SCHOOL QUITTING OF CHILDREN

To implement the agreement between VietNam Government and Unicef organization on protecting and taking care of children, in recent years, the Ministry of Education and Training has promulgated many social policies in order to socialize education, and ensure children in ages of 6 to 10 going to school.
- The state has many concrete solutions such as: building solid schools, supporting textbook and not getting school’s fee for the children who are living in remote areas …. As a result, the rate of children going to school has increased in recent years.
- However, the rate of children’s school quitting in large cities like Ho Chi Minh city is increasing. In order to understand this problem clearly, local authority carried out the social investigation in suburban area such as Củ Chi, Cần Giờ districts.
- The results of the investigation indicate that almost children left school are living in poor families at the moment. Their parents have not enough money to support children’s learning. In some special cases, the children have to work in order to earn money for their families. The concrete jobs of children are to sell lottery tickets, to clean bowls in restaurants, or to clean cars …
- On the other hand, there are a lot of poor families immigrating to large cities to look for jobs. The parents haven’t got stable jobs and often change accommodation. This reason badly influences to their children’s learning.
- In general, there are many objectives or subjective causes to lead to children’s school quitting. Nowadays local authority has made more effort to build night affection classes, to find out stable jobs for parents, to encourage children to go to school ….
- Besides, city’s leaders are listening to and receiving your recommendations in order to solve completely the matters which are mentioned above./.
Questions:
1. Do you know anyone quitting school?
2. Why did they quit your school ?
3. What do you think of the situation mentioned above ?
a. Is it a hot issue now? Why?
b. What impact might have for children on their future life if they quit school?
c. What are the impacts of this issue on society?
4. Have you got any suggestions to the local authorities to solve this issue?

MOM – I LOVE YOU

Did all of you know that last Sunday is mother’s day? What do you think people usually do on that day? In Vietnam, I think we don’t have mother’s day actually. However, as affected by western culture, some of us now start to celebrate mother’s day. People usually buy gifts or flowers and then send them with wishes to their beloved moms.
But it doesn’t mean that we just love and show our caring for our moms on that day only. You can do it anytime. Sometimes, it doesn’t need to be a gift or roses. Your simple caring such as talking with them can make our moms happy.
Talking about that, sometimes I feel myself guilty. Sometimes, we treat others nicely at work, at school because we don’t want to un-please our co-workers or our friends. And what do we treat our family, our mom? When we come home, we easily get mad with our mom, our family. Is it fair? Honestly, I was in that situation. And I figured out that it is so unfair. Your family, your mom is the ones who love you most. They are the ones who are by your sides when you are down, the ones who bring you up every time you make mistake. I did make that mistake. But mom did forgive me as always.
I still remember that my family has run through the hard time. It almost went bankruptcy. In order to save my family, she had to work really hard and did a very hard job. Sometimes because of being so tired and worn out, she cried and wanted to give up. But she knew that crying could not help it better. Then she stopped crying, stood up and moved forward. That not only moved her forward but also moved my family forward as well. Just imagine that everything is like a devastating mess in front of you, and you are about on the edge, front of you is deep abyss, only strong will could help you going through of that.
Now everything is getting better. But I can not forget those days. My mom not only teaches me how to be a good person, but also how to deal with hard time in life. Thank mom for all of that.
That is my mom. So why don’t you tell me about your mom?
Questions:
1. How old is she?
2. What does she do?
3. Where was she born? Where is she living now?
4. What reasons that make you love your mom?
5. Do you have any memory between you and your mom that you remember most?
6. Have you ever made any mistake that sadden your mom? What is it?
7. What did you do after that?
8. Does she have anything that you don’t like? What is that?
9. Do you think what she expects/wishes from you?
10. If you can do one thing for your mom, what would you do?
11. Do you know what she worries most now? Why is that?

VACATION AND TRAVEL

It is very interesting if you have a nice vacation. That means you can go a place which you like. Everybody usually spends their vacation with their friends or family. What do you do on your vacation? You will go fishing or stay at home to relax or make a travel? Can you share it with us?. For me, I decided to spend my vacation with my friends at BuuLong tourist area. There is an interesting camping with many games.
On a vacation, everybody always has a plan to travel. Travel is very popular nowadays. You can travel by air ,by car, or by train, etc...For some people, there is nothing like travel by air, it is more comfortable, more convenient and of course far quicker than others. It is actually cheaper than going by train and ship, considering what you save in hotel charges or sleeping carriages on the train and in meals, taxis.
For others, their favorite transportation method is by car. Travel by car can give you more personal experience, by which you can drive yourself as slowly or as fast as you like, stop whenever and wherever you like. Then, of course you can see so much more of the country than you do in a plane.
However, there are people who are interested in travel by train. By train, you seem to have all : fastness, comfort, and pleasure. You can go faster than by car and see more than by plane. By car, you have to pay attention of driving and so are unable to see the scenary landscape along your travel. However, if you travel by train, you have a spendid view of the whole countryside from the comfortable seat of a railway carriage.
So you can choose the method of travel that suits your taste to give you most of pleasure.

1. Where did you have your vacation?
1. Where did you have your vacation?
2. How long did you stay there?
3. How can you get there?
4. Who did you go with?
2. Can you tell us some your unforgettable memory in your vacation ?
3. How many much money that you spend for travelling per year?
4. What interesting things did you explore during that trip?
1. Food? Peopole? Habit? Accent?
5. Is there anything that you don’t like about that trip? What is it?
6. What kind of transportation do you like? By bus, train or airplane ? Why?
7. Which one do you prefer : travelling abroad or domestically? Why?
8. How many countries/places have you been? Which one do you like most? Why?

How To Stay Healthy

Health is a very precious thing that any of us wants to have. That is the reason why health always comes at first when people make the wishes for their beloveds. Without health, you can not work well. Without health, you can not do what you want. Without health, you don’t feel fresh and healthy to enjoy life.
Just remember how it feels when you are sick. It is such a terrible feeling. Your headache almost blows the brain up. Your body hurts. You keep throwing up whenever you eat some things. And I am sure that at that time, you don’t need money at all. You don’t need anything else except health.


So health is important. But what should we do to get it? There are some popular ways. The most popular way is to do exercise, at least 3 times a week to burn the calories and keep yourself in good shape. Jogging is one of recommended exercises for its simplicity and effectiveness. Or you should have healthy menus for your daily meals. That means less/enough fat and more vegetables. I say less fat, not less meat. J Another way to have a good health is to keep your mind fresh and carefree. Some people are so stressful at work or school which makes them always nervous and unhappy. You should put them aside when you get home then you can enjoy life and stay healthy.

I guess that you have your own way to keep yourself healthy. Please share with us.
1. How are you today? Do you enjoy Sunday morning?
2. What did you have for breakfast today? Do you think it is enough energy for you to discuss topic this morning? J
3. Do you think health is the most important?
a. If yes, how important it is to you?
b. If no, please tell us why? And what is the most important thing to you?
4. Do you think you are healthy now? Why?
5. What do you do to keep you healthy?

Internship – A Step Into Career

As students, before graduation, it is required for all of us to take 2- month internship at least in a company, research institute or laboratory to get an insight of the job that you are about to work in future. It also helps us to explore and understand deeper about how things we learnt in university are applied in reality. This is also a chance for you to collect all information that might be useful for your thesis that will be coming right after internship. Generally, it is a milestone step that connects your studying in school and your future work.

However, you might face with some difficulties during this internship. Firstly, you need to adjust your schedule to fit with working hours which normally start from 7am till 5pm. To work at 7 am would be a terrible thing for those who normally have classes in the afternoon. And you will have to get used to with working 8 hours continuously with a short lunch break instead of your leisure time before.

Secondly, you need to adapt with new culture where relations are getting more complicated. You need to build your new network/relationship. And you will get used to that you will have a boss/coach and other colleagues.

Thirdly, another difficulty that you might face is how you can get coach from others and learn as much as possible during the internship. Some of my friends complained that they didn’t have many things to do and learn during this time. To me, it depends on many factors. Your coach is possibly too busy to coach you. Or he/she is not willing to coach. You are not well preferred in that group due to your poor communication.

So those are just some difficulties that you can face during the internship. But some of my friends still enjoy it very much. How about you guys?

1. What is your major?
· Where did you have the internship?
· When was that?
· How long did it last? Do you want to extend or shorten it? Why?
· How did you get that internship? From your school? Friends?
· How many days a week do you have to go?
2. Did you get paid during the internship? What do you think if they don’t pay you for the internship? Why?
3. How was the internship? What did you learn?
4. Did you receive much coaching during that time? Why? What happened? What did you do?
5. Did you have any interesting things during that time? What are they?
6. Did you have any difficulty? What happened?
7. Do you have any advice for students?

HOW IMPORTANT AN INTERVIEW IS

Most of people try to develop their life everyday. That is the reason why they attend colleges and universities to improve their knowledge and get career.

With high education, they hope that they can get good jobs to earn much money and support their life. Job/career is important. But before you get a job, firstly you have to pass the interview which is more important.
No matter what school you went to, no matter what your careers are, no matter how much experience you have, no matter who you know-if you are not able to have interview successfully, you will not get the job. Passing an interview is not difficult, but you have to know some tips. The best way to know those tips is to get experience from the people who have passed several interviews. So, why don’t we get those tips now by discussing each other?

Questions:

1/ Have you ever had job interview?
2/ If yes, when was it? What company did you apply for? What job? What was the result?
3/ In your opinion, what do you have to prepare before attending an interview?
4/Do you think that you should do something to make a good impression for interviewer? Why or why not? If yes, what should you do?
5/Should you show your abilities during interview? Why? And how?
6/ What do you think about body language in an interview? Does it give any help for your success?
7/ Salary is important part during interview. Should we ask for salary higher than we aim and then we can negotiate down later?
8/ How do we know our proposed salary is not too high that make us less competitive than other applicants? What weapons/rationales do you have on hand to persuade that you are deserved that level of salary?
9/ What are common mistakes that interviewees normally make during the interview?
10/ By the end of interview, what should we do? What information should we get?
11/ Do you know who is ‘head- hunter’? Can you name some popular head hunter agency now that you know?
12/ Do you think they can help you to have an interview? How can we contact with them?