Sep 18, 2007

Learn

Students who have signed up to participate in our service 'Learn' presented a demo on Sunday afternoon in front of a panel of Vietnam residents, all foreigners. I wasn't sure what to expect - and we started badly with heavy rain delaying the start. Location was hardly perfect and we had to wait for it to subside as the tin roof just above wasn't conducive for presentations.

Now, in Gladiators style, students......ready?

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Visitors......ready?

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Our group, these from RMIT University, started with a presentation on Vietnamese history, from long, long ago until today. Nguyen headed this one.

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It became apparent there were some mistakes in the presentation, this being the first time we'd all seen it, me included. Of course Nguyen was disappointed and understood the need for historical facts (especially dates) to be absolutely spot on. One thing the audience did like was the fact that they heard about recent Vietnamese history from a Vietnamese perspective. A slightly delicate situation maybe, all my guest were American and it only dawned on me a little late. We moved on to the food demo.

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Thao showed the audience how to make spring rolls with pork, vegetables and fish sauce, then invited them up to try it themselves.

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After this, our latest star Vu from International University gave a presentation on TET holiday, with some interesting background and legend (Vu I do have a picture just at home, I will edit it in later...).

The concept of 'Learn' is one I am determined to work with. I like the idea of a one hour workshop which includes these presentations and demos. There are some practical difficulties with Learn however. The content is no problem, it can be refined and perfected, and the students are so enthusiastic. The difficulties I see are these:
  • It is not worth doing unless there are at least 8 people signed up for a session, therefore we need to target tour groups rather than independent travelers. However, I'd love to offer it to anyone at a daily time.
  • We need a better location than present. The roof was leaking.
I thank you.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We enjoyed the enthusiasm of your presenters and learned a few things, too. I didn't time the presentation, but I think it was quite a bit short of an hour. So you have some room to add some stories to back up the Powerpoint slides. As for a location, I would think you would want it closer to Pham Ngu Lao in Q.1, but that would probably raise the rent considerably.

Anonymous said...

I do like Learn either, which inspires me a lot. I'm considering more topics for my presentation in the future.

I also agree that 1 hour is quite short, and we should present to a group of 8 people or so per time. And we will let them ask questions (if they have) during the presentation instead of waiting till the end.

I like the word "star" you used to show me (^_^)hehe, I hope it makes sense by trying my best. And by the way, where is my photo ^_^

Anonymous said...

I note Mel from Antidote was also there, hope you guys had an awesome session. nice!