After more than a month of having to leave school because of economic conditions, Nguyen Nhat Duong (9 years old, residing in Hai Phong city, winner of the Super Juniors group of ILA Speak Up Competition 2022) wrote a “heart letter” in English to encourage her mother to continue investing in her studies in a suitable environment.
Write a “heart letter” because you want to study in the right environment
The story of a 9-year-old girl who wrote a “heart letter” in English to convince her parents to continue to study at the ILA English Center in Hai Phong, shared on social networks, quickly attracted the attention of the students and many other people.
Talking about sharing her daughter’s study application letter on social networks, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien (residing in Hai An district, Hai Phong city) said she was very emotional when she received her daughter’s letter by email. Because she is not good at foreign languages, in order to understand her daughter’s letter, Hien had to ask Google to translate the things that made her daughter love the learning environment of ILA, where she had attended about a year earlier.
Regarding the opportunity for her child to study at the ILA Hai Phong English Center, Ms. Hien said that her family had previously studied at many foreign language centers and found that although the cost of studying at ILA was relatively high, in return, her child received a very good education.
“English centers are only focused on listening, speaking, reading, and writing, but ILA educates children to become global citizens with many skills, the ability to present, criticize, think logically, and gives them projects to learn from, which promotes the ability to synthesize information and sharpens skills over time. Self-efficacy is promoted, rather than being communicated in the way of one-sided teaching”, said Ms. Hien.
Contents of Nhat Duong’s letter
Nguyen Nhat Duong convinced her mother by claiming that she can prove: ILA is a great class and you should really let your child study there.
First, ILA allows me to meet a lot of interesting friends who have the same English ability as me. When I was young, I thought I was the only person in Hai Phong, even Vietnam, who knew English since childhood. That’s because in my class, I’m really the only one who can speak English.
Learning in a large class also gives your child friends to lean on and have fun together. According to studies, studying with friends makes us more motivated, stay in school longer, and be more engaged with tasks. Nowhere else does your child have as many friends as at ILA.
In addition, teachers give projects. Each ILA course would not be complete without at least 10 projects. There are individual projects and group projects. Individual projects allow us to compete and learn from each other, and group projects help us learn to work together.
Either way, we all learned a thing or two from each other. And finally, I love the fun games that are introduced into the classroom. Usually, it is Gimkit, which is not only interesting but also very useful for students at ILA because when using it, teachers can assign challenges for students to complete together or work together to defeat an opponent. Another advantage is that ILA focuses quite deeply on grammar, which I know is a weak point.
I know that you will have to pay many millions to pay for ILA tuition, but I hope that I have proved to you that ILA is a great class and suitable for people with financial difficulties. And also, after your ‘excellent’ daughter gets a 50% scholarship, I’m sure that amount won’t be TOO MUCH anymore”.
This is the content of Nhat Duong’s letter to her mother.
The champion has been trained in the will to “not give up” since childhood
Many people will admire Nhat Duong’s talent and energy because after only one year of studying at ILA Hai Phong at the age of 8, she won the first prize in the Super Juniors group (6-11 years old) of the English speaking contest ILA Speak Up 2022.
When participating in the final round in Ho Chi Minh City, Nhat Duong followed his teacher to guide him to fly from Hai Phong to the South “to fight”, without his parents by his side.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien said that the family’s economic conditions are limited. Nhat Duong has two siblings, so they cannot “put all” into investment for Duong alone.
In order to provide a high-class learning environment, Ms. Hien has built a bilingual environment since the children were young. “Instead of letting my child play games or watch videos on TikTok, Facebook, or YouTube, I will actively control my child’s watching habits, showing them useful things like science movies in English”, Hien shared. And she herself also trains her children not to give up.
“There are also times when she is depressed and finds it difficult to self-study, so she wants to give up, but I encourage her to think about the times she persevered. I do not mind investing in my children, but I also absolutely do not let them give up easily when facing difficulties. If you give up easily when you are young, then later on you will find a way to refuse other difficult things. The happy thing for me is that now there are many difficult things, but the children all try to complete them, and never give up halfway”, said Hien about the motto of teaching children.
Talking about the young student, Mr. Sean – Nhat Duong’s teacher at ILA Hai Phong English Center – said, “Nhat Duong is a really unique and different student. Duong is not afraid to make mistakes and always learns from her mistakes. In my class, she really shines with enthusiasm and energy”.
Sharing his thoughts after watching Nguyen Nhat Duong’s performance at the final of Speak Up 2022, Mr. Jonathan Bird – Director of teaching and Learning of ILA Vietnam – considered this to be a very inspirational performance! Although only 9 years old, Nhat Duong has come up with an idea for a solution to air pollution. It was the introduction of the Tree-viCAR vehicle, which uses no gasoline but carbon dioxide (CO2) and emits oxygen.
“I am impressed that a young person of her age can speak English confidently in front of such a crowd. I can’t even believe that Nhat Duong is a young Vietnamese student. Your performance was bold and meaningful. Duong herself, her family and the teachers at ILA Hai Phong can be proud of her”, said Mr. Jonathan Bird.
After the full text of Nhat Duong’s English letter was shared, something special happened to her family. The ILA educational organization has decided to award a lifetime scholarship for Nhat Duong at ILA.
