your own. There are a few psychiatrists about. This
is going to get real personal now, but my issues started with my now ex-

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girlfriend discovering me completely off my face. Vietnamese men pound the rice
wine, but they don't fuck themselves up in quite the same way as a man who
has been singing 'The Wheels on the Bus' on repeat all day. Anyway, she was like
'Get some help, or we're through' - good girl, wish she was still with me. So I
went to the doctor primarily to talk about alcohol abuse. He seemed more
concerned that I had depression, ran a few verbal tests, and that was it 3
months worth of Prozac. However, he also gave me a drug designed for people
coming off alcohol HARD I mean delerium tremens, whole body shaking, hard. I
drink, but I ain't that bad. The 2nd time I went back to him I'd run out of Prozac
and told him that I'd thought about killing myself in the past few weeks. Gives
me a months worth of Xanex and another prozac prescription - what the fuck is
that? I eat all them and, if I don't die, I'll pickle my insides.

The thing is that there is a pharmacy attached to all expat hospitals. They
charge more for medication than regular pharmacists, I know this because I
know where to buy Xanex (don't judge me, nibba gotta sleep sometime) and I
know it's cheaper than what they are charging. Also, no cognitive therapy or any
other type of therapy is offered. The idea is they get you in for consultations, fill
out a script every few months, and the money keeps coming in.

So, ditched that psychiatrist and went down to the guys at Family Medical. Had a
general consultation where the practitioner told me what the other doctor did
was not only dangerous, but illegal in Vietnam. He also told me that for the
psychiatrist there was not an expert in the area, and could not help...at least he
was honest.

At this point I kinda gave up on the medical route. However, due to googling 'am
I depressed?' a little too much Facebook targets me with ads for Skype
councillors. Ain't the internet a beautiful thing. If you've got something that is
not your run of the mill psychiatric disorder then you're better off having a one-
on-one session with someone who specialises in that online as they don't exist in
Hanoi.

Also, just the fact that someone made an intervention, got me to a doctor, and
got a diagnosis was a wonderful thing. On average it takes a person with a
mental illness 10 years to get diagnosed. Instead of thinking that I thought
differently than everyone else whilst mitigating the pain by isolating myself and
drinking myself to death I knew there was a chemical imbalance in my brain.
This alone was enough to empower me to lay off the spirits, drop my portion
sizes, work out regularly, talk to other people about my problems and meet
other people with similar problems to discuss tactics.

Wow! That all got a bit intense there huh? I should make a joke to lighten the
mood a little (yet by announcing you are making a joke it will not be
funny...great...two voices again, crackpot)

So! A Zen practitioner goes to the temple with a present, for it is his master's
birthday. He duly gives the present to the Zen master but when he opens, the
box - it's empty. At this point the Zen master says...

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"Ah! Exactly what I've always wanted - nothing!"

[crickets]

Lamas literally piss themselves laughing when I tell that one. I'm wasted on you
lot. Wasted.

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