Long-Term Posts in Vietnam (Updated January 2007)

An Giang University, a relatively new university located in the city of Long Xuyen, is VIA’s first post in the Mekong Delta. There are approximately 3,500 students and 300 staff members. The rector of the university is a well-known figure throughout Vietnam, especially in the field of agriculture. Agriculture is an important field of study at AGU, especially given that An Giang province grows a large percentage of all crops (rice and other) in Vietnam. Students at AGU are mainly from rural areas in the Mekong Delta. Many of these students receive scholarships to attend AGU and will return to their hometown as teachers after graduation.

Role: English Teaching. There are 350 students in the English department and about 35 staff, six of whom are foreign teachers from VIA and other organizations. The VIA volunteer at AGU mostly teaches speaking and listening. A volunteer will also serve as an “activities coordinator,” supervising the English club or assisting with weekly movie nights.

Housing: The volunteer is housed on campus in a guesthouse for foreigners. Outside, a volunteer might encounter students playing badminton or studying quietly in the shade. Just beyond the guesthouse gate, throngs of students are walking to their next class or rushing off campus to grab a quick bite to eat. The city center is a short 15-minute bike ride away.

Place: Long Xuyen is the capital of An Giang province with a population of 200,000. It is located by the Mekong River Delta, six hours from Ho Chi Minh City and three hours from the Cambodian border. Long Xuyen is a small but busy and bustling city, in a relatively isolated region of the Delta. The foreign teachers make up the entire foreign population and few tourists visit Long Xuyen. The Mekong River, which runs through An Giang province, is one of the last pristine rivers on the earth and the delta region is abundant with minerals and nutrients that are great for shrimp and catfish farms. The culture along the Mekong is also very unique with floating markets and a slow, relaxed pace.

An Giang Dong Thap Alliance for the Prevention of Trafficking (ADAPT) is an on-the-ground trafficking-prevention project that has been operating along the Vietnam-Cambodia border since 2005.  ADAPT is a collaborative effort among the Pacific Links Foundation, the East Meets West Foundation and the International Children Assistance Network.  ADAPT seeks to prevent the trafficking of young girls and women by enhancing their educational attainment and improving their vocational choices through a supportive web of services including scholarships, vocational training, and reintegration program.

Role: English Teaching/English Resource. The volunteer will work closely with ADAPT staff to edit and create field reports and publications. The volunteer will also teach English to the staff. Advanced Vietnamese language skills are required to work effectively at this post.

Housing: The volunteer will have a room on the second floor of the ADAPT office, where Vietnamese staff also live. Kitchen and bathroom facilities are shared with the Vietnamese staff. Meals are often cooked and eaten together with the staff.

Place: See An Giang University above.

Can Tho University is one of VIA's neweset post, with our first two volunteers arriving there in September 2006. Established in 1966, Can Tho University is the top university in the Mekong Delta serving students from 13 provinces of the Delta. Can Tho University is comprised of 9 colleges and schools and offers 57 fields of study for undergraduates, 15 for Master's, and 5 for Doctoral degrees.

Role: English Teaching. The volunteer will split their time teaching English courses at a university department to be determined at the Center for Foreign Languages (CFL). At the CFL, the volunteer will also help develop/improve TOEFL and IELTS curriculum or teach classes to the Mekong 1000, a provincial project to prepare high-level officials for study abroad. A volunteer with a Master's degree or related education background may be asked to teach Master's students in the English program.

Housing: The volunteer will live on a campus designated for foreign and Vietnamese teacher housing. The two VIA volunteers will share a small house with one other foreign teacher. The housing is located on a main thoroughfare in Can Tho, a 2 km bike ride away from the main campus.

Place: Can Tho is the largest city in the Delta and the fifth largest city in Vietnam. It is modern and bustling but offers many rich cultural sights and experiences unique to the Delta due to its central location there.

Role: English Teaching. The volunteer will split their time teaching English to government officials at the district and provincial levels. Most of these officials are at beginning to low-intermediate English level. This post requires an extremely independent, motivated, and mature candidate. The volunteer is expected to evaluate the needs of the different constituents, assess their levels, recommend a schedule/structure, and design course curriculum. The volunteer will also have the opportunity to learn more about Vietnam Plus projects and accompany the staff on site visits to outlying areas of Hau Giang Province.

Housing: The volunteer will live in a small rented house in the community to be agreed upon by the volunteer and VN Plus. This house may be shared with another VIA volunteer or local Vietnamese.

Place: Long My is a small district, population of approximately 100,000, in the newly formed Hau Giang province. Long My is an underpopulated and rural area where most Vietnamese rely on fishing for their livelihoods. Long My's center consists of a few small streets, a market, and some shops. There are no other foreigners living in this area and practically no foreign tourists visiting. This post will allow for a complete immersion experience. On some weekends, the volunteer may take trips to nearby Can Tho (2 hours away) or HCMC (6 hours away) paid for by VN Plus.

Role: English Teaching. The VIA volunteer will split their workload between the English department and the newly formed department of Social Services and Community Development. For the English department, the volunteer will teach courses such as Listening/Speaking, Writing, Reading, and Literature - and may also conduct English workshops at satellite locations throughout Southern Vietnam. For the SSCD department, the volunteer will teach English to the new staff and students of this department. These courses will focus on English for Community Development and require a background in social work, social services, or community development.

Housing: Volunteers at Dalat University live in a foreign guesthouse on the edge of its hilltop campus. The city center is a 20-minute bike ride through the university gates and down the hill.

Place: The city Dalat, formerly a French hill station, is a scenic retreat from the hot weather of southern Vietnam. Dalat is well known in Vietnam as a honeymoon destination, and is one of the best places in the country to sample fresh fruits and vegetables from the mountaintop farms. Foreign tourists are increasingly attracted to Dalat for its burgeoning adventure tour industry. There are a great deal of famous and beautiful pagodas, lakes and parks there. It is also one of the only places in Vietnam where everyone wears sweaters on a daily basis. There are mainly two seasons, dry and wet, and the temperature and humidity rarely ever meet levels found in the rest of the country.

Role: English Teaching. The volunteer will teach first- and second-year English majors (there are only two classes as of Fall 2006), young English department staff, and team-teach non-English majors with Vietnamese teachers. As the English major is brand new, the volunteer is expected to have some background in education so that he/she can help with capacity building. This will include designing materials and tests, teacher observation and feedback, and conducting teacher workshops. The volunteer will also coordinate the campus English club.

Housing: The volunteer is housed on the campus in a dormitory for foreign and young Vietnamese teachers. The dormitory looks out to the back street of the campus, which is bustling with student life.

Place: Nha Trang is a scenic beach city and the capital of Khanh Hoa province. While a tourist destination for Vietnamese and foreign tourists, the city maintains a slow pace. The campus overlooks the beach and is a short 4 km bike ride away from the central area.

Role: English Teaching. Volunteers teach students of all ages and disciplines, some from the University and others elsewhere in the community who seek to improve their English. Classes are generally small in size (approx. 20 students per class) and take place in the evenings and possibly weekends.

Housing: Volunteers live in a private home provided by the Centre for Continuing Education located 20-minutes by bicycle from the campus.

Place: Danang is the third largest city in Vietnam and attracts large groups of Vietnamese tourists but few foreign tourists. It is a seaside town located along the 17th parallel, where the country was divided into North and South. Danang is quickly developing, with larger roads and new buildings being constructed on one side of the river and a new community of Danang-ans moving to the other side. Danang is also a busy port city and is slated to become the gateway to central Vietnam.

Role: English Teaching. The volunteer will teach students in the new College of Foreign Languages and possibly students in the Talented and Gifted High School Program. Past volunteers have taught Listening, Speaking, Writing, Pronunciation, and Public Speaking.

Housing: The volunteer has his/her own guestroom on the top floor of a dormitory with other foreign teachers. Across the quad, another dormitory houses Vietnamese and Cambodian students. Classes are taught a 20-minute bike ride away.

Place: Hue, the ancient imperial capital of Vietnam, attracts many foreign tourists but maintains a small-town feel. Containing the old citadel, imperial tombs and hundreds of pagodas, Hue is an ideal place for those interested in Vietnamese history, religion and culture. Hue is home to seven universities, so the city is regarded as youthful and scholarly in atmosphere. Students fill riverside coffee shops and university libraries while market vendors drive a hard bargain at the famous Dong Ba Market. Hue has a cold, rainy winter season and an hot and humid summer season.

Role: English Teaching/English Resource. The volunteer will have experience with teaching, developing curriculum, and working with children. The volunteer will teach English to children of the shelter and low-income children from the surrounding community. The volunteer will also be expected to find or develop a progressive curriculum that can be used after he/she leaves.

Housing: The volunteer has a small guestroom on the bottom floor of the classroom building at the shelter. The shelter is comprised of two buildings, the classroom building and the children's building where the children sleep. The shelter is surrounded by rice fields and is a short bike ride away from the main street of Hue city.

Place: See information for Hue University.

The Hanoi School of Public Health was founded in 2001 when public health was a relatively new discipline in Vietnam, particularly in the training of undergraduates. Previously the school had offered degrees in health management since 1960. HSPH offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs and currently has about 1000 students enrolled. HSPH is considered the leading public health research center in Vietnam as has played a significant role in organizing the Vietnam Public Health Association.

Role: English Teaching. The volunteer teaches English for Public Health to undergraduate and master's students in public health. With the right background, the volunteer will also be asked to coordinate and teach refresher workshops to teachers at secondary medical schools from all over the northern and central regions.

Housing: The volunteer receives a housing stipend and is responsible for finding his/her own housing.

Place: Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, is well known as strikingly beautiful and politically and culturally fascinating. Housing its national museums, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, and the majority of the country's academic think tanks, Hanoi is a city with a rich cultural past and bright developmental future. Hanoi's old quarter, in which each street is named after the good historically sold there, is lively, crowded and scenic. Hanoi's old winding streets are packed with people, motorbikes, and things for sale, a center of life and activity. Hanoi is a city of constructed and natural lakes, adding to its aesthetic charm. With most of its streets lined with trees and many parks and waterways, the Hanoi resident has many ways to cool off in the hot summer months. Rainy and chilly in the winter, blossoming trees in the spring, hot and humid in the summer and pleasant in the fall, Hanoi is one of the few areas in Vietnam which enjoys four distinct seasons.

The Hanoi University is one of the top educational institutions in Vietnam. HANU provides training in 11 languages and has approximately 50 staff and 1000 students. The VIA volunteer teaches courses as assigned by HANU from September through March. From, March through the end of the year, the volunteer teaches an intensive English language program sponsored by the Ford Foundation.

Role: English Teaching. From March - September, the volunteer teaches Ford Foundation fellows who are carefully selected to participate in an intensive training program in which they prepare for study abroad. During the rest of the year, the volunteer may teach English in HANU's other programs and departments. There is also a special need for teachers qualified to teach business, financial management, banking, journalism, anthropology, development economics, American studies, library studies, computer or international relations.

Housing: The volunteer receives a housing stipend and is responsible for finding his/her own housing.

Place: See information under Hanoi School of Public Health, Hanoi.

Role: English Teaching/English Resource. A volunteer at this post will teach English for Agriculture Economists to researchers at CARES who must write their research papers in English or apply for international scholarships and study abroad. Depending on his/her experience and interest, the volunteer may also aid in research and economic analysis of current or proposed projects and accompany CARES researchers on field visits.

Housing: The volunteer lives in a on-campus guesthouse for foreigners. The volunteer shares a house and common areas with other researchers or teachers at the Hanoi Agricultural University.

Place: The University is located in the Gia Lam district of Hanoi and is approximately a one-hour bus ride from central Hanoi. The area surrounding the University is teeming with student life with small shops, student eateries, and internet cafes. The location of this post offers a volunteer a unique opportunity to have a small-city experience while living close enough to Hanoi proper, to easily visit on the weekends.