For some of you who don't know, I am forced (yes forced) to join this IELTS Speaking Club every Saturday morning. Why forced, you ask? Well, it's another story which I prefer not to talk about at this moment but you get the picture.
Anyway, what I like about this club is its academic focus and good organization. When we go to, let's say, the English Club in Youth Cultural House, the discussion often revolves around personal matters: our jobs, our families, our dreams, our plans...things like that. The YCH club does give some hands-out with a topic, but nobody seems interested and just goes on with their ''getting-to-know-each-other''. The reason, I suppose, must be there's no one to guide them through the papers. In IELTS club, the getting-to-know part only takes a few minutes and then we change into group and public discussion. The environment is also less noisy, which is a huge plus. In YCH, it's like The Voice Vietnam (lol) where everybody tries to shout the hardest so other people can hear what they're saying, pretty bizarre environment for speaking.
Our topic this morning was Cheating, a pretty standard choice for IELTS practice. I must say I had a good time discussing this seemingly-mundane issue. We also digressed a little and discussed Vietnamese education system as well as VN decision to limit the opening of some majors (banking, business, finance...) due to imbalanced supply and demand. I myself received plenty of criticisms from other members when I said that business requires more skills than knowledge, judging from the fact that some businessmen are extremely successful despite having next to no education.
About the members there, I was particularly interested in a girl in my group. She had a good accent, and a pretty broad vocabulary for a Grade 11 high school student. There was also a girl with a distinctive British accent. I swear I had met her somewhere, probably in Challenge E or some English oratory contests. But grabbing my most attention was an oversea student from Australia. His name was Huy, if I remember correctly, and I love his accent (among other things). He was Mr. Bao's (the club organizer) younger brother , and I think his ability exceeds Mr.Bao's (not that Mr. Bao is any special to begin with).
Tomorrow, I'm going to the Labour Cultural Palace to join the English Club there for the first time. Looking forward to writing a review on it. For now, I'm going to sleep, bye bye :P.
3 comments:
Seems like you're travelling here and there :)) When and where is this held?
It's held every Saturday and Sunday morning, from 9AM to 11AM, at IELTS Saigon Cafe (14 Ky Dong St.). Yeah, I'm free on weekends so I often go to these clubs.
i am just wondering if the club still going? Thank you
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