Goducate used to hold
weekly Happy Happy English (HHE) classes for foreign workers in their
dormitories. After these classes stopped, the ex-HHE students and teachers met
up monthly for lunch, chats, and some games based on conversational English.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic led to restrictions on movement and gatherings,
so these meetings had to stop.
However, on June12, when the workers were still confined to their dormitories, we met up on Zoom. Naturally we could not have lunch together then, but the Zoom meeting enabled us to catch up with the ex-students, and to have an enjoyable time with them over the chats and the quizzes.
In January this year Goducate started to teach English in a foreign workers’ dormitory in Singapore. The majority of blue-collar foreign workers live in huge dormitories, each housing several thousand workers. These dormitories are generally in isolated areas, away from where the locals live. There are over 40 such dormitories in Singapore.
The program is called Happy Happy English. It is aimed at teaching the workers functional English and giving them the confidence to speak it, but importantly it is also intended to make them feel welcome and happy. They come without their families and generally burdened by huge debts due to the fees they have to pay their agents to find work for them here. Over here, not only do they live in out-of-the-way places, but their long hours of work and low wages also add to giving them little chance of moving about much and getting to know the locals. From the feedback we have received, it is the friendliness they have experienced that they value most about Happy Happy English.
Late last month, Goducate introduced the program into a third dormitory. We began with two stage shows to give them an idea of how fun-filled the classes could be, followed by an orientation class before lessons proper.
We hope that this program will continue to make their lives better and happier.
Last week our partners from Vietnam visited the Goducate Training Center (GTC) in Iloilo. The first thing they did was to give us a lesson in resourcefulness. We had been misinformed about the time of the arrival of their flight, and so were not at the airport to meet them. With no fuss, they just checked on Google Map to find out where we are located and were able to direct the taxi driver to GTC.
The goal of their visit was to look for potential English teachers for Vietnam. They were able to observe the kind of training that GTC provides. They also watched how the trainees performed in delivering speeches during the English class, after which they interviewed those who performed well. They were amazed to find out how Filipinos just love other cultures and are willing to adjust to new environments. They were also able to visit the city and some of the campuses where our trainees do their practical work.
From their interviews our Vietnamese partners think that our trainees could make a huge impact on the lives of the Vietnamese, so they have requested for 5 teachers of English by September. Our challenge now is not only to get the trainees ready to teach English, but also to help them understand Vietnamese culture, acquire a survival level of Vietnamese language, and how to get about in Vietnam—on motorbikes, which is the main means of transport there.
We have lost no time in rising to the challenge. The motorbike has been bought!
