Experience this unique cultural exchange opportunity in Vietnam while teaching English or French

Location: Hai Phong, Vietnam

We are a newly-established language center based in Haiphong. We provide English and French classes at very reasonable prices to people that cannot afford to study at the big language centers of the city. We give classes for all kind of people : university students, workers and children of different ages. Every Saturday we hold a charity class (completely free) at a local pagoda, we teach English to poor children that come from the countryside.

The language center where the classes are held is also the place where we live with the volunteers. Some local volunteers come everyday to the center, cook for everybody and may assist the international volunteers during their classes if they feel they could use some support.

Please note that in order to participate in our project, volunteers must stay in Haiphong for a minimum of four weeks, speak fluent English or French, and have some kind of experience in teaching.

We provide English and French classes. We have different levels of classes ranging from complete beginners to advanced students. Basically the volunteers will help to improve the students' pronunciation, listening and speaking skills; and organize games and diverse activities. All of this depending on the level of the students. So an important quality that you will need here is flexibility, since you will have to teach for different levels and different ages. We keep the classes small (maximum 12 students) so the students can get involved and participate as much as possible.

There are three places where you could teach : the language center which is also the house where we live with the volunteers, the pagoda where we give one charity class every week, and the new building where we plan to open new classes (this is a new part of the project, a lot has to be done yet).

We feel that the presence of international volunteers will also be beneficial to the improvement of the communication skill of our staff (the local volunteers that will cook for you, help you with everything you need, take you to the good spots of the city and organize whole trips to make you discover the surroundings of Haiphong)

All the volunteers live with us in our apartment in Haiphong, not too far from the city center. We have three bedrooms that can accommodate a maximum of twelve volunteers, a communal area and two bathrooms. The bathroom has western toilets and an electric heater for hot showers. Bedding is provided, however we recommended that volunteers bring a sleeping bag for the winter months in Haiphong, and perhaps a mosquito net if they want to travel in the countryside on weekends.

Food is included free of charge. The meals are usually Vietnamese and include a wide variety of rice, noodles, tofu, and soup dishes with plenty of vegetables and fresh herbs. We eat lunch and dinner together, you can expect big, tasty meals when you are volunteering with us! For breakfast, well, it all depends at what time you get up, but usually everybody prepare their own breakfast since the volunteers get up at very different times. If you have any special dietary requests, please let us know when you apply for the program, we are used to host vegetarians so we can adapt the meals according to your eating habits.

There are many amazing sites surrounding Haiphong. We have no classes on Sundays, so we regularly organize trips out to the countryside or to some famous touristic spots. You can of course organize your own trips if you like, during Sundays and the other free days that you may have (depending on the amount of teaching). We will be glad to give you some tips and orientation. The main sites to visit are :

- The island of Cat Ba, which is amazing and very easy to access from Haiphong.
- Ha Long Bay, the most famous touristic place in Vietnam.
- Ninh Binh, not far from here, where you can travel by boat along the river, explore different caves and visit the biggest pagoda in Vietnam.
- Sapa : if you feel like going to the mountain, meet people from ethnic minorities and contemplate amazing sights of paddy-fields, this is the place to go.
- Do Son beach, very close, where we go quite often to relax and have barbecue parties
- Yen tu pagoda : a very famous pagoda in Vietnam, built on the top of a mountain, you'll have to climb thousands of steps but you will enjoy some wonderful sights when at the top.

One last thing : our language center is located near the bus station and the airport, so wherever you arrive we can pick you up and drive you (by motorbike of course) to the apartment.

Experience this unique cultural exchange opportunity in Vietnam while teaching English or French