HANOI, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Each Tuesday, 79-year-old Nguyen Thi Loc joins a bunch of grey-haired college students to check English at a home in Hanoi, with the goal of socialising and preserving her mind sharp.
The casual courses are free and are taught by Phung Thi Yen, who educated as an English instructor however at present works as an workplace employee.
It comes as a rising variety of scientific research present the advantages of studying a language to keep up and improve cognitive skills, together with for senior residents.
Loc has by no means studied a international language earlier than, however along with her newly acquired abilities she chants in refrain along with her classmates: “By no means too outdated to study English”.
They learn out loud, repeat after the instructor, and sing songs to attempt to good their pronunciation – one of many hardest elements of their work.
“The tongue twisters, phrases with muted letters, phrases that now we have to twist our lips to pronounce: these items are very troublesome for us”, Loc says.
Yen, 30, arrange the courses 4 years in the past with the goal of giving the aged a spot the place they may meet, socialise and study one thing new. The aged in Vietnam usually stay alone or with their youngsters slightly than in retirement houses.
Together with her employer’s assist, Yen takes day without work her day job to show Loc’s class and a number of other others. She and her group of volunteers are at present instructing 200 aged college students.
Yen says her college students are working arduous to study the language. English is Vietnam’s mostly taught international language after having change into a compulsory topic in school within the Nineties.
“These grannies have been attempting arduous and made lots of effort to get to the place they’re now. On the very least, they’ve constructed for themselves a sizeable vocabulary that they’ll utilise of their each day lives,” Yen says.
Loc says there have been moments of discouragement over the 4 years she has been taking the category, but it surely makes her glad to have the ability to perceive her grandchildren after they apply talking in English whereas doing their homework.
“Despite the fact that we’re outdated, we nonetheless ought to attempt to examine, as a result of learning helps the mind,” she stated.
Reporting by Minh Nguyen and Thinh Tien Nguyen; Writing by Francesco Guarascio; Modifying by Kanupriya Kapoor and Ana Nicolaci da Costa
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