Luckily for me, the university where I teach has frequent breaks, which has allowed me to travel a lot.  The longest break of the year is a 2-week break for the lunar new year (Tet in Vietnam). I have been wanting to spend time in Japan and decided that this 2-week period would allow me my best opportunity to see the country.  At the same time, I was nervous because this time of year is the peak of winter. Having travelled in other Asian areas during the colder months, I know that heating and insulation can be irregular. I was worried about making a winter trip from southern Vietnam ..read more

In my hometown, we have 4 seasons.  Winter is January to April and we often have cold weather in November and December.  The temperature is usually below zero during this time. It’s often between zero and -20, which is comfortable with good winter clothes.  Sometimes, it’s very cold, -40 degrees. Everyone wants to stay inside at that time. There isn’t much sunlight in the winter. It’s dark between 4:30 pm and 9 am.  A lot of people stay at home or take vacations in warm, countries. However, you can enjoy a lot of fun activities in the winter snow and on the ice: skiing, sno ..read more

Lucky for me, I have a break in my teaching schedule every 11 weeks.  Not only that, but flights and accommodations are very reasonably-priced if I book them well in advance.  I’ve wanted to visit Borneo ever since I learned that it is one of the only places in the world where orangutans and proboscis monkeys live in the wild.  During my visit, I learned that proboscis monkeys have never survived in captivity, so Borneo is the only place in the world to see them!  One of my friends has visited Kuching many times and has good relationships with many people there. She helped ..read more

The biggest holiday of the year in Vietnam is Tet, the Lunar New Year, which usually takes place in February, and when most people have a 4-day vacation.  The second time of the year when most people have a little bit of time off is at the end of April and the beginning of May.  On April 25, Hung Kings Day is held to commemorate the death anniversary of the first king of a united Vietnam.  April 30 commemorates the reunification of Vietnam after the American War and the liberation from the Americans.  Finally, May 1 is International Labour Day.  All of these holid ..read more

Because the university where I teach has semester breaks every 11 weeks, I’ve been able to do a lot of travelling over the last 8 months. For April, I debated between Japan and Korea but decided that I really wanted to explore the country where so many of my students and coworkers, friends, and family have lived. A special bonus was that my time off would coincide with the cherry blossom season in Korea. First, I visited Seoul for 3 nights and 2 days, staying at G Guesthouse in Itaewon. When I arrived, I was very happy to learn that this is an extremely international neighbourhood. I had the c ..read more

One of the good things and bad things about teaching ESL is that you get all of the breaks that your students get.  Nobody goes to work or school during the Lunar New Year in Việt Nam so it’s a great time of year for me to travel.  Flights and accommodations can be hard to get, so I started booking my trip back in November!  Luckily, I had almost all of my accommodation and transportation reservations made before I travelled and I had already paid for them. I was very worried that the Saturday before Tết would be the busiest day of the year on the roads and on the airport.  ..read more

Many English teaching experts say that Vietnamese English students will have more pronunciation problems than speakers of almost any other language.  When I visit medical offices, I know that the staff have studied English for a very long time.  Nevertheless, the nurse at FV Hospital asked me several times if I had a pen or a horse.  I had no idea why she would be asking for such strange items!  Finally, she pointed at the word “pain”.  She wanted to know if I had any pain, or if I hurt.  Many students understand a large vocabulary but have difficulty saying simpl ..read more

It’s very interesting to hear about this project in Vietnam that was created in order to protect the environment, especially because private businesses helped to support this project.   ..read more

Every day, someone from somewhere in the world looks at my post about questions and answers about a vacation (simple past).  That helps me to understand that this is a very important and interesting subject for many people.  One of the teachers at my university helped my students with this task.  They watched her videos from her trip and prepared questions.  She came to class and told us more about her 3-week trip to Indonesia.  The students asked their excellent questions.  After she talked to us, they wrote what they remembered from her stories about the trip.&n ..read more

Over the last 9 years, I’ve spent a lot of time helping people to prepare for important language proficiency tests.  Many of those people have taken the same test, again and again, hoping to achieve a different result.  However, they keep finding that their score isn’t high enough, in at least one area.  One reason for this can be because they have not had an expert help them out with their test preparation.  Another common reason is that of anxiety. One resource that I recommend for people who have really struggled is Glenn Harrold’s hypnosis MP3. You can purchase it and ..read more