Testimonials from Our Teachers

John Davin, a native of Rockland County, New York, earned a degree in English from Hunter College and a master’s in adolescent education from Long Island University. Before launching his career as a teacher in the U.S., he decided to expand his horizons by teaching in Vietnam for a year. After a few months at Da Lat University, in the Central Highlands, he had these thoughts on his experience: “I imagine that we are building bridges here. I occasionally feel that, because of the lack of Americans here, we are small ambassadors for our nation. I imagine that we are dispelling some negative stereotypes about Americans, and also reinforcing some positive ones. My students all seem to believe that we are free, funny, friendly, and large. I have a tough time telling them what the United States is like, because how can I describe a country as vast and diverse? This lack of a unifying identity is one of the essential paradoxes of being an American."

“Surprisingly one of the more unusual things for me to make the adjustment to is the instant novelty and popularity that comes with having this identity. My students are fascinated by me. I try to reinforce this interest in a positive manner and teach the students more than just the English language, but to also offer them an avenue to explore a life they themselves may never know. This is the responsibility of the foreigner as an educator. In this regard the learning experience here is twofold, I learn from them as they are learning from me, and this simple exchange is at the heart of travel.”

John Davin is the 2010 winner of the Nancy O’Keefe Bolick Memorial Scholarship.

Read John's blog on his experiences teaching in Vietnam.

John Davin’s experiences at Da Lat University

Joan Easton came to Vietnam after many years of teaching English and other subjects at the college level, both in the U.S. and abroad.  In the fall of 2009 she assumed a position at An Giang University, in the Mekong Delta.  There her duties include courses in speaking and listening skills for second-year students as well as teaching English literature to seniors.  She also helps mid-career Vietnamese professionals improve their English so that they can qualify for scholarships to study abroad.  She plans to remain in Vietnam for a second year of teaching. 

Joan with a group of her mid-career professional students at An Giang University

Joan's class at An Giang University in action

Shannon Corrigan, who comes from Hicksville, NY, graduated from SUNY New Paltz in 2008 with a degree in painting and a desire to see more of the world and find out who she really was. ‘I came to Vietnam to see how people survive when all of the comforts of life are not handed to them. I wanted to become a teacher because I love making people aware of their own potential. My journey in Vietnam in now only starting to begin. I foresee the road becoming more difficult before the end. But I feel my illumination growing. It's growing from the inside.

Shannon teaching an evening class for professors at Hanoi’s Water Resources University

Samantha Thornley was the 2009 winner of the Nancy O’Keefe Bolick Memorial Scholarship.  In her essay on teaching and living in Vietnam, she wrote: Since I’ve been in Can Tho, I have made relationships with people that I never would have met had we been in America, and I have experienced things people only dream about. Being here has opened doors for me I did not even know were closed. I’m now considering graduate school in the future as a serious possibility. Not only did I never think this was possible, it never even occurred to me as an option. In running away from having to decide the rest of my life, I ended up finding a path that I did not even know existed.

Samantha Thornley tells more what it’s really been like to teach in the Mekong Delta. Click here to hear her on YouTube.

Click here to read Samantha’s Vietnam blog.

Happy Halloween! Below Kristen Arbolino and her class at the Water Resources University are getting into the mood.  Kristen, a graduate of SUNY New Paltz, returned to Vietnam in 2008for a second year of teaching after finishing up at Can Tho University the previous spring.

A visit to an English literature class at the Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Click here for the YouTube video.

Kristi Post, an inveterate traveler, taught at Can Tho in 2007-08. She was the 2008 winner of the Nancy O’Keefe Bolick Scholarship. She graduated from Connecticut College in May 2007, having majored in anthropology.  Before coming to Vietnam she had lived andstudied in Kenya (where, among other things, she hunted for porcupines and tasted fish heads!) and Costa Rica and traveled in Europe and Tanzania – all during her junior year in college.  She became interested in teaching in Vietnam after listening to stories about the country from the daughter of a family friend in Vermont. In addition to keeping up with her classes, Kristi does volunteer work on an anthropological research project outside Can Tho and at a nearby pagoda. 

I wanted the opportunity to do something unique after college.  When I heard of Teachers for Vietnam I jumped at the chance to apply.  Because of the director’s enthusiasm and the organization’s willingness to help out financially, I felt that they were very dedicated to this program, and I wanted to be part of something that offered so much support.

After being here a few months, I am absolutely positive that I made the right decision.  The people of Vietnam are some of the friendliest I have ever met, and teaching has allowed me to become deeply involved in the culture.  Just visiting would never compare to living here and being part of the Vietnamese people’s daily lives.  I also love having the opportunity to shape my students’ lives, as they shape mine!  They have allowed me to strengthen my cultural sensitivity and knowledge of the world by opening up so freely to me.  Vietnam is a wonderful place, and teaching here is by far one of the greatest experiences I have ever had.

-- Kristi Post

Emily Mahoney, another Conn College grad, also taught at Can Tho in 2007.  This experience helped her to satisfy a lifelong curiosity about other cultures around the world.  Before coming to Vietnam, she was eager to be “shaken up and changed by a lifestyle that I know will be very different” from what she had known before. Previously Emily had spent a semester in France, working for an organization that fights racial discrimination.  Aside from experiencing other cultures, her big passion is dance, and at Can Tho Emily has pursued this by organizing hip hop groups among her students.

All of my students are in their twenties; hence there is a sense of camaraderie among us, as I try repeatedly to help them in interesting ways to pronounce th (I make them hold their tongue through their mouths and shout: “‘parents’ not ‘farents’!!!”)  I have been out with these students on several excursions.  They have taken me to a tourist area for Vietnamese where I fell into the river with one of them while boating, and I have had them over to my house for Halloween and introduced them to the ways of partying in the United States -- an education, I believe, that is invaluable.  I have gotten to know these students as best I can without us even really speaking to each other, but I truly can call them my friends.  This means a lot to me, because the language barrier does not prevent us from liking each other and getting along.  My relationship with these students shows that humor and mutual appreciation of others surpass the need for language.

-- Emily Mahoney

Emily teaching, Can Tho

Sarah McGowan first came to Vietnam during the fall of her junior year at William Smith College, in upstate New York.  During that semester in Hanoi, she absorbed enough Vietnamese to make herself understood and also learned about the history and culture of Vietnam.  But, mostly, she fell in love with the people and resolved to come back on her own and get to know them better.  The teaching post at Tra Vinh suited her perfectly.  Tra Vinh is a small, quiet city in the Delta – a place with few if any foreign tourists or people who speak English.  She found the challenge of being on her own invigorating: she was no longer a tourist, but had developed a sense of belonging in Vietnam – a place she now considers her second home.

On a cloudy day, with rain threatening, I can listen to my student more than I do in the classroom. I see the student struggling with what words to express herself with in English, but she is doing better than if we were in a classroom with all of her classmates watching. She is on the brink of tears, but she manages to sputter out her secret. We sit for a long time and look out on the river. I then decide that we should go back to beat the rain but right as we are starting, the rain begins anyway. She is sitting on the back of my bicycle, shielding my eyes so I can see but occasionally covering them as a joke.

The tears are now gone from her eyes, and she is laughing hysterically. She had mentioned to me earlier that she is a bad student and that English is not her passion. Yet, for the entire day, she was speaking English. I was helping her with vocabulary and pronunciation, and she was learning! Would I dare to call this work? No, but I realized that there is a fine line between teacher and friend, and it is crossed a lot. I told my student this. “Oh Sarah, the Vietnamese have a saying for this!” What don’t the Vietnamese have a saying for? I ask myself. I realized that when I am here, I never stop teaching and that is what I love. There is no lesson plan that could even come close to teaching a student what she had accomplished on that day. This is what it means to be a teacher in Vietnam.

-- Sarah McGowan

Sarah and some of her students