STORY TELLING – Mohammed Salah

Challenge & selection

I am a language lecturer in a university in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. I teach  English preparation courses and Business Communication. My students are  Vietnamese, 18-23 years old.

When I have Business Communication classes with senior students, some of  them seem to lose their interest and energy in learning. When talking with  them, and read their writing, I figured out that they are worrying a lot about  their chosen major may not be their best career potentials. This group of  students have completed some but not all subjects of their chosen major,  some of them have finished On Job Training semester (internship). They find  difficulty in adjusting to the working environment, or doubt that their ability  and career interest may not fit the job. For example, an IT senior student  learning Software engineering (to become programmer) want to change to  game designer, or a senior Business student majored in Marketing wants to  change to Graphic design.

There is not a problem for them to request the university to approve their  wish to change their learning major, but it will cost them at least 1 more  year to study the new major again.

When dealing with these young fragile people, it is very challenging because  more stress or pressure on them may affect their learning quality and  attitude toward school. The worst is that they may quit school. Therefore,  talking to them in academic way is not suitable, I chose story telling to help  them feel better.

Application

I have a story to tell them and share their worry. Once they open their heart  to share their worry with me, it is a very good chance for me to share my  story too.

In about fifteen to twenty minutes after lesson finished, I started to share  my experience in worry and doubting about my career choice. I honestly told  them that teaching is not what I learnt in university, and it is until the 3rd job  switch that I found my most suitable job, but nothing guarantee that I will  stay in teaching until retirement. The students listened to me open their  hearts more to their study, that a university degree does not decide their  future career in one specific job, and do not limit what they can do.

After that sharing, some of my students asked for a tea time with me in the  university cafeteria and we shared more about job switching and career  orientation in stage of life. During the talk, they felt more less reluctant to  change and showed a growth mindset to open new opportunity coming to  them, as well as willing to learn more ad scare less. They also found out that  the worry they were experience was normal in their age.

Insight

I believe that I had made a correct decision to share with my students about  my career life. It is not scary to show people the past and actually, I was very  happy that my story – just in 15’- was so much helpful to my students.  Furthermore, the sharing time brought us closer that supported our learning  a lot. My students became more opened to study, in class discussion and  actively feedback, asking for support academically and personally. This  definitely made their student life easier, so do my teaching life.

I have become more opened to my students and found myself a more  helpful person, the class become so much more emotion connect. Our  connection become stronger and I believe that we still be in positive and  supportive relationship even after they graduate.

Approach

After that day, I found more interesting stories that related to student life,  worry, stress, etc. to share with them or take them as example in my lessons.  As a result, my lessons have gained more attention from my learners. Also,  my sharing will be in talking, movies, or invite guest speakers to do more  story telling to my students.

