Came as a guest and became part of the team – my time at the VEDI
Excited to be part of the project “Teaching English in Laos“, I arrived in Vientiane on 9 February 2020. It was my first time in an Asian country, so the first time in Laos. Before I left for Laos, I had asked some previous volunteers what it would be like to live in Laos and what life at schools was like. They all gave the same answer, always with a big smile: “People are extremely friendly, but it is difficult to believe how friendly until you have experienced it yourself, so go find out!”
So I did not really have an idea of what to expect, which was good because this way I was open for anything that might happen – I thought. But I was not, as you will read in this post.
Welcome to the VEDI
The first day at the VEDI was full of hearty welcomes already. We were invited for coffee in the morning, had lunch with colleagues, and were picked up for dinner. Already we had learnt that food, music, being together with people, and Beer Lao is important for a good dinner. It was great that we were invited to go out for dinner so often by our colleagues. This gave us a great opportunity to experience Lao culture and to get to know people we worked with so much better.
Meeting with Dr Kermanie
Dinner with colleagues at the VEDI
Being an “associate”, a person who works at the VEDI, means more than just working together. Teachers meet during the week after classes to do sports together on some days. This is actually more than just doing sports together with people you work with – rather an activity for “family” cohesion. There were also always young children of VEDI teachers present.
At the VEDI you can play volleyball, football, and boccia (pétanque). Celine, Chelsea and I took part in some of the boccia games. What great fun! The teams cheered up their players, which motivated us even more to give the best for our team.
Sport after school
The two boccia teams
In our first week, a colleague of ours, Ms Bounyet, invited family, friends, and all VEDI colleagues to celebrate her Master’s degree. It was a matter of course that we volunteers were invited, too, even though I had not met her before the celebration.
Arriving at the party felt as if we had been part of the group for a long time already. We had a nice Lao lunch together with the VEDI staff. It was good to get some advice about which dishes we should eat together. Some things were unknown to us volunteers. The most important information always was whether the food was “spicy”, “a little bit spicy” or “good for Europeans”. We often made jokes with the colleagues about how challenging Lao food can be when you are not used to spicy food.
Adventures in our free time
Baci in Thalat
Looking at it from a German perspective, Lao people seem to be very spontaneous, which can be great because you can end up in situations you never expected to be in. One wonderful example of this was the invitation from Mr Khounmany to visit him and his family near Thalat.
We went up there with hired motorbikes to see Nam Ngum Lake, which is a huge barrier lake that provides Vientiane City and Province with electricity. Together with Mr Khounmany and his little daughter, all volunteers from the LGTC and the VEDI went on a boat on the lake to enjoy the peace and quiet of nature. Our captain wanted to please us with loud western music, which seems to be normal in Laos. Therefore he was surprised when we asked him to please turn off the music so that we could enjoy the hour on the boat just looking around and having a swim in the cool water.
After the trip on the boat Mr Khounmany invited us to his house and for dinner. What we did not know at that time was that his brother-in-law was going to have his Baci that night. A Baci is a traditional spiritual Lao ceremony which is held to give people good blessings for special situations in life, like travelling, a wedding, or – as on that day – for an engagement.
We were honoured to be part of such a special event. A special decoration made with banana leaves and orange flowers is used to mark a centre. On top of this decoration white threads were fixated, which were held by the family and the guests to have a connection. If there are not enough threads you touch a person who holds one of the threads so that everybody is connected. A monk or the eldest of the family says prayers and gives the blessing.
At first we felt a little bit uncomfortable because we were not prepared for the event. We had no presents and were still wearing our dusty touristic clothes. Mr Khounmany’s family eased our minds by saying that it did not matter what we were wearing, but that it was just great that we were part of the ceremony. It was incredible to be part of the Baci.
Sitting together on the floor in a big circle listening to the prayer and good wishes of the eldest, holding one of the threads, the candlelight and the cheering of the family all created a devotional atmosphere. I did not understand what the eldest said, but the sound and the rhythm of his voice made me calm down and relax.
After the prayers of the eldest, we used short white threads to symbolise good wishes to the future bridegroom and everybody present. You say your good wishes and tie the thread around the wrist of the person who you wish for. Some also bound money on the threads. Everybody got good wishes. Mostly I did not understand what people said to me because they spoke in Lao, but looking at their smiling faces was enough to feel happy and blessed – and maybe communicated more than words can do. It was also wonderful to do the same back in return for the family members.
Baci Ceremony
The family
Giving good wishes
“International Women’s Day” competition
The next big team event was a sports competition that was held in honour of “International Women’s Day” on Friday, 28 February. After lunch there were no more student classes. Most of the teachers went to a stadium in Vientiane together in two vans. Different schools played against each other in three disciplines:
Tug-of-war
Who will be the strongest?
Three-legged race
Balloon-fight
Tug-of-war is played in two teams pulling on a rope in opposite directions, trying to get the other team across a line. Three-legged race involves running in pairs while your leg is bound to one other team member’s. Ten people in a team formed a line standing next to each other, so 5 pairs had their legs bound to their neighbour’s. The balloon fight happens in a big marked circle, and again two teams play against each other. Nobody is allowed to step out of the cirlce. Each player has two balloons tied to the right leg, and the other team has to try to step on the balloons to make them burst.
To make visible that we were the VEDI team, all teachers got a yellow tricot. We were definitely visible in our bright yellow tricots next to the other teams!
Proudly wearing the VEDI tricot.
Representing the VEDI
Before the competition started, all teams lined up in front of the grandstand. Ms Sounita gave me the VEDI sign, so I had to stand in front. For some of the female teachers this was nice because they could stand in my shadow to get out of the hot sun, which was actually quite funny for me – in Germany I am not very tall, but in Laos I am (nice new feeling). Some days later we saw a report about the competition on TV. It was funny to see ourselves in the video holding the sign and fighting in the competition.
Together with 11 other teachers, Celine, Chelsea, and I took part in the tug-of-war competition. None of us volunteers had ever done it before. Pulling on the rope was exhausting, but big fun! In the end it did not matter which position we had in the ranking – it was just a lovely fun afternoon together with the team.
Let the games begin:
Team VEDI
Go team!
A Lao wedding
One of my personal highlights in Laos was the wedding of my colleague Mr Khamphoun and his bride Ms Thipphalone, who worked in the same office as me. Lao weddings take three days and are scheduled by the monks for the (dry) wedding season. On the first day of a wedding the bridegroom goes to the house of the bride together with family and very close friends to ask for his bride. There will also be a big Baci.
(Another post by previous volunteers Ms Anika Broghammer and Ms Silja Schäfer gives you more information about the different days of a Lao wedding if you want to read more on the ceremony procedure.)
The second day is the time for the big celebration with relatives and friends. This was the part of the wedding which Celine, Chelsea, and I were invited to. The celebration took place near Sikeud on the grounds of a school, about 18 km away from Vientiane. After a week of rainy weather, it was the first hot and sunny day again – it was lovely to sit under a big tent in the shadow with some fans around us that made a nice light breeze. I am not able to say how many people were there, just a lot, maybe 200. Definitely more than I would expect at a German wedding.
Editor’s note: Lao people cherish festivities, and weddings are one occasion in a lifetime to splash out and invite everyone you know to celebrate with you. Some couples go heavily into debt to finance this feast (up to 5-digit dollars), but the custom for guests is to give the newly-weds an envelope with money to help cover the cost. I was told 10 dollars would be the right sum to put in the envelope for a western guest. Western guests adorn such a feast with extra flavour, we gather.
Eerybody was dressed-up, especially the women in their colourful sinhs. They were impressive and so beautiful. Some men wore traditional shiny bright silk shirts. They looked so much nicer to me than “normal-(for-us)” shirts men in Europe wear. Maybe it was because they were made with light shiny fabrics in strong colours.
We arrived at 11 a.m. All guests were welcomed by close family members, who formed a guard of honour to greet everybody. It made me feel really special to be welcomed like a celebrity on a red carpet by people who were important for the newly-wed couple. Behind the two lines, Mr Khamphoun and Ms Thipphalone were waiting to greet the guests as well.
Together with other VEDI teachers we took some pictures with them. It was a nice opportunity to greet the two and to thank them for the invitation. In the background the names of the couple were written, but I was so exited about the wedding that I just realised it when we left the celebration hours later. The elegant white-and-blue decoration was used in the entire tent and created a nice atmosphere. Together we had lunch that had been prepared in the form of a buffet, so everybody could partake what he or she liked. Many round tables were prepared for the guests under the big tent. Many VEDI teachers were already there and welcomed us happily.
Wedding of Mr Khamphoun and Ms Thipphalone
We celebrate with our colleagues of the VEDI.
Big fun dancing Lao style!
Lao line-dance
Lao dance is big fun. One way of traditional dancing goes like this: You face your partner and walk slowly in a big circle with all the other pairs. Everybody holds up both hands in front and turn them around constantly so that the back of one hand is on top and the other hand shows its palm facing upwards. By slowly turning both hands in opposite directions these positions change.
First it was difficult to move both hands in different directions, but with some practice and concentration it was manageable. We danced a lot at the wedding!
At the beginning I thought too much about doing it right but with time the hand movement became easier. Of course mine did not look as elegant as that of the Lao women, but considering it was the first time it was good enough for me.
The most important thing for all dancers was to enjoy the time and to have fun together. There were also different versions of line dances. The music of those other dances was faster, but when you stand in middle of so many people who know what to do you can do it soon too and enjoy a great dancing experience. We this became part of the dance celebration.
Before I went to the wedding, I was looking forward to spotting and experiencing all the differences between a Lao and a German wedding. But then I realised that there was not really such a big difference. People come together, eat, drink, dance, bring presents, and are happy that two people found love for and in each other and want to stay together for the rest of their lives.
Much more than a guest!
In the beginning I said that I was not prepared for what it would be like at the VEDI and in Laos in general. This is true. I thought I would be a guest at the VEDI before I went, but now I know I was never just a guest: I was part of the VEDI team. I still feel close to the people at the institute and stay in contact with the friends I made at the VEDI.
This is possible due to the open and friendly way I was welcomed and treated during my stay. I was not prepared to get so close to Laos and its wonderful people. Now I am more than happy about my marvellous experiences in Laos.
In the office with Mr Khampoun and my tandem-teacher Ms Vankham…
… with Ms Sounita…
… always having fun together: Ms Dokmai, Ms Anousin, Ms Vienkhone, and my team-mates Celine Seeger and Chelsea Hog
Text by L. Koch, editor’s note by I. Martin
Photos by L. Koch, C. Hog , C. Seeger, A. Bounsouhak & K. Shithisay
My sudden return from Laos to Germany on 21 March 2020 due to COVID-19
Editor’s note: Ms Rebecca Dengler’s final report about her 6 months of research and teaching at SKU is posted on the Internships/Final Reports page.
Five weeks ago, I suddenly had to leave Savannakhet and Laos. Due to the COVID-19 situation all over the world, borders were being shut, flights cancelled, and schools and universities closed.
I had been staying in Laos for six months already. In these six months of my Erasmus+ Mobility between the University of Education Karlsruhe and Savannakhet University (SKU), I started to learn the Lao language, conducted research for my doctoral studies, and taught English methodology and activities to some of the English teaching staff at SKU. My actual plan was to stay there for eight months in total. However, my plans, as well as probably everyone else’s in 2020, had to be changed.
After the virus spread more and more in Germany and in other European countries and travel regulations started to change all over the world, my parents, my German university, and my supervisor, Dr Isabel Martin as well as the International Office in Karlsruhe recommended that I should fly back to Germany before travelling would become impossible. Team X had already left Laos a few days before me, after having been strongly advised on Sunday, 15 March, by Prof. Martin to book the next flight home.
First, I really wanted to stay in Savannakhet even in the Corona situation. I was not ready to leave. However, after many people suggested I go back to Germany and the situation became more serious in Laos, I finally made the decision to return. It took me several days to make this decision. An important factor that helped me to decide eventually was the information from Prof. Martin that the Erasmus Board had just announced that all Erasmus+ projects could be extended by one year now, on account of the situation. Four mobilities in our own project – Lao colleagues visiting PH Karlsruhe in the summer term – had already been postponed. This meant that I would now at least get the possibility to go back to Savannakhet and continue my research later.
Until Wednesday, 18 March 2020, when I decided to book a flight back to Germany for the following Monday, 23 March, I did not know that this would be my last week in Savannakhet. Once I had decided to leave, several farewell parties were organised very quickly. On Thursday night, the Faculty of Linguistics and Humanities, with their Dean Dr Phetsamone Khattiyavong, organised a farewell dinner for the Japanese volunteer teacher, the American volunteers, and me. We were invited to have dinner in a Sin Dat restaurant. “Sin Dat” is a barbecue you can do yourself. It is cooked on a grill over a bucket of hot charcoal in the middle of your table. It is a great food for sitting, talking, and spending time together. This meal was a lovely opportunity to talk to the people from the Faculty of Linguistics and Humanities I had been working with. However, at that time it still did not feel like I was leaving – and saying goodbye still seemed very unreal.
Dr Phetsamone Khattiyavong and me (Rebecca Dengler) at the farewell dinner
Receiving a farewell gift from the Faculty of Linguistics
Friday, 20 March, was the last day the university in Savannakhet was open for everyone. Laos also started to close institutions to prevent the spread of the virus in the country, although at that time there was no officially reported case in Laos yet.
However, I also noticed that the Lao safety precautions and testing possibilities were limited. Two weeks before I left Laos, I had to shortly cross the boarder to Vietnam to renew my visa. When I entered Vietnam, my temperature was measured and I had to fill in a health form. On the way back to Laos, I did not have to fill in anything and there was no temperature check.
I think that the safety precaution to close schools and universities was no overcautious measure, because there might have already been many people bringing the virus to Laos, who were not tested.
Editor’s note: These would have been travellers, thousands of Lao people returning to Lao P.D.R. on two weekends before the shutdown who had been working in Thailand, and so-called “rich people”, i.e. Lao citizens who had had the means to travel to Europe (France). How many of them were quarantined or quarantined themselves to protect others we do not know.
This last day when the university was open gave me the possibility to arrange a last class with my teacher-students and round off our course as well as possible under these circumstances. After a short review and evaluation of the course, I handed over some certificates and German chocolate.
The participants will receive their real certificates after an official evaluation and report about the class.
After the class, the Vice-President of SKU, Dr Bounheuang Nichaleun, held a small, official farewell lunch for the Japanese volunteer and me . In the evening I met some of the teachers from my class for a farewell dinner. It became more and more real that I was about to leave Laos soon. However, I felt not ready yet to leave Savannakhet.
Official farewell lunch
The Vice-President Dr Bounheuang Ninchaleun hands me the certificate for my teaching at SKU.
My last class at SKU
At that time my plan was still to leave Savannakhet on Monday morning. However, on Friday, the day of my last class and farewells, I found out that Thailand was about to change their immigration policy two days later, Sunday, 22 March, as from 00:00 a.m. This new policy required all people travelling to and transiting in Thailand to show a health certificate certifying that a) one would pose no risk of being infected by the Coronavirus Disease and b) one would have a health insurance policy that would show a minimum medical coverage in Thailand of USD 100,000 covering the COVID-19-related illness.
Even only for transit in Thailand, after 00:00 a.m. on 22 March 2020 these documents had to be shown upon Check-in. On Friday night and on Saturday morning, with the help of many people, I found out that no hospital in Savannakhet or Vientiane would sign the health certificate that had been published on the website of Thai Airways.
My health insurance for the stay abroad, as well as almost every other German health insurance, could not confirm to cover up to USD 100,000. This meant that on Saturday morning I realised that my only opportunity to leave Laos for Thailand without these documents were almost impossible to obtain. My only chance was to cross the border to Thailand before midnight.
My original plan was to meet a German friend from Vientiane and fly home with her. So I had to get to Vientiane, meet her, and hope to get a flight from there to Thailand that same Saturday. At around 9 a.m., Ms Lanta Ketoukham kindly and promptly arranged a university van to drive me to Vientiane quickly. We left Savannakhet at 12 p.m. This meant that within 3 hours I had to clear my whole apartment, pack my suitcase, and call my friends to come quickly to say goodbye before I had to leave. Luckily, I could leave some of my belongings with friends in Savannakhet and I got help to pack everything. Without their help, it would have been impossible.
On the 7-hour drive to Vientiane I just hoped that it would still be possible to get a flight to Bangkok that same night.
Thank God, my friend and I were able to get standby seats on a flight to Bangkok and did not have to pay a lot of money. We could just change our flight from Monday to Saturday. In Vientiane, Thai Airways could only provide us a flight to Bangkok and no onward flight to Germany. They told us to standby again in Bangkok and see whether we could get a flight. We were so relieved to be able to enter Thailand two hours before midnight – and we got the last two seats on that airplane…
In Bangkok we got through immigration with special safety precautions, but without difficulty. We stood by for two flights to Germany that same night. Since there were so many people waiting in the queue before us, we could not get a seat before the Check-in for the two flights to Munich and Frankfurt was closed. For the immigration into Thailand we therefore had to book a hotel, so that was where we went. I was so happy to have my friend with me and not to travel alone.
Taking a taxi to a hotel in Bangkok at 2 a.m. in the morning is not that scary when you are not alone. We fell into the beds in the hotel, I wrote a quick message to family and friends and Prof. Martin to say that I was in Bangkok, and then we rested to gain strength to go back to the airport the next day to standby for new flights.
On Sunday, 22 March, we were able to get two seats on a flight to Frankfurt. We did not have to pay additional costs because we had bought a ticket for Monday and they just changed the date for us. Many other people we met at the airport had to pay between 1,000 and 5,000€ to get a flight that day. We were so glad that there were still flights to Germany, especially after we saw the announcement boards in the airport. We could see that most of the flights had already been cancelled.
So many cancelled flights on the announcement board in Bangkok
Additional safety precautions at the airport
On the overnight flight to Frankfurt we were finally able to relax a bit because we knew we would be in Germany soon. However, we were still quite tense because so many people from different countries were so close together in the airplane for such a long time. We knew that the risk of getting infected by the virus during the travels was very high. Therefore, we tried to be very careful by wearing a mask all the time and washing and disinfecting our hands regularly.
The real relief came after being picked up at Frankfurt airport and not developing any symptoms over the next two weeks in quarantine at home. This meant I did not bring the virus to my family’s house.
Now I am staying with my family here in Germany and I continue to work on my doctorate and start to evaluate the data that I already gathered in Laos. Since I could not stay the whole eight months in Savannakhet, I could not conduct all the research I wanted to. As soon as this crisis is over, I hope I can return to Savannakhet to continue my research at SKU and to see all the friends and colleagues again, who I could not really say goodbye to because I had to leave so suddenly.
I hope you stay safe and healthy during this difficult time and stay home to protect your family, yourself, and many other people.
Text by R. Dengler, editor’s notes by I. Martin
Photos by L. Ketoukham, R.Dengler, S. Inthichak & T. Liepvisaynavang
“Language Education and Global Citizenship” (6) – Global Studies and Transcultural Learning at the PH Karlsruhe (by Y.-J. Dyck)
Editor’s note: This 6th post in the series “Language Education and Global Citizenship” is by Ms Yvonne-Jacqueline Dyck (née Muss), one of my student helpers. Her task was to organise the collected literature on “Language Education in Asia and Global Citizenship Education” into a “Course Reader”, to make this background reading accessible to everyone in my class. This “Course Reader” was completed two days ago – just in time for a semester which will take place online. As a so-called “Micro-project”, Ms Dyck’s research hours were financed by the L2-Initiative of the University of Education Karlsruhe.
Ms Dyck had become interested in colonial history and literature in my “British Short Stories” class and wrote a paper on “George Orwell and the elephant as a symbol of the failure of colonialism”, which will be published on this blog later this year. She went on to write her Bachelor thesis in the summer of 2019 and worked at the Lao-German Technical College in Vientiane in the winter term 2019/20 as a member of Team IX. You can see her in between our two Lao guests in the middle of this photo:
Global English seminar participants with their guest and speaker of the day Ms Viengvilaiphone Botthoulath (SKU), Lao guests Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone (SKU) and Mr Napha Khothphouthone, Ms Julia Friedl (International Office, PH Karlsruhe) Mr Martin Schöbinger (2019 Friendship Feast host) and other guests including former project volunteers
Table of Contents
- The “Global English(es)” seminar at the University of Education Karlsruhe
- International students and the four dimensions of the course syllabus
- Input by Prof. Martin and Ms Julia Friedl followed by research workshop and practice excursion (town library, international “Open House” in Landau)
- Laos returnees report on their learning and teaching
- The linguistic dimension: A comparison of the Lao and English languages; Education in South Korea
- Lao perspectives
- The political and cultural dimensions
- The economic dimension of English language-teaching
- Didactics, methodology, context
- Phonology, foreign language education in the USA, and moral relativism
- More perspectives from and on Asia
- Final session: Education in Hongkong, Spanish-speakers learning English and closing remarks
- Conclusion and Evaluation
1. The “Global English(es)” seminar at the University of Education Karlsruhe
Between April and July 2019 students at the PH Karlsruhe had the opportunity to attend Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin‘s “Global English(es) – TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in Asia” seminar.
The idea for this class sparked from the preparatory workshops that were held for the Laos project volunteers in advance of their stays in Laos twice a year. The course was first offered in the winter term 2016/17 and then two more times in 2017 and 2018, until as from the summer term 2019 Prof. Martin was asked to offer this class every semester.
The seminar continued to inspire several Bachelor and Master theses, and also a new series on this blog called “Language learning and Global Citizenship Education“, to which past course participants started contributing. The most recent post of the series is “Language education and global citizenship – 30 years of teaching English in East Asia: An Appraisal” by Ms Laura Jakob, which followed the first three posts “Reentry shock: an explanation of an underrated phenomenon” by Ms Lara Malchow, “Intercultural barriers in “international” English course books by Ms Rebecca Dengler, and “A comparison of (travel) guides to Laos by Ms Lena Koch.
Old map with new meaning (in front of the VEDI library): “No half of the world can survive without the other”.
2. International students and the four dimensions of the course syllabus
To all of our advantages and the course’s global perspective, this semester’s course participants included plenty of the university’s international students, i.e. students from abroad studying at the University of Education Karlsruhe for a semester or two. They came from Hong Kong, France, Spain, Italy, Laos, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. During the first session of the course, organisational matters were taken care of, i.e. aligning the syllabus with the students’ interests and providing a literature list. Within the given four fields of study – the linguistic, cultural, political, and educational dimensions of Global English(es) and TESOL in Asia – students were asked to contribute questions, expectations, and suggestions for exemplary topics. Our collection of student suggestions were
… still vague at this point. Nobody had heard about Global Citizenship Education before.
We discussed how these topics could illuminate our course theme, and Prof. Martin then gave us guidance online on our course platform StudIP, as well as in individual consultations for presenters, to sharpen the profiles of each topic, point them to suitable academic literature, and to arrange them all into a meaningful whole. This is also how the course changes and develops from semester to semester – it builds up on the new insights, angles, and findings, and builds on participants’ academic and political interests.
3. Input by Prof. Martin and Ms Julia Friedl followed by research workshop and practice excursion (town library, international “Open House” in Landau)
One week later, the course started with introductory presentations by Prof. Martin and by Ms Julia Friedl of the University of Education Karlsruhe’s International Office in its second session. Prof Martin started us off on discovering the semiotic and cross-cultural difficulties of concepts and the phenomenology of words and meanings by giving examples to interpret, such as the “Upside-down map” of the world and sample topics (food, travel, leisure time) from so-called “international” English course books.
Ms Friedl gave a talk on the challenges and personal impacts of both doing an internship at a school and studying abroad. She compared the two options in her overview of the International Office‘s offers and services. The session ended with Prof. Martin’s questionnaire, for which she paired up a German with an international student, so we could find out about each other’s backgrounds and state of learning.
The third session offered us a chance to hone our research skills by attending a research workshop at the BLB (Badische Landesbibliothek (federal state library of Baden), which was kindly offered in the English language so our international students could benefit as well. We practised working with the ABELL and MLA, the two main databases for English Studies.
Under the motto “Learn the international language of Total Physical Response to teach English across borders – a new teaching tool for your classroom“ Prof. Dr. Martin additionally invited her class to an “Open House” Party of Modern Western Square Dance in April, which was an eye-opener especially for the Asian students, some of whom then promptly joined her seminar on “Square Dance for teaching English at Lower School” in the same semester.
4. Laos returnees report on their learning and teaching
Another very interactive session took place at the end of April when several Lao returnee groups joined our class to present the workshops they had conducted during their time in Laos. As every volunteer is asked to offer one workshop during their traineeship and I was preparing for my own stay in Laos at the time, I was very curious about the ideas they had had and how they had put them into practice. In addition, they shared plenty of their personal learning experiences and recommendations with us.
Course participants listen and…
…engage in presentations by former volunteers (Svanja Walschburger, Team VI).
Dilara Erdogan (Team VII) and Siegfried Hadatsch (Team VIII)…
…present their workshops to the course participants .
Editor’s note: I have learnt from my pre-interviews with volunteers that it is often this direct encounter and exchange with returnee volunteers which decides students in this class to apply for an internship themselves.
5. The linguistic dimension: A comparison of the Lao and English languages; Education in South Korea
In May we had a linguistic presentation about “English as a ‘distant’ language” from the Lao learner’s perspective, presented to us through the combined knowledge of Ms Beate Pinisch and Prof. Martin. Prof. Martin had found Ms Pinisch’s name in the online brochure “Working with a Lao partner“, googled her, and discovered she lived in town, Karlsruhe! A fruitful collaboration ensued, and Ms Pinisch has since shared her expertise on this blog with the mini-series “From Laos with love”and by supporting our incoming students from Laos.
Mr Napha Khothphouthone, Ms Beate Pinisch, Ms Viengvilaiphone Botthoulath and Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone (f.l.t.r.)
The comparison of English and German as stress-based languages on the one hand and Lao as a time-based and tonal language on the other hand was compelling, as were all the other different linguistic categories that Prof. Martin compared. Ms Pinisch included many humorous stories, details, and intercultural differences from her 20-year experience as a former resident in Lao P.D.R. in her part. Especially the elaborations on how to express different tenses in Lao and how Lao L1 speakers express tenses in English struck me. It seems no two other languages could be more “distant” to one another as they simply bear no likeness in category or system, be in in phonology, morphology, syntax or semantics, lexis, or grammar. No wonder it is so hard for Lao people to learn English!
I found it equally alluring and confusing to hear about a language which is built quite differently from the languages I understand and speak. Their presentation has made me much more aware of the differences between Lao and “my languages”. During my internship in Laos between mid-October 2019 and mid-January 2020 I recognised some of the aspects when I was teaching Lao students which were presented back in May.
This linguistic session was completed by a presentation by Ms Chae-Eun (Engl. first name: Haven) Park from South Korea on “University education in the subject English in South Korea”. She labelled the current South Korean educational situation with the term “education fever”: “A national obsession for attaining better education.” Ms Chae-Eun referred this enthusiasm back to students, but rather more to their society and parents. We learned about the vast and usually quite expensive additional private tuition offers such as after-school tutoring or English camps during school holidays. Parents work incessantly to pay for an optimal education for their children – which always includes learning the English language, because this opens the door to get a degree abroad or work in international companies.
The data Ms Chae-Eun presented suggested that more than 70-80% of South Korean minors drew on these additional offers hoping they would be accepted into one of the three top universities in South Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, Yonsei University. However, according to Chaeeun, only 1% of all students reach this goal. The so-called “Suneung” 1 is a comprehensive 4-hour test held once a year on the first Thursday in November, and it determines which universities South Korean students are allowed to apply for. On this day, every year “silence descends across the capital Seoul as shops are shut, banks close, even the stock market opens late. Most construction work halts, planes are grounded and military training ceases.” 2
Editor’s note: Students do not receive grades, but rankings throughout their school lives, which adds to the pressure to achieve. Youngsters in Korea appear to have no free time and study until 10 or 11 p.m. every day. The reasons for the national obsession with education are rooted in history: In former Korean society, learning was reserved to a small Confucian elite who could read Chinese script. Once the new Korean alphabet made learning accessible for all, it became the highest good to secure for one’s children. Ms Laura Jakob analyses this phenomenon in her academic post “30 years of teaching English in East Asia: An Appraisal“, and the film “The King’s Letters” presents one of the theories of the historical background, namely the King’s invention of the “Hunminjungeum” (Korean Script) for his people.
The more detailed report by Ms Chae-Eun will be published in this series soon.
Later on in May, two very recent project returnees, Mr Siegfried Hadatsch and Ms Anna-Sophia ten Brink (both Team VIII), shared their living and working experiences with us in their presentation “Living and working in Laos”. They spoke about the LGTC (Lao-German Technical College), their life in “the bungalow” (the apartment near the campus where LGTC volunteers are accommodated), and free time activities in Vientiane (the capital of Lao PDR). Apart from all this very interesting information, their travel reports were most intriguing. For long-distance transportation they used buses and airplanes, as there are no trains in Laos (yet).
According to them, one highly recommendable destination in Lao PDR is the old capital Luang Prabang because of its temples, old-time pace, and dazzling waterfalls nearby. As Luang Prabang is notoriously one of the most visited locations in Lao PDR, Anna-Sophia and Siegfried’s advice for visiting the famous Kuangsi Waterfalls was to “get up and be there early (7 a.m.)”. Their list of other travel recommendations included Vang Vieng, Don Det, and Pakse.
Then, Ms Viengvilaiphone Botthoulath (lecturer at Savannakhet University, Erasmus+ partner) replenished this presentation by presenting her very own version of “Living and Working in Laos” from the Lao perspective. Her report covered several topics such as geographical information, travel advice, religion, Lao festivities, means of transportation, and much more. Also, Ms Vieng’s presentation contained information on agriculture and local food, as she is a lecturer at SKU in the Department of Food Science. She came to the session wearing a traditional Lao sinh, and at the end, following a hint by Prof. Martin, she surprised us with a short teaching sequence on Lao social dance.
7. The political and cultural dimensions
In the next few sessions we examined some of the political and cultural dimensions of “TESOL in Asia and Global Citizenship education” beginning with a presentation on “The Sustainable Development Goals” by Mr Jonas Hoffmann. In his talk, Jonas made clear that the Sustainable Development adapted by 193 member states of the UN on 25 December 2015 were compulsory for both “developing” and “developed” countries. (Editor’s note: Regarding these colonial labels cf. my Note 1 in a previous post.)
Above all, I found it thought-provoking that Laos did not only adopt the 17 goals agreed on by the other 192 states, but added their own 18th goal: “Lives safe from UXO” (unexploded ordnance). Jonas stated there have been more than 50,000 casualties due to UXO from 1964 to 2012, which makes an average of roughly 1,000 people killed or injured by UXO in Lao PDR per year. This is why this goal is one of the top priority goals in Lao PDR. As a result of effective mine-risk education and clearance of high-risk areas, the number of casualties could be reduced in recent years. However, the Vientiane Times regularly report casualties to this day.
The educational aspect of this topic – “Teaching the Sustainable Development Goals was especially relevant to us future teachers. We were glad to receive a copy of the teaching handbook by the ESD Expert Net (ESD: “Education for Sustainable Development”), which Jonas had brought along for us.
Editor’s note: The article by Jonas Hoffman on the SDGs will be published next in this series.
Guest speaker Shirin Ud-Din (Team VI rounded off the first session in the “political” category with her report on her role as Head of the political representation of Laos at NMUN in New York (National Model United Nations).
Editor’s note: The article by Shirin Ud-Din about the NMUN in New York will be published here later in summer.
The subsequent week’s topics were “Global Citizenship Education” (Ms Natalie Staufer), “Global English(es)” (Ms Lydia Hanson), and “Multi-/ Inter-/ Transculturality – Cultural dimensions of language teaching” (Mr Timur Kadic).
In her introduction to “Global Citizenship Education” Natalie elaborated on the implications of the definition of “Global Citizenship”: „A global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world – and their place in it. They take an active role in their community, and work with others to make our planet more equal, fair and sustainable.“ 3
In her presentation titled “Global English(es)” Lydia cleared up some of the basic terminology regularly used throughout the seminar. She explained that the term “Global Englishes (GE)” usually covers World Englishes (WE) as well as English as a lingua franca (ELF). She further explored the set of problems “Standard English” (whose “standard”?) when addressing international speakers of English or in contexts when English is used as a “lingua franca” – another problematic term.
Timur’s presentation on “Multi-/ Inter-/ Transculturality – Cultural dimensions of language teaching” aimed at clarifying theories about culture, which have long surpassed seeing “culture” as just a single, isolated character trait. The terms he explained were:
- Multiculturality = culture as separate entities; cultures living together and tolerating each other
- Interculturality = cultures interacting with each other
- Transculturality = cultures interweave with each other
- Hyperculturality = no boundaries, cultures merge/emerge out of them all, all are individual and unique (for every individual who is part of the hyperculture)
Sketch of the different concepts of culture
8. The economic dimension of English language-teaching
Towards the middle of term, the thematic focus was directed to the relationship between English language-teaching and economy.
The first session in this unit began with Ms Lara Ibele’s presentation “English as Lingua Franca in Asia”. In her presentation she presented the definition of a lingua franca as a “‘contact language‘ between persons who share neither a common native tongue nor a common (national) culture, and from whom English is the chosen foreign language of communication” by Firth (1996:260). When the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was founded in 1976, language was not an issue in its declaration. However, in 2009, English was introduced as the official ASEAN working language.
The differences between the Asian states which were former British or American colonies and those which were not were of particular interest. The colonising nations in Southeast Asia between 1500 to the mid-1940 were Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, the United States, and Japan.4 From my perspective – having lived and worked in Laos for 3 months – I find Lara’s list of common phonological and grammatical features shared by many ASEAN ELF users especially intriguing.
From my personal learning and teaching experiences in Laos I see them to be applicable to Lao speakers who learn English as a second language. For instance, I recognised the flexible use of definite and indefinite articles which Lara had mentioned to be quite common amongst my Lao students. However, I also wondered whether these, especially the grammatical features, particularly apply to ASEAN EFL (English as a Foreign Language) speakers only.
The same session also featured Mr Jerome Lafia’s presentation “English language teaching as a multi billion-business – Post colonial structures in language teaching”. He delivered a critical perspective on current-day English teaching with a view to possible post- or neo-colonial, euro-centric implications. One argument Jerome introduced was that only certain varieties of English are promoted – usually British or General American English – and many believe they are still the only ones to aim for.
To give a more concrete example, Jerome introduced us to institutional English learning in Kenya. From his presentation we learned that Kenya has two official languages: Swahili and English. By this regulation alone, many people who speak other languages, especially minorities and indigenous people, are excluded from public education. Another astonishing fact is that whereas from first until fifth grade Swahili is the medium of instruction, from 5th grade on students will be taught in English only. I agree with Jerome’s findings that this can only have a negative effect on the language acquisition of both languages.
Ms Carolin Birk’s presentation “Native speakers teaching English in Asia and Africa – The ‘Automatised School’ ” connected to Jerome’s presentation perfectly, as she presented a branch of privately funded education: Bridge International Academies (BIA). BIA runs a network of about 500 private nursery and primary schools across Africa and Asia. They provide prepared lesson plans in the form of E-Readers.
Carolin continued by discussing positive and critical effects of the work of BIA. A positive effect is that many school buildings could be built, which provide more children geographical access to education, and regular payment for teachers, which increases (their) attendance and motivation.
However, the teachers lack the required qualifications, their workload is above 65 h per week, and their salaries are below the national minimum wage. Furthermore, BIA does not seem to provide insurance, licenses, or registrations for their teachers. Consequently, the public and media have criticised BIA as “unsustainable”, “controversial”, “for-profit” or as “reinforc[ing] global power inequalities”. These criticisms target the highly-standardised system which treats teachers as robots who merely follow a script word by word, regardless of their particular learner group. It is also criticised that the lesson plans neither include current levels nor the cultural backgrounds of the pupils or target country. In addition, BIA is said to be failing to meet health, safety, sanitation, and the individual school infrastructures.
The regular increase of monthly fees to be paid by parents makes the BIA schools increasingly unaffordable for the poorer population. All these aspects combined resulted in the closing of several BIA schools in Africa, most of which were ordered by the federal governments.
Carolin closed her presentation by analysing the demand for native-speaking English teachers abroad. Native speakers from the US, the UK, or Australia and New Zealand are often considered to be the only ideal language role models, which undermines the minority varieties of English and local dialects. She included statistics stating that two thirds of all foreigners teaching English in China were formally unqualified – which I found most alarming.
On 17 June 2019, in the “linguistic and cultural” block of our seminar, we heard and discussed presentations on “Culture shock and counter-culture shock” (Ms Marielle Hofstetter) and “Stereotypes, prejudices, preconceptions” (Ms Stephanie Vogel). Marielle’s presentation was especially intriguing for me as I was going to go to Asia for the very first time in my life 4 months later as part of the Laos project’s Team IX.
From a previous semester spent in Ireland I could however already confirm Marielle’s findings that when one is staying and working in a new environment for a longer period of time, one is more likely to experience culture shock in all its stages than when being tourist. From my experience working in another country rather than being there on vacation also enhances the chance of culture shock. I cannot say I suffered from counter-culture shock after my return from Ireland in 2018 or after my return from Laos in January 2020. Nevertheless, I miss my Lao friends, the delicious food and the weather terribly.
In the same session, Ms Stephanie Vogel clarified the terminology used in her presentation on “Stereotypes, prejudices, preconceptions”. She described
- stereotypes as rigid, overgeneralised beliefs about attributes of ethnic groups,
- prejudices as a negative attitudes and
- preconceptions as prejudices that prevent rational consideration of an issue,
making an opinion on sth. before having enough information to make a correct opinion.
At the end of that week, many of the class participants also joined in the 5th (annual) “Lao-German Friendship Feast“. The lovely evening gave all of us the chance to enjoy traiditonal foods from a number of countries and to get in touch with each other about seminar contents and other topic
9. Didactics, methodology, context
The next session on didactics, methodology, and context started with Ms Selina Stegmeier’s presentation “Comparison of teaching systems/approaches”. She introduced findings from her personal experiences and observations in two internships in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and Bergen, Norway.
Editor’s note: Selina Stegmeier’s report, her term paper about “Teaching Styles” in different countries, and also her Bachelor thesis on “Decolonising teaching (the´Postmethod Method´)” will be published later this year.
Within the context of her presentation “Textbooks for teaching English: A comparison Lao/German/English”, Ms Leona Kemmer had studied the official coursebook for English language-teaching used in primary schools in Laos (published by the Research Institute of Educational Science). She found several obstacles which Lao learners of English would face when using these books, which would be easily overlooked by European or American/Australian English instructors or teachers educated in another system and culture, and – for other reasons – by Lao teachers of English, for want of linguistic or methodological expertise.
The most basic one to mention is that English uses the Latin alphabet, whereas the Lao language has its own alphabet. A specific example she showed mixed up the concepts of sounds and letters to begin with, which can only cause problems of understanding for young learners. Then there are 4 graphemes for each letter in English: Lower and upper case, both different for print letters and hand-writing.
Apart from this, there would be a conceptional disadvantage of sticking closely to a coursebook which focuses on reading and writing when the teaching goals now are listening comprehension and speaking.
The session was concluded by Ms Felicitas Siwik with her presentation “Decolonise your mind”. She started her presentation with a self-experiment: She gave us 3 categories of famous authors who published in English and asked us to put up our hands to show how many names we knew from each group. The categories were “British authors”, “American authors”, and “African authors”. As she had suspected in advance, the majority of the class knew a great number of the British and American authors, while a decreasing number of hands was up when she asked us about the African writers who also wrote award-winning books in English.
Felicitas then briefly presented to us Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong‘o and especially his ground-breaking book Decolonise the Mind (1986) (cf. Prof. Martin’s post relating to this book [note 1]). Felicitas’ presentation made clear that many of our European prototypes only include European images. She demonstrated this by searching for “most famous writers in English literature” in a search engine. The first 20 or so results listed exclusively Caucasians.
Felicitas continued by exploring global examples of renaming streets and removing statues which “honoured the wrong people”, such as dictators, slave traders, or colonisers. She also gave examples from European museums which displayed artifacts with colonial labellings and legally doutbful origins.
Editor’s note: Recently, new websites on such research on German cities have appeared on the Internet. For Karlsruhe: Karlsruhe postkolonial. Ms Felicitas Siwik’s findings will be published in this series in the summer.
Felicitas proceeded to give some examples of colonial imprints on current-day language.
Her final recommendations were to not only read classic British and American authors, and to pay attention to the etymology of (colonial) sayings and idioms one unthinkingly uses in the English language. She mentioned the expression “Long time no see” which is frequently used as a greeting deriving from an imitation of broken English spoken by Native Americans. Furthermore, Felicitas explained how the phrase “No can do” which means “I‘m unable to do it” derives from an imitation of broken English spoken by some Chinese people. She also encouraged us to openly discuss controversial language instead of simply ceasing to use it.
Editor’s note: I wanted to draw students’ attention to this phenomenon because awareness of this is generally (too) low, so I was glad that Ms Siwik agreed to do some research on this topic. Two years ago, I also created a new class on postcolonial theory and literature in the English Master degree.
10. Phonology, foreign language education in the US, and moral relativism
An introduction to how English pronunciation poses specific difficulties for learners was provided by Ms Francesca Diligu in her presentation “Pronunciation issues in English of speakers with different L1s”. This includes sounds which are exclusive to the English language as well as phenomena such as consonant clusters (2-4 consonant sounds/letters without a vowel in between them). The latter are especially difficult for Asian learners, as in “Sprite” or “Karl Marx”, which Lao learners would pronounce as [sa-pa-‘li] and [kak mak].
She introduced to us the concept of the “Lingua Franca Core“, which tries to regulate the minimum of correct pronunciation which is necessary for comprehensible communication. As the six most important pronunciation necessities, Francesca mentioned:
- All consonant sounds are necessary except /θ/ and /ð/. They can be replaced by /f/ and /v/.
- The /ɜː/ vowel as in “girl“ or “first“ must be pronounced accurately.
- Most consonant clusters must not be simplified (e.g. at the beginning of words).
- The vowel length should be preserved.
- The stream of speech should be divided into “word“ groups (rather than syllables).
- Nuclear stress must be placed appropriately (e.g. “let´s meet NEXT Saturday” vs. “let´s meet next SATURDAY”, because sentence stress changes meaning in English.4
She continued with a comparison of English and Japanese phonology. It became evident from this part of Francesca’s findings that English features more vowel sounds than Japanese. Moreover, many sounds from the English language such as, for instance, the /ʧ/ in “chips”, /l/ in “light” and /r/ in “right”, do not exist in Japanese, or in many other Asian languages. Japanese also does not feature consonant clusters. Regarding the “Lingua Franca Core”, it can be assumed that English pronunciation poses many obstacles for speakers of Japanese or other Asian learners.
Francesca’s phonological explanations were followed by Mr Galen Dennis’ “US perspectives on foreign language education”, in which he combined his personal experiences as a student in the United States with statistics about US language education. He began by presenting the “fun fact” that the US do not have an official language. On state level, however, 32 of the states have English as their official language, while 2 of all US states have other official languages, and 16 have no official language.
Galen then presented information on the importance of Spanish in the US. According to his findings, 13,4% of the US population speak Spanish at home. Also, US high schools do not require pupils to learn foreign languages at all, nor are pupils tested in any other languages than English.
US universities list a decrease in foreign language admission standards as well as participation in language programmes. Galen argued that this was due to a lack of incentives, a lack of early foreign language exposure, and pressure to excel in other academic fields as well as a decrease in funding.
A philosophical turn to the session was Ms Klara Kaufmann’s presentation on “Moral relativism vs. universal values“. In the beginning of her presentation, Klara defined values as “beliefs which influence people‘s decisions and actions” and universal values as “apply[ing] to everybody, in any situation, regardless of culture, race, gender or religion”. This is when the course topic became highly controversial.
Klara confronted us with the question “who decides what is right or wrong, or acceptable and not acceptable, or ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’?” Klara’s findings were that Western cultures still project values onto other cultures, forcing their own beliefs and value systems onto differing cultures, consider their values to be „the truth”. This so-called eurocentrism does not acknowledge or value cultural or religious or philosophical differences, it does not acknowledge that “right” and “wrong” are relative categories which are not necessarily universally valid.
Moral relativism is suggested as a solution for this problem as it recognises that there are no right or wrong moral judgements or universal justifications per se, only points of view which are relative to other cultures.
Nevertheless, moral relativism is also a concept which does not lack the implication of complications. Klara finds it to be contradictory and critically asks whether the consequence of moral relativism is that everything has to be tolerated, e.g. the opposition between the Christian Command “though shalt not kill” vs. the death penalty in many countries. Furthermore, she criticises that it does not provide a solution to moral conflicts but rather promotes moral nihilism, invalidates human rights and generalises cultural norms. Another perspective of criticism is provided by the observation that many cultures actually do share common moral values like honesty or respect. This phenomenon cannot be explained or analysed by practising moral relativism.
11. More perspectives from and on Asia
On July 8th, four more international students from Asia held presentations about certain aspects of their country’s culture or education systems. Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone and Mr Napha Khotphouthone (Erasmus+ exchange program participants from SKU, Lao PDR) titled their presentation “Teaching English in Laos, Buddhist Lao values and style of life, attitude to nature”.
It included interesting facts about the Lao school system from primary school to university. Especially interesting were their explanations of the different uniforms to be worn by teachers and students, because in Germany public schools do not usually require school uniforms – neither for teachers nor students. Thai proceeded by telling us about his family’s background and his upbringing, especially the very impressive number of languages which he came in touch with during his life. These include:
- his 1st language/mother tongue Katang which is spoken at his home and, according to him, is one of 86 languages in Laos,
- Lao which is spoken in school and family,
- Thai which he knows from TV, friends and products,
- Bali Sanskrit which he came across in the temple and in writing at school,
- Vietnamese which he was confronted with during school holidays,
- English which he learned, speaks and teaches in University,
- Khmer language which he needs for work sometimes,
- and as of 2019, German which he began to study when he came to Germany in the context of his participation in the Erasmus + exchange program between SKU and PH Karlsruhe.
Napha continued their shared presentation by giving some statistics on the ethnic groups and religious beliefs in Lao P.D.R. Furthermore, he gave us an overview of Lao means of transportation, food and clothing. In the following, he told us more about his personal life and the many professions he practises. Besides being a lecturer he is also helps villagers as a veterinary doctor and is a passionate farmer. He replenished all of his accounts with plenty of photographs.
Mr Napha Khothphouthone (SKU) performs Lao buddhist lucky charms ritual to Leona Kemmer.
Mr Napha Khothphouthone (SKU) and his “buddy” (student helper) Christine Blersch look at the map of Lao PDR.
Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone (SKU) explains Lao traditions to Yvonne Jaqueline Dyck and Lena Hopf…
…and performs Lao buddhist lucky charms ritual to Desirée Löffler.
Mr Napha Khothphouthone (SKU) explains and performs Lao buddhist lucky charms ritual to fellow-students from Hongkong and Taiwan.
Mr Napha Khothphouthone (SKU) explains the meaning of Lao objects and offers Lao snacks to fellow-international students.
Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone (SKU) presents Lao objects and snacks to German classmates.
Everbody tries the Lao snacks Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone (SKU) and Mr Napha Khothphouthone (SKU) have brought.
In that same session, international students Mr Hung Chun Lin and Mr Chun Yen Lin presented interesting facts from their own perspective of Taiwan as the rear light of this session. Their accounts featured Taiwan’s average English proficiency indicator level which is a score of 51.88 out of 100. This is comparable to a B2 CEFR level and leaves Taiwan on rank 48 out of a total of 88 countries and regions in Asia in the year 2018.
Similar to foreign language education in Korea, many parents send their children to private schools or at least private after schools. Furthermore, English-speaking kindergarten and international schools are very popular with parents and students. However, all of these are quite costly, tuition ranking from 860-5500€ per month per student.
English is an obligatory second language for students in Taiwan whereas third languages choices include Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese. As an economic reason for the relevance of English in Taiwan, the two presenters explained job and salary aspirations as well university graduation requirements. Nevertheless, they found that Taiwanese learners of English face several difficulties when learning the language, for instance a lack of communicative abilities, as school lessons focus more on reading and listening than on speaking and writing.
Hung and Chun also explored on the requirements for becoming an English teacher in Taiwan, which are:
- Citizenship from one of the following countries: US, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand
- Bachelor’s degree
- Clean FBI criminal background
- TEFL Certification.
12. Final session: Education in Hongkong, Spanish-speakers learning English and closing remarks
In the final session on 15th July, Ms Wai Man Fong gave us an insight on “Education in Hongkong”. Ana Catarina da Silva Henriques presented “Pronunciation problems for Spanish-speaking learners of English”. The session and seminar were rounded off by Prof. Martin’s elaborations on the different PH Karlsruhe-Laos projects and other international cooperations. She also gave us an outlook on future openings in the project, and options for students’ final theses. I was unable to attend this session which is why I have no detailed comments.
Every semester the administration of the University of Education Karlsruhe conducts 20 official evaluations of randomly chosen lectures. Lecturers can, however, also voluntarily register for their lectures to be evaluated. This serves the purpose of ensuring the quality and positive evolvement of teaching.
Due to the required anonymity and validity of answers, the lecturer herself or himself is not part of the evaluation process at any point, which is why they will kindly ask a tutor to hand out the feedback sheets to their fellow-students. Giving the feedback and answering the questions in the standardised questionnaire is voluntary. The tutor count the number of filled-in sheets and returns them to the university administration in a closed envelope, who then analyse the data. The results are sent to the lecturer, who is obligated to make the results available to the class and discuss them. In the following I will refer to the results of this evaluation.
All in all, the evaluation of this class confirms that the class participants were overall very content with the seminar, and it has contributed to everyone’s knowledge. Like 53% of the class who took part in the survey I did not attend the seminar for receiving credit points or to be examined on this topic. Nevertheless, many academic papers grew out of the presentations and the seminar also provided ideas for state exam topics, and further scientific research was conducted on the basis of this class.
As recommended by Prof. Martin, I attended this seminar as one way of preparing for my participation in the Laos project as a member of Team IX from October 2019 until January 2020. In the beginning of the semester, especially during our joint search for topics, I noticed that a lot of the topics and terminology introduced by Prof. Martin were new to me and – at that time – I could not yet make connections between these topics. Throughout the semester, however, thanks to Prof. Martin’s ability to always keep an overview and weave the “red thread”, my knowledge – and especially the connections and interdependence of topics – began to grow.
Although we had different topics and foci every week – sometimes even within one session – Prof. Martin’s planning and consistent coaching of each participant (in consultation sessions outside of class) helped to put all the pieces together in a very meaningful way. The seminar offered chances to take the very first steps into decolonising our own minds, as the process always starts with personal awareness, which can only be achieved through learning something new.
Text by Y.-J. Dyck, editor’s notes by I. Martin
Photos by N. Khoutphouthone, I. Martin & Y.-J. Dyck
Notes
- Wikipedia: College Scholastic Ability Test (last edited on 17 December 2019): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Scholastic_Ability_Test (last accessed on 21 December 2019) ↩
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46181240 (last accessed on 21 December 2019) ↩
- Oxfam Education: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/who-we-are/what-is-global-citizenship (last accessed on 21 December 2019) ↩
- Ty, Rey: Colonialism and Nationalism in Southeast Asia: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/crossroads/ty/COLONIALISM_%20IN_SE%20ASIA.htm (last accessed on 14 April 2020) ↩
Interactive map of the Lao-German Technical College in Vientiane
This is an interactive (able to be clicked) map of the campus. By clicking on the map you can get an overview of the sections and buildings at the Lao-German Technical College in Vientiane before seeing it for yourself. Our volunteers from the “Bi-directional tandem-teaching and learning in Laos” project have been working here since the start of this partnership in 2016, giving lessons, creating a short film with their tandem-partners and students, installing a Lending Library, a Didactics Room, and also offering special workshops.
Interactive Map of LGTC
This map is interactive. Use your finger or cursor to click on the buildings in the photo. Find out more about them and get to know the college!
Office Building
This building houses the Administration of the college as well as the Staff Offices.
Automotive Section
This is the Automotive Section of the college. There are classrooms on the left side of the building.
Welding and Plumbing Section
The Welding and Plumbing Section is located in the south of the campus.
General Metal Machining Section
This is the General Metal Machining Section. It can be found on the left side when entering the campus from Lao-Thai road.
Heavy Machinery & Agro Machinery Section
This is the Heavy Machinery & Agro Machinery Section which is located right next to the General Metal Machining Section. It also has a classroom in it.
Electrical & Electronic Section
The newly built Electrical and Electronic Section of the Lao-German Technical College.
Theory Buildings
Lessons for various subjects taught at the college are being held in the two Theory Buildings.
Canteen, Shop & Scooter Parking
There is a Canteen with a little shop for snacks and drinks, restrooms and the scooter parking area in this part of the campus.
The campus is located close to the Mekong river on the west, right next to the crossing between Thadeua Road and Lao-Thai Road.
Hopefully this map can be helpful for our future teams of teachers and students at the LGTC to get a first impression of what the Lao-German Technical College looks like. This page is being kept up to date, so if you find new items on-site just let us know using the contact page of this website. The images for making this map were taken on 18 March 2020, the day Team X had to leave Laos early due to the CoViD-19 pandemic.
I would like to thank Ms Moukdala Keomixai for helping me create and caption this map – I cannot think of anyone I know who would know more about the LGTC than her.
Text, photos & implementation by M. Bilger
Who I have meals with – by Thaithanawanh Keokaisone
Editor’s note: A good deal of light comes in through the cracks in the kitchen. Mr Thai’s post about the joys of shared meals in Kalsruhe last summer may evoke certain memories and a certain longing.
But while we renounce inviting family and friends to our houses and gardens and balconies at the moment – even over Easter – we can immerse ourselves in “kitchen therapy”. For German singles, it can work like this: Cook four times as much food as you normally eat, invite three people to your house door, hand over the bags with freshly cooked meals, with a smile topping. It feels good, tastes good, and is (almost) company.
We know by now that Lao people are notoriously and exceedingly hospitable. Our Lao partner Mr Thaithanawanh, who spent the summer term 2019 in Karlsruhe, seems to think Germans are good hosts, too.
Hospitality in Karlsruhe
I have been asking myself what are the parties that I joint during summer semester in Karlsruhe, Germany. There were many meals with friends, Germans’ family and international student exchanges.
Many friends of mine, they were really kind and friendly to asking me to join the meals during holidays and weekends, as I was invited by Team VII to have breakfast with them, they prepared the Germans’ food for me to try it, I remembered some food that I have eaten such sausages, butters, some breads and so on. We have contacted by the email and Whatsapp, the German phone number had to register it before using it, I seldom use the facebook with messenger to contact them due to they prefer the Whatsaap rather than the Messenger.
I also meet new friends in front of the Schlosspark Castle to play Petanque with them, they are really friendly, we get to know each other. Especially, I have met Philippe, he is Lao, and he was born in Vientiane, Laos but he grew up in France. Now he lives and works in Karlsruhe, he can speak Lao too.
Spending time at the Castle… of Karlsruhe
… Philippe plays Petanque with me.
And I also met two ladies Ms Beate Pinisch (“Anna” she is called in Lao) and Ms Pan Rasavong. Beate Pinisch, she is German, she really nice lady, and she worked in Laos more than 20 years, she can speak Lao very fluently, and Pan. she is Lao, but she has lived in Germany for 40 years. I am very much happy to meet them.
“Anna” brings us to visit Speyer city.
Here is fantastic place to live, and it is really happy to be here in Karlsruhe for six months to spend time with new people.
I really mean to say that Germans’ families have facilitated me to visit them at home for cooking and having lunch and dinner with them. They cooked big lunch for me, there are many kinds of food such as fish, chicken soup, and especial one I have never tried it before, now I try it, it really tastes delicious. Dr Isabel’s and Dr Martin’s families invited us to have lunch with them.
At Dr. Martin’s house…
… on the swings in the garden…
… on the see-saw…
… and the trampoline!
Lunch on Dr. Isabel’s balcony from 12 – 6 p.m.
I and two friends cooked Lao food for them, they also liked it, they will visit Laos again and want to try Lao food again. Napha and Viengvilaiphone, they are from Laos, they are my colleagues, and we prepared Lao food for German Lao friendship feast in May 2019.
Ms Viengvilaiphone, Mr Napha, Mr Thaithanawanh prepare Lao dessert
The International Officer has organized many parties for us as the international student exchanges, I joint it many times,
grill and drink beer for farewell party
I was proud of having the Lao – German friendship feast, it really remarked that we are three Lao, we cooked Lao food and served for the guests to try it. They have said that they liked Lao food, and it was facilitated the location by Martin’s house, we really thank to him. During this time, all the guests come to the party with finger food, they brought the food for the grill, we all enjoyed having dinner and drinking together. This will memorize us forever.
The exchange students having the farewell party
Finally, I very much thank to host university (Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany) and home university (Savannakhet University, Laos) to have you both in supporting the Mobility Program to send the student and staff exchange for studying and training and teaching abroad with partner universities. I also want to thank all of you, the leaders of the universities and the responsible persons of the Mobility Program. Especially, thanks to Prof Dr. Isabel Martin, Associated Prof Dr. Sitha Khemmarath and Dr. Phetsamone Khattiyavong who worked hard and built this Mobility Program, and Erasmus Plus donor always support in quality service.
Text by T. Keokaisone
Photos by T. Keokaisone, N. Khotphouthone, C. Y. Lin & I. Martin
“There is a crack in everything…
… that’s how the light gets in.”
“Cracks” by M. Kuehnel (photo by I. Martin)
It took Cohen a decade to finish his anthem (“Anthem” by Leonard Cohen; lyrics).
We will also need time and patience. And a lot of solidarity and mindfulness, many examples of which are shining rays of hope through our darker thoughts every new day.
PH Karlsruhe and SKU had to interrupt our Erasmus+ Mobility programme – and got an extension for another year. Our campuses closed – so we are working on teaching online classes.
BHS and PH Karlsruhe asked our German volunteers and doctoral candidate Rebecca to fly home from Vientiane and Savannakhet on 15 March. Mme Engel flew back to Germany one weekend later. Doctoral candidate Ms Miaoxing stayed safely in house quarantine in Wuhan since 16 January. My own quarantine ended yesterday. We can go back another time.
“Keep calm and carry on” is the British slogan used in the Second World War. We can use it again: Stay in touch, stay at home to flatten the curve – and meanwhile, we shall be getting new posts ready for you!
Be well,
Isabel
Text & photo by I. Martin
Art work “Cracks” by M. Kuehnel (with his kind permission)
“Language Education and global citizenship” (5) – Learning the Lao language (ພາສາລາວ) (by R. Dengler)
Editor’s note: This is the 5th article in the “Language Education & Global Citizenship” series by Rebecca Dengler, a former volunteer (Team IV and Team V) and now doctoral candidate, and it is the second time that an intensive Lao language course was offered by our Lao partners at Savannakhet University (SKU).
“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”
― Frantz Fanon 1
Learning the Lao language does not only help me to communicate with people in Savannakhet who do not speak English at all, but it also helps me a lot to understand the local culture and practices. Language and culture cannot be separated. “On the one hand, language is used to express people’s cultural thoughts, beliefs and to communicate; on the other hand, culture is embedded in the language” (Hsin 2008, 2). Studying Lao made it easier for me to understand how to interact appropriately with people here in Laos.
The first times I came to Laos and taught at Ban Phang Heng Secondary School as part of Team IV and V, I did not have a lot of time to study the Lao language. I just picked up some words and phrases, like numbers and food items. This was very useful for buying food at the local market. However, it did not nearly suffice to apprehend the cultural concepts that come with a language. To learn the foreign language helps to understand the culture, and vice versa: Learning about the foreign culture helps to use the language successfully in the local context. Even linguistically correct sentences can still cause misunderstandings if they are used in the wrong context, situation, or way, or if the listener understands something other than you by the words you use. Language and culture are two sides of the same coin. They are inevitably connected to one another
The Lao ways of asking “How are you?”
When I first started to communicate with people living in Laos, I noticed that when we met they would always ask the same question first: “Have you had breakfast/ lunch/ dinner yet?” Also when Lao people text me, after greeting, they ask this question. I wondered if all the people were worried that I do not get enough food to eat in Laos. When I meet somebody, I usually ask “How are you?” first. Now that I can speak a little Lao, I noticed that people ask the same question in Lao first: ກິນເຂົ້າແລ້ວບໍ? (Kin khao leau bor?).
Learning more about the language and the culture helped me to understand that sharing food and eating together is very important to Lao people and a sign of their great hospitality. If somebody walks past you and you are eating, you invite the people to eat with you, no matter if you know them or not. That is why Lao people usually ask you “Have you eaten yet?” before you talk about anything else.
Lao – a distant language for a German learner
The Lao language could not be an any more distant than any of the languages I have learned before. Linguistic distance is the extent to which languages differ from one another. My native language is German, I studied English, Latin, and Spanish at school. However, nothing compares to learning the Lao language. Except for some English loan words pronounced in a Lao way, like chocolate, I could not guess any meaning. Lao and the other languages I learned before only have very little in common. It helped, though, that I studied other languages before. I already acquired some techniques that I know work for me when I learn new vocabulary.
Jasmin Unterweger, who was a part of Team VII, wrote a beautiful post about her Lao intensive course at SKU in 2018. It contains a lot of information and detailed explanations about the Lao language. The post is definitely worth a read before you continue reading this article. It will give you a lot of background knowledge about the structure of the Lao language.
In my first month here in Laos, Savannakhet University (SKU) offered an intensive Lao language course especially for me. I am at SKU on the first doctoral mobility in the Erasmus + project between SKU and the University of Education in Karlsruhe doing research for my thesis on “Intercultural barriers to language learning in ‘International course books’ in Laos“. On the Erasmus + mobility, also students and staff from SKU in Laos can come to Germany to study, teach or be trained there.
For one month I studied the Lao language for four hours per day, two hours in the morning and two more hours in the afternoon. I love learning new things, especially languages, so I was excited and eager to learn more. The Lao students coming to Germany also receive an intensive German course for the first months and further German lessons during the semester – and our two new Lao students for 2020 actually just started their German class.
My Lao teachers at SKU – Ms Khanthanaly and Mr Chanthalakone (he is in Karlsruhe now learning German)
Intensive Lao course
Ms Khanthanaly Panvilaysone and Mr Chanthalakone Souydalay, two English staff members at the Faculty of Linguistics at SKU, took turns in teaching me in the first month. I soaked up between 20 and 30 new words and chunks every day. Through a lot of repetition, mnemonics, and mental constructs I could remember most of the words. (Example: The official word for April in Lao is “duean mesa”. “Mesa” in Spanish means table. A table has four legs. April is the fourth months of the year.)
At first, we just practiced listening and speaking and I wrote down the Lao words I learned in some transcribed form, so that I could remember. I am a very visual learner. Taking notes and writing down words, to be able to see them, is very important for me to learn. When I just hear and speak, it is much more difficult for me to remember.
Little grammar – many classifiers
Compared to the other languages I have learned before, the Lao language hardly has any grammatical rules and the sentence structure is simple. There are no inflections, derivations, conjugations, or declension 2 in the Lao language. Even for the plural of a word, the word itself is not changed. If you want to make sure that your conversation partner understands you refer to more than one item, you just add “two of it” in the end. This is where it got difficult for me: To count items, different classifiers are used, depending on the item and its characteristics. For example, animals and things with legs are are counted with the classifier ໂຕ (to) whereas people are counted using the word. There are many more classifiers and it was very hard for me to understand the difference and learn them all. Until now I still cannot use all the classifiers correctly. There are too many different classifiers. Alone for counting things, there are more than 60 different numeral classifiers used in Vientiane dialect.
To indicate the tense, verbs are not conjugated, but time reference words like “yesterday”, “already”, “tomorrow”, or “now” are added to the sentence. For instance, the sentence ” I eat fish” in the past tense in Lao would be “I eat fish yesterday” and in the future tense “I eat fish tomorrow”. Another way to indicate time is to add certain particles to the sentence. Reversely, I now understand much better how hard it must be for Lao learners to form the correct English tenses (16 in total), especially to change the verb forms and not just to add another word to the sentence. If the context makes it clear already, the tense is sometimes even not indicated in the sentence at all.
Learning the Lao script
Learning to read the Lao consonants and vowels helped me a lot to understand the right pronunciation and write down the words correctly. The Lao alphabet consists of 27 consonant letters and 6 additional compound consonants representing 21 sounds. There is a variety of vowel letters as well, which represent 27 sounds.
Many sounds are produced differently than German or English sounds, and therefore they were very hard for me to pronounce correctly. In some cases, the tongue needs to be in different positions, and in others the sounds are produced using different speech organs, i.e. the throat rather than the mouth. Especially words which have a different meaning but only sound a little different are now easier for me to distinguish and write down. First, I felt like a first-grader again: Writing the symbols very slowly, following the sentences with my finger while analysing every single letter and then synthesising the sounds to words again.
After the month with the intensive language course, Mr Chanthalakone continued to teach me two hours per week. Now, through studying Lao, I gained a deeper understanding of the difficulties which Lao learners have when they study English. English for them is a language as distant as Lao is for me. I can also understand their shyness to speak English at first. I know that my Lao is far from perfect and I make many mistakes and pronounce words incorrectly. This often makes me feel uncomfortable and shy to speak in Lao. However, I have experienced that I can improve my Lao language skills a lot if I dare to speak in Lao, learn from the mistakes I make, and do it better next time.
Studying Lao consonants
Introducing myself in written Lao
Using the wrong tone
In pronunciation, especially the tones are still very hard for me to recognise and to produce. Since I have not been able to differentiate and pronounce all the tones correctly yet, it leads to misunderstandings from time to time. One time, I wanted to ask a girl I know who just came back from the market what she bought. So in Lao I said: “Jao seu nyang?” The word “seu” can have different meanings depending on the tone. If you use a low falling intonation (ຊື້), it means “to buy something”. If you pronounce it using mid tone (ຊື່), it means “name”. So instead of asking: “What did you buy? (ເຈົ້າຊື້ຫຍັງ?) I asked: “What is your name?” (ເຈົ້າຊື່ຫຍັງ?). The girl was very irritated at first because I already knew her name and then hesitantly she answered and told me her name again. I instantly knew I used the wrong tone and corrected my mistake.
In German and in English we use intonation on the sentence level, for example to mark statements or questions. When we form a question or we are not sure about our statement, we raise our voice on the last stressed syllable of the last word. In my Lao lessons, we often revise vocabulary or sentences and I have to speak them out loud. When I am not sure about the word or its pronunciation I automatically raise my voice in the end. This made me mispronounce so many words, because in Lao it then seems like the last syllable has a rising tone, which it did not have most of the times. My habit of raising my voice when I am not sure made it hard for me to pronounce words correctly. On the other hand, I think of a question or uncertainness when I have to pronounce a syllable with a rising tone and it helps me to pronounce this tone correctly.
Learning through all senses
Sometimes my homework for the Lao course included tasks like speaking with people and asking questions that I had learnt before. In the intensive course we did not only study in the classroom, but also went to the market to use the language. Another time I went with Teacher Khanthanaly to her relatives’ house to make Khao Tom (ເຂົ້າຕົ້ມ), which means “boiled rice”. I could have learnt about this word in the classroom. However, I would have never understood what is related to this word: The hard work of wrapping sticky rice and banana in banana leaves, tying it together tightly, boiling it in water covered with banana peel and more banana leaves, and the sweet taste finally when you can finally unwrap and eat the finished Khao Tom.
The process of making “Khao Tom”…
…wrapping sticky rice and half a banana in a banana leaf…
… tying everything together tightly…
… and the the finished “Khao Tom”.
This showed me again that there is much more to learning a language than just learning vocabulary by heart. As Frantz Fanon stated: “To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.” Language and culture are so closely interwoven that they can never be separated. When you learn a language, you should also try to immerse in the cultural context related to the language as much as possible to really understand not only the words but also the concepts behind it.
I experienced that people here in Savannakhet appreciate it a lot that I learn their language and engage with an open mind, ready to learn more about their culture as well. Through the language course and being included in so many activities here, I can more and more understand the language and the local customs. After 5 months in Savannakhet and learning a little bit more every day, I am able to understand a lot of spoken Lao, to chat informally in Lao, to understand how to address people according to their rank and age, to read and write short and easy sentences, and how to handle most of the daily encounters in the Lao language with people who do not speak English.
Therefore, I want to give special thanks to my two teachers, who taught me inside the classroom and outside, as well as to the many people who have encouraged me to speak Lao with them, who have overlooked my mistakes and tried hard to understand me, and who have spoken extra slowly so that I can understand them.
Text by R. Dengler
Photos by P. Visayxongkham, K. Panvilaysone & R. Dengler
Videos by I. Martin, M. Inthichak & K. Panvilaysone
Audio files spoken by P. Somsivilay
References
Hsin, C.-L. (2008). “Language and Culture in Foreign Language Teaching.” Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association New Researchers/Student Conference, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.
“Frantz Fanon” by Tracey Nicholls, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, https://www.iep.utm.edu/ (last accessed on 18 February 2020).
Notes
-
Frantz Fanon (1925—1961) was a psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique. He “was one of a few extraordinary thinkers supporting the decolonization struggles occurring after World War II, and he remains among the most widely read and influential of these voices“.) ↩
- Declension is the variation of the form of a noun, pronoun, or adjective so that its grammatical case, number, and gender can be identified. ↩
We are Team X – Introduction
Hello everybody, we are Team X!
Members of Team X: Lena Koch, Chelsea Hog, Christine Blersch, Celine Victoria Seeger, Morten Bilger
We are happy to introduce ourselves to you!
“We” stands for five students of Primary or Secondary Education at the University of Education in Karlsruhe: Lena Koch, Chelsea Hog, Christine Blersch, Celine Victoria Seeger, and Morten Bilger.
Three of us are still on our way towards completing our Bachelor’s degrees, one is a student in the Master’s degree, and one is a graduate.
We are all new to the project “Teaching English in Laos” and have been very motivated and eager to start our work there since we applied in November and got accepted. Just like our predecessors, Team IX, we also had three preparational workshops with Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin. We are happy that everything has gone so smoothly – from managing the dates of our workshops, booking our flights to Vientiane, sorting out our accommodation, preparing all relevant paperwork, and finding out what our work in Laos is going to be like.
This is us:
Team X.1 at the Lao-German Technical College (LGTC), Vientiane
Hi there!
My name is Morten Bilger and I am 23 years old. Just a couple of months ago I heard of this exciting project that has been running since 2015, which involves teaching, living, and learning in Southeast Asia. I was intrigued as I felt like this would be a great opportunity for a new hands-on teaching experience as I am currently studying in the Bachelor of Education Degree to become an English and history teacher in secondary schools.
To tell you a little bit about myself outside of university, I am an amateur photographer, hence my “Special Task” as a media manager and photographer for our team. Other than that I love travelling – it is through time spent in other countries that I began to really enjoy the English language, which is why I am passionate about teaching it. l also enjoy home-cooking in my spare-time, and I am looking forward to learning about the Lao cuisine.
The “Bi-directional learning and teaching project” in Laos is now in its fifth successful year, and I can happily call myself part of the tenth team with Ms Moukdala Keomixai as my tandem-partner. I am going to work at the Lao-German Technical College together with my teammate Christine and I cannot wait to throw myself into all of the experiences, challenges, and successes we are going to encounter along the way.
Hello, hallo, and sabaidee!
I am Christine Blersch – my friends call me Chrissy – and I am a 22-year-old graduate of Primary Education at the University of Education Karlsruhe. My subjects are German, English, and mathematics. I just recently finished my Master’s thesis and spent one exchange semester in Hungary. Therefore, I lived abroad during the last couple of months.
But as I have never been to Asia before, I am already fascinated by the idea of arriving and living in Vientiane soon. Thanks to Mr Napha Khothphouthone, who spent one semester in 2019 at the University of Education Karlsruhe in the Erasmus+ Germany/Laos Mobility Programme and for whom I volunteered to be a “buddy”, I got some insights into the Lao culture and how daily life in Laos differs from that in Germany. If you want to know more about his time in Germany I can highly recommend his blogpost “Frog in the well” – an ancient tale retold by Napha Khothphouthone. I got quite curious about the Lao culture, which I by far do not know enough about yet.
As the best way to get to know a culture is to live abroad and interact with the local community, I feel highly privileged to be part of the “Bi-directional learning and teaching project” in Laos. In addition, I am glad to get further hands-on experience while working at the Lao-German Technical College (LGTC) for the four upcoming months. As I recently graduated from the University of Education Karlsruhe, when I go home again I will start teaching English (and my other subjects) at a German primary school from 2021 on.
My German teammate and colleague at the LGTC is going to be Morten and my tandem-teacher is Ms Ketsana Siphonephath, who I am very excited to get to know soon. As a team we want to work on language and didactics together, getting our own inter- and transcultural tandem-experience and professional and personal exchanges as our very beneficial “upgrade”. Together we can grow and develop our teacher-personalities and focus on global education chances. In my opinion, in a world characterised by constant change, teamwork and cultural competences are one of the main future driving forces of the education system. Great help in working together as Team X will be the structuring of the group by different “Special Tasks”. My “Special Task” is preparing agendas for team meetings, writing the minutes, and taking care of the Didactics Room and Lending Library of the LGTC.
Team X.2 at the Vocational Education Development Institute (VEDI), Vientiane
Hello everyone, my name is Celine Victoria Seeger.
I am 23 years old and have just finished my 5th semester at the University of Education in Karlsruhe. I am studying Secondary Education, and my subjects are English and history. Last but not least, I also study in the Bilingual Profile, which means that I am doing some training to teach history to German students in the English language. I really enjoy being a student and being able to continuously expand my knowledge – I love to read as well – which is probably one of the reasons why I also truly enjoy working as one of the tutors for the “Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies” lecture. The latter is one of the first classes students of English have to take when they start studying English at our university.
From early February to the beginning of April, I will be working as a volunteer at the Vocational Education Development Institute in Vientiane together with my team colleagues Chelsea Hog and Lena Koch. I am lucky to have already collected some experience regarding living and working abroad: After graduating from high school, I went to Australia for half a year and spent the same amount of time teaching in a secondary school in Ireland in my fourth semester. However, I have never been to Laos or Asia in general before, so naturally I am very excited about going there, getting to know Lao people and culture, working for the project and professionalising myself! Finally, my “Special Task” will be to act as the blog mistress, which I am sure will also be very educating.
Good day everyone!
My name is Chelsea Hog and I am 22 years old. Currently, I am studying at the University of Education in Karlsruhe to become a future secondary teacher of English and history.
In my spare time, I love listening to music, going to the gym, swimming, and travelling. Since 2013, I have been teaching children in swimming – all this is happening in the “DLRG Achern e.V.” (German Life Saving Association, district Achern, in our federal state “Baden-Wuerttemberg), where I am also engaged as the youth leader and have the chance to continue my work as I got elected for another period of three years this January.
After a seven-month-stay in Australia, I realised how small my “cultural” knowledge still is – although I experienced quite a lot by living in Australia and meeting many people from all over the world. Consequently, I decided that I would like to learn more – and as much as possible – as Albert Einstein phrased it: “The only source of knowledge is experience.” Therefore I see it as a great privilege to work and participate in the “Bi-directional learning and teaching project” in Laos. Since I love to travel and have never been to any Southeast Asian country before, I cannot wait to experience the Lao way of life – and to learn more about their vibrant culture.
Together with Celine-Victoria and Lena, I will be working at the VEDI – the Vocational Education Development Institute in Vientiane. The three of us will continue the work of Team IX by working with our tandem-partners, observing and planning lessons together as well as offering English “Activity Time” for the students. In addition, it will be my “Special Task” to organise the team meeting and writing the minutes – this means that it is my task to organise and document the meetings we will have at the VEDI.
Hello everybody!
My name is Lena Koch and I am 24 years old. Since 2015, I have been studying at the University of Education Karlsruhe (“PH”, as we call it, stands for “Pädagogische Hochschule”, in English “Pedagogical University”) to become a teacher for secondary schools. My subjects are English and Catholic religion. This year I will finish my studies with a Master’s degree.
When I am not at the PH I like to do sports and also teach young girls and boys in gymnastics. Last year I gained my trainer licence for this sport. Three times a year we go to competitions, where I also judge the performances of the children. It is a great fun to teach the children new skills and to observe how they learn more and more over the years. For a long time I played the French horn. My favourite composition is the music of the movie “How to train your dragon“. The movie tells the story of a shy young Viking boy who actually needs to learn how to kill dragons but instead catches one and starts to train him.
Just like both my VEDI team members, between school and university I went to Australia for 8 months as an au-pair. To work as an au-pair is mainly interesting for young women or men who have just finished their school career and want to go abroad to live with a family for a longer period of time. The tasks are to assist the family in their everyday life like bringing the children to school, cooking, and helping with the laundry. If you are lucky – which I was – you become a real member of the family over the time. It was a great time for me which helped me to decide to choose English as my future subject because of the positive experiences with the language and the people.
One of the many things I learned in Australia was to be open and interested in people and traditions of other cultures. The “Bi-directional learning and teaching project” in Laos already raised my interest several years ago. For me it feels now like the perfect time in my studies to become part of this very interesting project. I am looking forward to meeting new people, getting to know a very different culture, and experiencing life at a Lao College.
In the upcoming months we are going to work together as a team, do tandem-teaching, and prepare workshops. Even though we cannot yet predict what we will experience, we are sure that it is going to be “simply beautiful“!
Text by Team X (M. Bilger, C. Blersch, C. V. Seeger, C. Hog & L. Koch)
Photos by M. Bilger
Laos Simply Beautiful – The Vang Vieng Challenge
Editor’s note: Our volunteer teams in the bi-directional learning and teaching project in Laos work hard, with a lot of verve and dedication. They study and learn interculturally, teach and tandem-teach, write weekly reports and blog posts, and carry out an individual “Special Task“. As the interviews with the returnees and their final reports reveal, they feel they have made significant progress professionally and personally through this project.
However, they also get time off to travel and explore Laos, a wildly beautiful country – so there is even more adventure and intercultural learning to be had in the process. Here is the account of Fabian‘s personal highlight.
My name is Fabian Stober and I was part of Team VI. When preparing for this adventure I started to look into activities and short trips that I could take during my time off work while in Laos. I found the following very interesting sites: Official Lao Tourism – website, 15 Best Places to Visit in Laos, Things to do in Laos.
I also came across this very nice video of an official campaign for the Year of Tourism in Laos 2018 to promote travels to Laos – and my special thanks goes to Ms Alexandra Bounxouei for kindly allowing me to use her video here:
There is also a whole Youtube Channel dedicated to this topic: Laos – Simply Beautiful.1
Once you start searching the Internet, you will find more and more videos that will fill you with wonderlust. During my search I stumbled across a tour called “Vang Vieng Challenge”. This seemed to be the perfect way to experience the vast Lao fauna as well as get some guaranteed adrenaline rushes…
Vang Vieng is a town in the north of Laos where the countryside starts to include mountains. It is about a six-hour bus ride from the capital Vientiane. Apart from activities in nature like hiking and zip-lining, the town and area around it are also very well known for river-tubing.
My teammate Julia Gruettner and I decided to take on this challenge, a two-day hiking/ zip lining/ abseiling experience. After one night in a hostel in Vang Vieng we were picked up by a very nice tuk-tuk, hammock included. We were dropped off at the tour agency and got our briefing for the upcoming two days. We had booked an open tour, which meant that other people would have been able to join us. But nobody else did – so we ended up having two tour guides just to ourselves, which was great.
Here you can have a look at the gradient of the tour.
Day 1 started with the hiking part of the tour, followed by the ascent to the camp for the night. After the first little mountain we hiked through a big valley, crossed fields and little streams – untouched nature and quiet at its best.
When the ascent began we got an idea why this is called a challenge. Within only two kilometers we hiked up 500 meters. The guides took care of everything. They brought lunch, kept warm rolled up in banana leaves. The leaves kept the food warm even after we had hiked for at least four hours – very impressive – so who needs an isolated bag or aluminium foil if you have those useful banana leaves! Also, they make a perfect plate and table cloth.
When we had eaten and strengthened ourselves again on this much-needed energy source, we did one zipline across a waterfall and onto the via ferrata (see picture below), which we climbed up to reach the camp. What a view from the top! After a little rest, we climbed up on the side of a 50-meter waterfall and did abseiling on the wall right through the water – what a feeling!
In the evening we enjoyed an amazing Lao dinner, freshly prepared by the guides, and we spent the night outside. It was so peaceful up there – and the sunrise on the next morning was spectacular.
When we had had a nice breakfast and packed up our hiking gear, we started our route back down. 11 ziplines later, and after some more abseiling and hiking, we arrived back at the starting point of our tour. Again the banana leaves proved most useful – before we left camp in the morning, our guide had prepared a nice lunch including rice and hot sauce. They kept it warm until we were back down.
We really had an amazing tour, a great adventure – and I highly recommend it. Laos has so much to offer and the only way is to jump right in and experience it yourself first hand!
Text & photos by F. Stober, editor’s note by I. Martin
Lao music video (with kind permission) by Alexandra Bounxouei
Note
1 Youtube “Laos Simply Beautiful” Channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvBqepTXV4g and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmdmo8QBMr0 (last accessed on 4 January 2020). Further videos to watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO33nx7Clw4 (Lao version) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pagU5-YKJ48 (English version).
“Frog in the well” – an ancient tale retold by Napha Khothphouthone
Frog in the well
Editor’s note: Mr Napha Khothphouthone went on a “student mobility” in the summer term 2019 in the Erasmus+ Mobility programme (2018 – 2020) between Savannakhet University and the University of Education Karlsruhe. He studied at the “PH Karlsruhe” for his Master’s degree for six months, together with Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone.
“Frog in the well” is Chinese’s story that describes an individual who cannot or refuses to see the big picture because of being sheltered and close-minded. It was always told by my mom and the story is not that far from me.1
When I was young I always believed that my home village and my family is the warmest and the best place in the world. Moreover I believed that Laos is wealthy of lives and landscape. My house was the great shelter of mine.
I was very scared and confidentless in the larger context, however. In my life I had never left my country when I knew that I had trip to Germany I was very happy, excited and nervous. I had never travelled by flight I did not even know how to check in the air plane so there were a lot of fear on me. Fortunately, I were taught by my father that “fear” is like a fire that can be light when we are in the dark, it make us warm when we get cold, It can cook us food when we are hungry. Nevertheless, it also burn us if we use it in the wrong way or out of our control. So thank you to the fear that forced me to read and learn how to get on the plane and overcome any fear.
Light at the end of the tunnel (original photo by M. Kuehnel)…
… and lots more outside
Being in Germany was not that easy for me because everything was totally different such as food, people, weather, or really everything about the whole culture. For example in Laos I do not know what I am going to do next week (even tomorrow) but in Germany I have to plan everything and carry my calendar all the time. When we meet people by chance on the way we know (without an appointment) we spend time to talk, but not in Germany because everyone wants to be on time and will just say “hi” walking by in the corridor. In Laos, in flat or house people willing to talk to their Neighbor, and doors are always open. In Germany the door is closed.
Fortunately, in the first few week there were many people help. My “buddy” (a student helper provided by the International Office) Christine Blersch to help me to settle in. I could consult Julia Friedl and Silvia Karnutsch from the International office for everything. Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin always kind to me and gave me advices and helped me to adapt to the new world and also Ms Beate Pinisch (Dr Isabel’s friend) lived in Laos 20 years and was also kind to help us settle.
Mr Napha Khothphouthone, Ms Beate Pinisch, Ms Viengvilaiphone Botthoulath and Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone (f.l.t.r.)
Mr Thaithanawanh Keokaisone, Ms Beate Pinisch, Ms Viengvilaiphone Botthoulath, Ms Isabel Martin and Mr Napha Khothphouthone (f.l.t.r.)
But luckily I am a biologist and have read the quote of Charles Darwin “It is not the strongest of the species that survives but the most adaptable” so I did not not refuse to apply this in my life’s new challenge. The best way of adaptability is observation. For example, in Laos we do not have train (tram), so it was not that easy for me to use them I did not even know how to open the door, I did not know where I should sit.
In the restaurant I did not know how to order food, in the market I did not know how to pick up the things that I need and did not to how to pay (currency was very confuse as well). So how could I survive? Of course I blended in and observed what people do.
I realised Prof. Martin has experienced the same only other way round when she came to Laos first. In my point of view it is nature of human have to survive by this way.
Every time I always keep in mind I am a student and I am now learning the life lesson I will take this six months to gain as much knowledge and experience as I can for new attitude. I tried my best to be kind with other people because I believe in the law of attraction: if I am a kind person I will meet a kind people, if I need a good friend I should be a good friend, if I want people smile to me I should give smile to them first. It seemed everything went very well with me. I success both inside and outside of university. At university and in my international student dormitory I met new friends from over the world (for instance France, Italy, Pakistan, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, USA. Iraq, and Mexico).
I knew so many cultural and kind of people and still keep contact with them.
Ann-Sophie Duppel, Christine Blersch, Clara Lipp, Napha Khothphouthone
Farewell Party with international friends
Football match between RC Strasbourg Alsace vs Maccabi Haifa in Strasbourg, France with Fabian Friedel
When I was in Germany I did not only learn from my partners but I also shared my culture, knowledge, lifestyle, thoughts, and experience with them for getting more global understanding and intercultural learning. For example the “Baci” (thanksgiving and well-wishing) ceremony is the most important ceremony of Lao people that is held in so many events for example: in wedding day, birthday, Lao and international new year, when someone in family leaving home or travelling… we do this to get the blessing from elder who passed. I brought this to share in the class and it seemed people like it.
The Lao good Baci example that I brought to the class:
Baci for my buddy Christine…
Show her where she will go when she joins Team X
Baci for Leona (Square Dance buddy)
Baci for Wei Man, Hong Kong student
Thaithanawanh does Baci for Jasmin (Team VII)
Lao postcards, Korean and Hong Kong students
Laos working station
New applicant for Team IX, Yvonne Jaqueline (middle) with Thaithanawanh and friend Lena
Svenja (Team VI) tells about her Laos experience
Another class sharing with students together with volunteers (Team VII)
Important words are part of the ceremony:
Last but not least, on August I had holiday, so I went to France, Italy and Switzerland it was the biggest trip to travel alone in my life and it was great. I swam in the sea was diving in mediterranean in southern part of France (Le Brusc. It is part of a bigger locality called “Six-Fours les Plages”) visited The Gothic Duomo di Milano and Eiffel tower, visited friend’s fimily (Mr. Julien Nignifo).
It was very funny how we became friends. On June 2016 I was travelling from Savannakhet to Tharkhek by bus and I saw him, he was reading a book. I wanted to practice my English so I suddenly came to him and began conversation. He is very nice guy we talked almost one an hour. Yes, he went to Tharkek to travel and I asked him to visit my rice field and he achieved. One day afterward, we worked together on my rice field. I showed him every process in producing rice:
Prepare and level the field…
… pull the young rice…
… tie the young rice…
… plant.
Carry on the tie of young rice…
… harvest the rice…
… and eat it for lunch in the hut!
He enjoyed it and he told me that he would like to come again to harvest the rice he had planted. Then 4 months later we meet again we still keep contact and the third time we met in Laos was in my wedding day, he was invited by me and my wife on May 2017.
Every time we met I said to him “ I will visit your family one day” and it finally happened in France in August 2019. We had very good time together and ate French breakfast.
I visit Eiffel Tower…
… the Gothic Duomo di Milano…
… swim in mediterranean sea…
… and have lunch with Julian’s family!
In Laos, I can not leave my hair long. But in Germany I never cut off my hair, so it can tell how long I were there, how much that I learned:
I was also very surprise when I saw the tale (Frog in the well) in Ms Martin’s office on her notice-board. Because I had never known that what my mom told in me in my childhood is spread over the world. Prof. Martin took photos, and I called and told my mom about that next days afterward.
Now I can say: “I am a frog out the well”
Out of the well!
Post by N. Khothphouthone, note by I. Martin
Photos by N. Khothphouthone, S. Khothphouthone, M. Kuehnel, I. Martin & J. Nignifo
Video by I. Martin
Note by the editor
1 We are all “frogs” until we venture into a completely new world.
Final reports of volunteers – new page!
We are happy to announce a new page1 on our “TheLaosExperience” blog and will conclude our very best Happy New Year 2020 wishes to our readers with some final reports of volunteers about our bi-directional learning and teaching project.
Lao craft in countless shapes and colours and patterns, Germanically arranged as reversed pyramid
The new page features the reports by the last two Teams VII and VIII. All reports – from Team I to Team VIII – are available as hard copies at the International Office of the Karlsruhe University of Education. The older reports will also follow on the new page in due course (with permission pending from the authors), and of course the newer ones as they come in with each new returnee team.
Through this blog, we have been contacted by a number of students and academics from other universities in Germany and elsewhere – Austria, Australia, Hongkong, Spain, Ireland, China, the Netherlands – who have expressed interest in participation or cooperation of some kind. Some of these contacts have invariably led to interesting new facets and ideas for the project as well as joint research and publications, which has started to make “TheLaosExperience” a truly global project indeed.
For this, many thanks to our new international partners for their interest and support, and, of course, to all our new and old Lao partners. We look forward to developing our cooperations with you – and to any interesting new cooperations that will appear on the horizon in 2020!
However, our biggest THANK YOU goes to all our teams of volunteers, without whom none of any of this would have happened. While we may provide the brains2 and the lungs, you are the heart of the project.
Happy New Year!
Isabel Martin & Johannes Zeck
Text & photo by I. Martin, new page by J. Zeck
Notes
1 “www.thelaosexperience.com” was launched on 10 October 2015 and features 58 pages, 301 articles, 5 feature videos, and 1 multi-media live documentation (Pageflow) with dozens of subpages. The statistics tool states on 31 December 2019 at 13:24 that the blog registered 271,346 users in 209 countries and 1,569,459 hits. Readers can subscribe to the blog and thus receive email notifications of new posts.
2 New academic research sub-page planned for 2020: Full texts of State Exam theses, Bachelor theses, as well as (links to) book chapters and articles written in this project.
Job-shadowing, lesson observation, joint research – by Viengvilaiphone Botthoulath
Job-shadowing of colleagues, lesson observation, and joint research at the Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany
Job-shadowing
“Hallo”! I am Viengvilaiphone Botthoulath, a lecturer at the Faculty of Food Science, Savannakhet University, Lao PDR. I had a “staff training mobility“1 under the Erasmus+KA107 for two months at Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany, this year. Dr Martin Remmele was my main partner for Job-shadowing at the Department of biology. And Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin was my partner for Job-shadowing at the Department of English.
As what I have learned from German teachers working styles, were
1) the way of managing schedules in teaching,
2) doing research in social aspects,
3) and a collaborative meeting management style.
At the PH Karlsruhe, there is no official time for working as in Savannakhet University, Lao PDR (from 8:00 am – 4:30 pm). German university lecturers can go to work any time depends on their teaching or meeting schedules or own decisions and they often continue work at home late at night or weekend.
The teaching management of German teachers’ style is depended on the subjects and also the student levels (Minors or Majors). I have joined the biology class of Bachelor and Master, which was under Dr Martin Remmele.
Participated the biology Bachelor class under Dr Martin Remmele
Job-shadowing on guiding Master students with Dr. Martin Remmele
This class is provided students to work in a squad to observe and identify the morphological characteristics of trees and also organisms. Then, students had to describe the unique characteristics incorporated the information with a biology book in order to get the answers. I really like this style of learning because students can study in both theorical and practical in simultaneously and have to find answers themselves but are always guided.
School lesson observation
Furthermore, I also had a chance to join the observing and evaluating internship2 students every Thursday. I, Mr Napha, and also Dr Remmele were sitting in the back of the class to observe his students teach secondary school pupils in biology. They way of internship students teaching, they will prepare activities such as question sheets, working in a group, pictures, or videos to teach pupils in the class rather proving pupils just read in a book.
It was really impressed me that young German children are very active and make competitive each other to answers questions, they are not afraid to discuss or share their ideas. I observed that they will always rise their hands for answering questions. After finishing class, Dr Remmele (who is the person responsible for those internship students) will make reflection and comments his students to improve their efficiency in teaching. This brought me to take the techniques to develop my class in Savannakhet University.
I also had a chance to visit, observe, and evaluate internship students (English class) with Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin. From here, I observed that her students have always prepared well on their lessons and also pupils in grade one or two had interact with the lessons well. The way of their teaching is that they focused only on speaking rather than reading or writing. In the class, instructors set the rules, which is showing England’s flag means children can speak English only. Only sometimes student-instructors showed Germany’s flag means allowing them to speak German and explained more the next activity (this got criticism in the evaluation feedback later). They also showed pictures and let children repeat a new English word in many different fun ways. I am really impressive with this style of teaching and learning. It is no doubt that is why German students good at English speaking skills.
“Weather” images are used to reflect attentiveness in class.
Good-bye rhyme ritual for English lessons…
… performed by Rebecca Breitinger: “till then, penguin”…
… “see you soon, racoon!”
Another new experience in the job-shadowing at the Department of English under the Prof Dr Isabel Martin. In her course “Global English(es) and Global Citizenship Education”, I also have learned a lot, in particular academic English since everything is in English and there are multiple nationalities in the class including German, Lao, American, British, Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean, Polish, Italian, and Greek.
Some of the class students with me and Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin in the middle
In the second half of the course students can present their topics fitting in with the syllabus and share the ideas toward the issues of the topics and also international students can even share topic relative to cultures of their countries. As for Lao PDR, many people have no idea where is Lao PDR located in the part of the world.3
From this point, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin for inviting me to participate in such a wonderful class because of her so I could stand on the stage on 13 May 2019 to introduce about Lao PDR to the world:
Participated in English class to introduce about Laos to multiple-nationalities-students
Prof Martin asked me to…
…surprise-teach Lao traditional dance to her class…
… and Mr Thaithanawanh helped me!
… and here you can view our dance with Lao music:
Joint research
Moreover, I also have learned how to make questionnaire’s survey online with “LIME” tool for our collaborative research on “Students’ perception of native insects in rice field in Laos and attitudes towards species management”.
In this research, we made questionnaires online survey to investigate the perception of 8 insects’ species in rice field in Laos by 280 interview students in Savannakhet University, and their attitudes towards species management, either with or without information about the respective species.
This research showed us that students at Savannakhet University have known a lot on how to identify native insects in rice field, but they still lack of knowledge on how to distinguish between predator or insect pest in the rice field. This indicates that students still have poor skills in applying their knowledge gained from the class to the practical field.
This research was a primary data revealed that Biology in education at Savannakhet should be developed more in practical applying. Also, our research contributed to International Symposium4 at Savannaket University on 11 October 2019.
This reveals that Erasmus project is not only provided knowledge on exchange cultures, exchange researchers, or exchange students among countries, but it also supports academic research aspects.
Conclusion
Through the Erasmus project supporting, I have fulfilled my dream and opened my eyes to European countries. I have gained a lot of experience during my two months there. I also have enjoyed a lot with German people, they are friendly and have a very warm welcome.
A hike in the Black Forest with Dr Martin…
… and a multiple-course meal at Dr. Isabel’s house, with Ben Martin
They even organised a wonderful Friendship Feast before I went home.
Again, I would like to express my sincere thanks to both Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin and Dr. Martin Remmele for giving me such wonderful and unforgettable memories in KarIsruhe, Germany. Also, special thanks to Savannakhet University for trusting and giving such a great opportunity for me. Without the support by the two universities, this mission could not have been completed.5
Text by V. Botthoulath & notes by I. Martin
Photos by V. Botthoulath, N. Khothphouthone & Y.J. Muss
Notes
1 There are three types of mobilities in the “Erasmus+ Mobility Programme KA107”: Student mobility, staff training mobility, and staff teaching mobility. For our collaborative project, we use all three kinds on both sides. “Students” receive less per diem than “staff”, but they get special student rates on public transport, can stay in a (cheap) dormitory, and they are enrolled at the receiving institutions for a whole semester to earn credit points in different classes. Additionally, they get a 1-month intensive language course and more language classes during the semester. Staff receive a higher per diem, but do not get any special rates or languages classes, and they cannot stay as long.
2 “The Integrated Semester Practicum” (“ISP”) is one distinctive feature at a German University of Education. Most German universities offer teaching degrees, but these have rather low prestige compared to the “pure” sciences, and many professors would not be interested in integrating didactics or methodology into their repertoire. The five Universities of Education in Baden-Wuerttemberg are an exception and focus on teacher education – the most precious raw material in this country is, after all, perhaps the brain matter of the next generation.
This means, amongst other things, that our students do three long (mentored) internships. The second one is the ISP: Students spend an entire semester at a school and are mentored by a specially trained teacher there. Additionally, their university mentor visits for one morning each week and watches 2 classes taught by her or his group, after which there is time for another two hours to discuss the lessons in detail.
After the ISP, students have a realistic impression of their future profession and a solid basis for their second teacher training phase (which comes after their studies and takes another 18 months). The advantage of doing the ISP in the 4th or 5th semester is evident: Students discover early enough whether they are suitable as future teachers and can change track if need be after completing their Bachelor’s degree.
3 True story told in my class with much verve by Ms Viengvilaiphone, causing an outburst of hilarity: “When I first arrived, the funny story happened to me in the immigration police in Frankfurt, was that the police checked my passport and asked for the Visa page since they did not see it and I also tried to show them, but they did even regardless my explaining. They kept on discussing in German without telling me what’s happening. I was trying to ask them what’s happening here Sir/ Madam. The words I got from them was only ” You wait!” After 30 minutes passed, they finally found the Visa page and asked me ” where are you come from??” Lao PDR, I said. They kept asking me again” Where is Lao PDR located?” Then, I told them that Lao PDR is close to Thailand or Vietnam. They still misunderstood that I came from Thailand! In the age of Internet! I wanted to tell them go ask Professor Google!”
4 International Symposium “Internationalisation of Higher Education and Sustainable Development” on 11 October 2019 at Savannakhet University. Detailed reports – the Lao perspective and the German perspective – will be published here shortly.
5 Congratulations from the editor: “You did it”! And you even learnt to call in my Square Dance class!
“Certificate” at the end of “Square Dance Calling” workshop, with Caller Andreas Hennecke (middle) and Ms Viengvilaiphone (low row, second left)
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