Children study at a free Vietnamese class in Malaysia (Source: VNA)Kuala Lumpur (VNS/VNA) – TranThi Chang, president of the Vietnamese women’s club in Malaysia, was worried about the fact that more and more Vietnamese children were growing up in the country, but there were no Vietnamese class for them to learn their mother tongue.
Efforts by Chang and several members of theclub resulted in the first free Vietnamese class that opened last October inthe living room of a flat on the second floor of the Pangsapuri Permai Puteriapartment building in Selangor.
Teaching language-teaching culture
On a sunny summer afternoon, nineVietnamese children, some mixed Vietnamese-Chinese or Vietnamese-Malaysian, sataround a big table in the living room. Hands on the table next to theirVietnamese textbooks, the five- to eight-year-olds looked attentively at the teacher,Pham Hong Lam, who was explaining the lesson on a white board.
Truc Linh, the class-flat’s owner, said the90-minute language classes are held twice a week. One class usually starts at2.30-4pm for some 13 students unable as yet to read and write Vietnamese, andanother class of about eight to 10 more advanced students runs from 4.30-6pm.
Lam is a volunteer teacher along with sixother members of the Vietnamese women’s club in Malaysia. They help the twopaid teachers, who used to be teachers of the Le Hong Phong and Trung Vuonghigh schools in HCM City.
The class is supported by the Vietnamese Embassy in Malaysia, and Vietnamese parents buy the textbooks. Most of thevolunteer teachers are educated women who had good jobs in Vietnam, but had to leavetheir careers behind to move with their husbands who went to work in Malaysia.
“The teachers here used to work as doctors,professors, teachers back in Vietnam. Hence we get together to teach Vietnameseto the children, so that the human resources are not to be wasted,” Lam joked.
Lam and her family have been living abroadfor nearly a decade, three years in Canada and another six in Malaysia.
“I have two children. My elder daughter isnow a college junior while my son is in high school. The daughter can speakVietnamese fluently, but not the son. That is what I regret,” said Lam, who wasthe former laboratory manager of Nike in Vietnam.
Lam believes teaching the Vietnameselanguage also means teaching Vietnamese culture to the children. “The childrenalso get to wear ao dai (traditional dress) and sing traditional Vietnamesesongs during festivals and events,” she said.
There has been a sharp increase in thenumber of Vietnamese coming to work in Malaysia, most of them are manual workerswho hardly have time to teach Vietnamese to their own children, Chang said.
“The preservation of the mother tongue inthe Vietnamese community in Malaysia has yet to receive proper attention,despite the fact that language is one of the most important connecting linksbetween a generation of young Vietnamese born and growing up overseas and theculture and traditions of their home country,” she added.
According to the Department of OverseasLabour Management, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese have worked in Malaysiasince Vietnam started sending workers there 15 years ago, at times reaching upto 130,000.
Vietnamese parents’ support
Nhi Ca, a mother of three from the coastal central province of Ninh Thuan, is married to an oil company worker in Malaysia. Theirtwins were just two years old when they moved there. Another daughter was bornin Malaysia, and after six years there, the three were barely able to read orwrite Vietnamese.
“The children can only study ininternational schools in English. I decided to take the kids here (to theVietnamese class) so that they can use Vietnamese to talk with theirgrandparents and read Vietnamese fairy tales and books when they come back to Vietnam,”Ca said. “After taking the class, they now can write, listen and understandVietnamese much better.”
Another Vietnamese mother, Chau Thi Diem Kieu,also took her two children to the class. The kids, 11 and nine years old, wereof Vietnamese-Chinese origin and attended a Chinese school in Malaysia.
“At school, my children study threelanguages: English, Chinese and Malay. Though their study schedule was sotight, I still decided to let them take the Vietnamese class so that they won’tforget their home country’s language. My husband also supported the decision,”Kieu said.
Truc Linh, owner of the house where theclasses are held, says the classes sometimes disturbed her family life but thedemand and the necessity were so high that she could not refuse the Vietnamesewomen’s club request to borrow her living room.
More and more parents are asking to sendtheir children to the class, Linh said, but her living room is not largeenough and the study materials are limited. “We hope to receive more supportfrom Vietnamese agencies and kind-hearted donors to be able to expand theVietnamese class to other areas in Malaysia in order to sustain the Vietnameselanguage and culture for a younger Vietnamese generation,” Chang said.-VNA
VNA
