Teaching English - Ken Treanor

Extract from interview with Helen Frizzell, 10-11 June 2008

Reproduced with permission of Ken Treanor

Transcript:

Mr Giau said that some of his staff wanted to improve their English. So I just used to give them a half hour after work - they'd stay behind, about twenty of them.

How often did you do this?

When we got time. They'd usually come to us, come to me and say; ‘we've got a half hour tonight or could you come tonight.'

So was this once a week?

Oh two or three times a week.

And for the whole time you were there?

Most of the time yes. There was many – we just concentrated on a subject and went onto all the English words surrounding the subject.

So I notice here [picture] you've got, what is it - airport, pilot, captain - so you've obviously something to do with planes?

Yes. One of the Vietnamese would translate it into Vietnam – the Vietnam language – from the English so they understood what I was talking about. So they compared their words with our words.