By Melissa Jensen
In July 31, 2017 I became the Grade 7-12 teacher-librarian at the Canadian International School (CIS) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I took a leave from my current teaching position with the Simcoe County District School Board. My husband and I packed up our life in Barrie, Ontario and settled in Vietnam in mid-July.
One of the reasons I chose teaching is that I can teach anywhere. I participated in a teaching exchange as a classroom teacher before but never as a teacher-librarian at an independent school. This was also my first time as a high school teacher-librarian.
CIS is an independent school that uses the Ontario curriculum and all of the Canadian teachers hired are OCT (Ontario College of Teachers) qualified. I became the Grade 7-12 teacher-librarian for approximately 400 students in our K-12 school. The school employs a K-6 teacher-librarian and a Vietnamese library assistant to round out the library team to support 1000 students and approximately 100 staff.
My Experience was Rich, Rewarding and Challenging
The students, my colleagues and the administration were all team-oriented and want to the best for kids and took pride in their work. Being a teacher in Vietnam is a well respected position. This year was the 60th anniversary of the national Teacher Day. I felt valued, appreciated and useful here. I was able to co-teach with most of the high school teachers which was rewarding and I also looked for opportunities to making cross panel collaborations.
Many Vietnamese families did not grow up with access to books so there is little awareness of the importance of daily reading time at home. The development of a reading culture was our biggest priority which guided all of our activities in the library.
Developing a Culture of Reading for our Students
We developed a more relevant collection of books for our students to reflect our students’ ELL needs as well as their interests. We added a lot more high interest low vocabulary books to support our younger readers as they were building their fluency. We used a selection process and worked hard to access quality English resources and deselected outdated works. We also added some ebooks to diversify the format for our readers.
One of our big successes was the implementation of the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading program. Our students were able to vote for their favourites at the end of April just like the thousands of students in Ontario. We were one of a dozen schools who participated in the Ontario-based reading program while being outside of Canada!
Receiving the books via shipping container required purchasing the books in October and then waiting until the end of January to receive them. Over 400 students read books from the Blue Spruce, Silver Birch and Red Maple nominated titles each year.
Our hope was to create excitement around reading and to introduce our students to Canadian authors. We connected with several of the authors via Twitter and email and it really helped our students get excited about reading.
We also invited one of the Silver Birch nominees, Helaine Becker, to our school to speak. Most of the students had never met an author before and it created a lot of excitement. More than 200 students had the chance to see her presentation and ask her questions about her writing and her career as an author.
As an experienced teacher-librarian I was able to mentor some of my colleagues but I also learned new ideas, skills and insights during this new international teaching experience. There were a few big ideas that I will bring home with me to my next teaching position.
Organizing by Genre Helped Our ELL Readers
I “genrefied” my small YA fiction collection in my second year. I found that the students were able to find more books independently and it provided a discussion starter for me when they could describe a genre of interest. Since the students are not familiar with a public library, or specific authors I decided that I should organize novels like the book stores instead. It worked well as more students signed out books for pleasure than the previous year. It helped me to see where there were gaps in our collection as well.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Programs Support School Libraries
The IB organization is an ally of school teacher-librarians. They encourage all IB schools to include teacher-librarians in planning and provide professional development to improve the teaching of inquiry skills. I was the Extended Essay (EE) coordinator for the International Baccalaureate diploma for my students. I connected with other EE supervisors and coordinators in the city and I enjoyed helping students to find the reliable resources for their inquiries. Although the IB role was new to me, what I needed to do for the school and students fit perfectly with our Canadian standards document Leading Learning. I feel that teacher-librarians are well represented in the international schools. I met several collaborative and talented teacher-librarians as I participated in professional activity days and conferences.
ELL Students Need More Time and More Diverse Reading Material and Formats
I marvelled at the literary achievements of my students daily as their oral proficiency in English was excellent. We focused on improving their writing skills and critical thinking skills in content areas. Matching students to the “just right “ book was even more important to encourage their ability to think deeply about social justice issues. Many times students needed scaffolding to help them to understand context. For example, it is very challenging to read a Canadian context filled novel when you have no cultural context.
Leadership and Impact
I feel that I made a positive impact during my time at CIS because I helped to streamline some of the policies and practices for the incoming teacher-librarians which is important since teachers move on every two years. I also felt that I made the collection more relevant to the needs of these third culture students. I found more realistic fiction that reflected their lives and interests and greatly increased their access to Canadian literature. Circulation of books increased because I made sure that I sourced books that students wanted to read.
I was also a key leader of school plans to develop student digital portfolios. I wanted to students to create a positive digital presence and record their achievements over time. Many of these students will have rich portfolios when they apply to post-secondary schools. We implemented digital portfolios for Grades 7-10 which students will continue to improve upon them as they mature.
Teaching at an international school was a very positive experience as my colleagues were eager to co-teach and I learned more about IB, high school courses and ELL student challenges. We were able to learn more about our students because our class sizes were small. Teachers are called by their first names which I felt created a closer relationship with students. I felt we learned a lot more about our students than I am able to do in Canada. I will miss being called Ms. Melissa!
Personally, we also learned a lot. We did not learn the very complex Vietnamese language as we were embedded into the privileged life of an expat. This was the first time that I lived in a place where I was illiterate. This made daily activities challenging and the simplest tasks often required patience and perseverance to complete. Misunderstandings were common and I grew to realize that many of my students and their family members in Canada must feel this way. I believe that living in another culture has changed my perspective.
Although we were a long way from home we still felt connected via social media apps and our family members came for visits so we were able to enrich their lives as well with our move to Vietnam.
We explored seven different countries and took 44 flights during our time away. It was an unforgettable experience both professionally and personally.
If you have not considered teaching internationally I encourage you to consider taking time now or shortly after retirement to give it a try. It was a unique opportunity to live as an expat and experience a country as a resident rather than a tourist.
Melissa Jensen has been a teacher-librarian since 2001 and lives in Barrie, Ontario. She has actively participated in the provincial Ontario School Library Association as a council member and as president in 2017 to develop advocacy goals and resources for schools. She has presented at OLA, ETFO (Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario) and OTF (Ontario Teacher Federation) conferences to advocate for teacher-librarianship. Follow her book blog for great reads. about.me/jensenmelissa/