I had a fun time!!!!
I honestly thought that taking extra language classes after my regular school day was going to be the most boring thing in the entire world, but studying Vietnamese at LTL Language School in Saigon turned out to be the absolute highlight of my week. When my parents first signed me up, I was picturing a super strict classroom where I would have to stare at a giant textbook and repeat grammar rules until my brain turned to mush. But it was nothing like that at all! My teacher was this really cool, energetic girl who instantly made the classroom feel like a fun hangout spot instead of a boring school. I was super nervous on the first day because Vietnamese sounds really hard with all the different tones, and I was terrified of sounding silly when I tried speaking. But the second she walked in, she just had this super bubbly and hilarious personality that made me actually want to pay attention. She realized right away that sitting still and just reading pages wasn't going to work for me, so she completely changed the way I learned. The whole process was so interactive and packed with so many activities that I usually forgot I was even studying. Instead of giving me long, boring lists of words to memorize, she used the most amazing flashcards to make everything stick in my head. She would bring in these huge stacks of colorful flashcards and we would all make our own flashcards as well. Every time we had to learn a new word, there was a cute or funny drawing to go with it. Because I am a very visual person, seeing the pictures right next to the words helped me memorize them so much faster. I never had to go home and stare at a boring vocabulary list because I could just close my eyes and remember the funny cartoon on the flashcard. She even let me make my own flashcards sometimes, and I would doodle my own little pictures on blank cards with colorful markers. She totally encouraged it and would help me come up with silly ways to draw the new vocabulary words. It made learning the words feel way more like working on a fun art project than actually doing homework. She was always coming up with creative mini-games to make the learning process feel super exciting. We played so many different mini-games that the time always just flew by. One of my favorites was saying a word at the same time as the other, if got different answers we have to make sentence with it. I had to shout the word out loud with the perfect tone to keep the points and to make sure the other said the same thing. Sometimes we played memory games where she would say a word and the rest has to repeat and add more words after, we eventually forget most of them at the end because there were too many , but it was good for the brain to memorize them this way.something using only the Vietnamese words I had already learned. We even played mini-games to help me get the hang of the crazy tones. She made learning fun ! We were constantly laughing, and she never made me feel bad if I forgot a word or messed up a sentence during a game. If I got something wrong, we would just giggle about it, and she would shuffle the flashcards and let me try again. Because of all these fun methods and mini-games, my brain just absorbed the vocabulary so naturally. I actually know how to speak quite a bit of Vietnamese now, and I can confidently order my own drinks or buy my own snacks at the convenience store near my apartment. The whole learning process at LTL was just incredible because my teacher put so much effort into making sure I was always engaged, smiling, and actually enjoying myself. If you are my age and your parents want you to learn the language without feeling like you are trapped in summer school, I really recommend this place because you will end up having the best time while learning so much. Cảm ơn cô rất nhiều ! Cảm ơn LTL