Teacher Blog

January charity update

In November 2010 Apollo offered me the chance to reach outside the classroom and give the teachers some fun opportunities to help the community...

Roy's thoughts on Da Nang.

It gets hot in Danang, but it’s not the hottest place and you learn how to live with the heat. It’s the end of July and the weather seems not quite as hot. We don’t work in the heat and that’s great. Work is work but I can very honestly say that working here beats what I used to do, so I find very little to complain about. Our lives are what we make of them, so I choose to see the positive. As we work through the heat in our air conditioned office here on Quang Trung street we look from the rooftops and into the sky and it not too hard realize just how nice it is.

Greetings from Andrew in Ha Noi

What a difference 2 hours makes! It is a little under 2 hours on the airplane from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon for us Westerners) to Hanoi. 2000 kilometres, 2 hours later, and somehow-a lot hotter.

How is that possible? I lived for just over 3 years in Saigon, and it was time for a change. Vietnam is infinitely interesting and a lot different than the 5 years I spent in Taiwan.

The time passes quickly and now I have a few more gray (or white) hair. Some are from the stress of daily living and definitely some of that stress-most of that stress-is from simply crossing the street or riding my bicycle along it. Busy. Always busy, and then a truck honks, a scooter loaded with produce or a family (of about 5) swerves towards me...another gray-white hair! 2 hours is the time for one class at Apollo, with a short break halfway.

30 minutes is my bike ride time, 5 minutes to cool down with some cold water and at least five minutes to find my folder for class. There are lots of classes, lots of teachers and lots of folders...

Hello from Ho Chi Minh City

Three days ago I celebrated my 2^nd year anniversary in Vietnam. It was two years of fun and among the best years of my career life as ELT practitioner.

My name is JC, not from King Juan Carlos of Spain, just JC. I grew up in the Philippines and spent 26 years of adventure with my dad, a clergy and English major. I’ve probably inherited this nomadic attitude from him as I enjoyed the times we moved from one parish to another but that was not the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. I moved with my wife and two kids to Vietnam two years ago. I had a thriving school business back home then but with this undying hunger for adventure, I came to Vietnam and got a job on my seventh day of stay in Saigon.

Greetings from Da Nang.

I looked at jobs all over the world in EFL and decided on Asia. I wanted the best and most efficient introduction to my newly chosen career field and found the CELTA to be the best course (neither of my degrees are in Education). I sweated and waded through all that was required and got the certification.

I am incredibly happy I did! The CELTA gave me 90 percent of what I needed to do this job—the other 10 percent comes from your heart. That being said, the CELTA is by far the best prep course for teaching English here.

It’s respected all over the world and backed by Cambridge. This is important because the Vietnamese government is rightly very strict regarding who teaches here and a real CELTA makes getting that valued work permit (and staying) easier.