In this ongoing case study I review lessons I volunteer tutor in Beginner English for an Vietnamese elderly woman who has lived in Melbourne for 18 months without knowing how to say more than hello, good bye and thank you. In the first lesson, we looked at how to complete a Needs Analysis to ascertain what this student knows already and what she needs more help with.

One of the things Binh was able to do was write cursively and yet when she wrote English, even though the alphabet is the same in Vietnamese, she copied the flashcards in awkward capitalised font. I decided to make new simple flashcards that were much smaller and easier to use when spelling words, but also had both upper & lower case letters. You can download the From Whoa to Go Plain Alphabet cards or easily make your own.

Lesson 2 and Lesson 3 consisted of two parts:

Revision of the Alphabet and Numbers (1-10)

I could see that Binh had been practicing over the two weeks. In Lesson 2, I introduced the letters and numbers individually and she wrote them in her notebook with the Vietnamese pronunciation next to it. I concentrated heavily on her weak pronunciation points, particularly the th digraph, and sounds like f, x, s and r, where she needed to concentrate on producing the correct sound. Both Binh & I found making the r sound particularly difficult but by the end of the third lesson she was hearing and producing the sound occasionally; in time, with repetition, she will gain the skill.

Activities that I did with Binh included some standard recognition exercises, like read and repeat and identifying the letter from my pronunciation and having her repeat it once she found the correct letter. This proved successful but exhausting because there were clearly some letters she seemed unaccustomed to seeing, perhaps they’re not used in Vietnamese – j, y, f, w.

Introduction of the Introduction

After the needs analysis identified that I needed an English – Vietnamese resource I went to my local library and found a translation dictionary with common travel orientated dialogue. I copied this for my reference to introduce new phrases to Binh in Lesson 2 and it has proven very successful.

The first dialogue I taught was, “Hello, my name is Caz.”

To do this I first role played hello by waving and saying hello, or putting my hand out in the internationally accepted (albeit western) way of shaking hands with an introduction. I knew from the Needs Analysis and the initial AMES review that Binh already knew what this meant but I needed to provide a base from which to build the next concept on to. From there I put my hand on my chest and said, “my name is Caz.” Binh understood the premise of the acting but didn’t fully comprehended. I then showed her the dialogue from the photocopied dictionary and she smiled, repeated the phrase in Vietnamese, smiled and laughed and we tried again, this time with her saying hello back, and following with, ‘my name is Binh.’

After a few repetitions it was time to introduce the first question structure, ‘what’s your name?’

I repeated the acting of ‘hello, my name is Caz’ and when she began to repeat me I put my hand up to indicate stop. I also put my finger to my lips and then to my ear to indicate I wanted her to listen. This time I said the full phrase, “Hello, my name is Caz. What’s your name?” And then I repeated, ‘what’s your name’ very slowly so she could hear it clearly, and pointed towards her. I asked her to repeat it after me and then showed her the translation.

The reaction was the same. It was clear she needed translation to fully comprehend.

We continued the same style to introduce the dialogue so she could answer the question. I can’t remember how exactly I got her to know when to answer the question, ‘what’s your name?’ but it happened naturally after she understood the meaning. We practiced acting this introduction a few times before I introduced the next phrase and it’s corresponding response, “It’s nice to meet you” and “It’s nice to meet you too.”

Again we repeated this a few times before I then wrote the phrase in her book for her to write the translation to it.

I’ve thought about the advantages & disadvantages for Binh to have her own copy of the dictionary’s dialogue and have decided that it is best to progress slowly ensuring that topics are covered at an even pace.  I’m still reluctant to rely too heavily on translation, even though, for Binh, it clearly has its benefits. I feel if she took the full six pages of dialogue it would overwhelm her in that it would push her too fast too soon and open up an opportunity to miss the finer nuances of learning English from scratch.

Conclusion

After these two lessons it was clear that I have spent too long on certain exercises for the pronunciation of the alphabet and numbers. While they have been beneficial, they’ve also been exhausting for Binh.

While all activities were spaced over the two weeks, I found that Lesson 3 spent an unnecessarily long time doing this revision, and not enough time on conversation dialogue I had hoped to achieve. The lesson also went on too long and inadvertently caused the lesson to go over time, which neither she nor I were terribly impressed about.

Now that Binh has a solid foundation in recognising letters, it’s time to increase her vocabulary for everyday items. From the library I’ve again found resources to help me. The Vietnamese language section has children’s books that show common foods and fruits & vegetables in English & Vietnamese so I intend to copy these small books and make flashcards for her to use. Once Binh has a grasp on the vocabulary I will introduce sentences around these items and build her comprehension.

This will take me over several weeks, and with Christmas and New Year’s in the not too distant future, I’ll update after a few more lessons.

Have a happy & safe holiday everyone!