It must be official, my name is on the door.

My name is on the door of the ICT lab at An Phu Campus, British International School, Vietnam. I'm officially an ICT specialist teacher. I have 2 Vietnamese trainee teachers working with me in my team, titled teacher assistants. They have passed the necessary qualifications to begin teacher training. They begin their training shadowing me as well as well as teaching ICT / Vietnamese culture in the reception classes, the equivalent of kindergarten. They continue with me next year as well as studying for PGCE, post graduate certificate in education. At the end of the two year period then British International School will employ them in our newly opened British Vietnam International School in Ho Chi Minh City.
Meet Tue (Thay) and Uyen (Win) laid back and relaxing at our team meeting this morning. At the moment we are developing lesson plans for the respective classes. I will then model and teach the classes, while they watch, help and participate. As time moves along they take more and more ownership and responsibility. Part of their role as assistants is to support me in my role. They tend to do the photocopying and the mundane tasks like organising and providing containers with coloured pencils so the wee sweethearts can do their storyboarding, however I have written in tasks for them to take responsibility for in the planning of the unit…… Creating a class movie using Year 1 self drawn masterpieces in Kid Pix. Having an internship of 2 years I believe is quite a sensible programme. The school gets to support the assistants study, and also over the 2 years to access their teaching style and ability. For both Tue and Win they actually get to participate fully in school life, not just blocks of teaching practice. They work the same hours, receive a wage, and get to shadow a teacher gradually taking ownership.

Tue and Win are both really nice people who speak very good English and both have wicked senses of humour. Tue does a lot of cooking and watches cooking programmes as one way to improve his skill on the culinary front but also his English. He came along with 2 words the other day he did not know the meaning off. Plate up and pantry. Definitely culinary related!