Do, Huy

Professor Howard
CRN 31207
Memoir - Portfolio Draft
05-02-2016
My Superman English Tutor
How hard can it be to learn English in Vietnam? You will be surprised to know that only
half of my class passed the midterm exam when I was in middle school. I was one of the students
who got left behind when English became one of required courses. Luckily, I found an English
tutor who not only brought me back from the dark abyss of failure, but also made me one of the
top students of my English class.
In Vietnam, Mathematics and Literature are like king and queen. Every student focuses
on studying those two subjects. English just started becoming popular in recent years. When I
was in 6th grade, English started becoming a required course. I hadnt known that English existed
until my teacher introduced it to the class. Some of my friends started chatting about how cool it
was going to be if we learned English. The others didnt seem to be interested. To students like
us, new course meant more homework. Most of the kids at that age dont like to do much
homework. I was in the middle of those two types. I felt excited because I might able to speak 2
languages. How cool was that! Yet, I was afraid of doing much homework because I was a lazy
kid.
At that time, there werent many experienced teachers in public school, or I am just
making up that excuse for my laziness. Like other 12 years old kids in Vietnam, I played games
with my friends, watched cartoons, and slept a lot. I still did homework, but I did it really fast
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and carelessly, so I could have more time to hang out. Sometimes, I did my English homework at
other courses time when I got to school. I thought everything would be fine if I kept it that way,
but I was wrong. One day, we learned about structure Why dont you and how we had to add
the verb after that. Unfortunately, I was called to come in front of the blackboard to write an
answer for an exercise. When I stood there, my mind went blank. I overheard some little voice
from my friend told me to use normal verb in simple present. That could be the answer for my
question, but I didnt even know how to make a simple present sentence due to my laziness. My
hands started shaking a little bit, and my sweat came out of nowhere. I wish that I could fast
forward that moment. I got back to my place with my teachers unpleasant voice and a bad grade.
That night, I felt really ashamed of myself and decided to look for an English tutor class. My
moms friend knew a great tutor near her house. His name is Mr. Duong. My dad dropped by that
place on his way back home after work to sign me up for class. My dad said that I would have a
test on the first day and the class started at 7:45. But something wasnt right about the time, we
didnt know until later.
The first day to my tutor class, my dad gave me a ride to my tutor class. I jumped off my
dads motorbike and walked into my tutors class. I felt really excited because I was going to
meet new friends and learn to improve my English skills. I thought I would be the earliest
student in his class, but I wasnt. My tutor sat near the main door. His class was also his house.
He used his yard as a classroom. It might be a yard, but it still had roof to cover when the rain
came. I walked in and told him my name with a smile on my face. That smile didnt last for a
second after he said I was 30 minutes late for class. I was paralyzed. I couldnt think it was
possible for me to be late. I thought I was 15 minutes early, but he said I was 30 minutes late. He
asked me why I was late. Luckily my dad was still there. My tutor said the class started at 7:00,

but somehow my dad got it wrong. He couldnt let me in class because I couldnt get to class on
time for the first day. My dad seemed really upset and asked him was there any way I could get
into class. Since I missed the first test, he could only let me get in the C class which was a
beginner level class. I was fine with it because I didnt have any basic English knowledge
anyway.
Since I was late for the first day, my second day of the class became my first day. He had
strict regulations in his class. At the beginning of the class, we had to do a vocabulary check. In
this class, he required students to buy 3 books which were vocabulary book, grammar book and
practice book. At the beginning of the class, we would have a vocabulary check based on what
we learned in vocabulary book. The way he checked our vocabulary skill was really interesting.
He had a vocabulary check book which were 300 pages of printed paper per book for each
student. In that book, he numbered each Vietnamese words. We read Vietnamese words and then
wrote down English words in our notebook, but it had to be the same word from the vocabulary
book. He only gave us 15 minutes to do it, so we had to do it really fast in order to keep up with
time. After 15 minutes, he told us to put away our blue or black pen and left the red one on our
table. It was weird for the first time but this technique changed my way of thinking later. We
could only use the red pen to correct our mistake. He told us to do that so no one could change
their answer. For each of our mistake, we had to write it 20 times in a different notebook, and we
had to turn it in on the next day of class. Lets call it penalty notebook. So if we didnt study
anything, and the test had about 50 words, that would be a 1000 words penalty. He would call
our parents if we had more than 10 mistakes, so no one would go that far.
Some of my friends had a trick. They swapped the ink of blue pen and red pen, so they
could cheat. They called it ghost pen. But my tutor was like a superman, he could see through

their small trick like nothing. He could even find where they hid the ghost pen. It seemed like
he knew this trick for a long time. For the cheater, he had a special punishment. He made the
cheater stand up and hit their palms with two small bamboo sticks at the same time. He didnt put
much force in hitting them, but the small sticks made their palms felt numb for a while. After
seeing all of his punishment I was afraid and followed his regulations obediently. I didnt want
him to call my parents because my dad would be so mad and would hit me hard if he knew I
didnt do well in class.
During the time I was in Mr. Duongs tutoring class, I had many mistakes in my
vocabulary check tests, but I followed his regulation strictly. I rewrote each mistake 20 times. At
first, I felt that it wasted my time. I even had to spend my recess time at school writing those
mistakes down. I used to hate it so much, but the more I wrote, the more my vocabulary
increased. I didnt realize it until I volunteered to read and translate a paragraph which no one in
my class could do. All the words started making sense to me. My friends in school often asked
me to translate words between English and Vietnamese for them. It was like something got into
me. I wasnt the lazy kid who skipped his homework anymore. I still hanged out with my friends
and played games, but just after I finished my homework first.
Thanks to Mr. Duong, my laziness seemed to be gone, and my English started improving
significantly. I could form sentences with any tense. My vocabulary knowledge increased more
and more. I realized all he did was making us work hard in our English. His punishment was
motivation for a person like me. He showed me that if I worked hard, I could achieve anything
through his teaching method. Every time I pay him a visit, we keep talking about my first day.
The day I was late. The day I met Mr. Duong. The day my life changed.