Vietnamese(23K) students from Skyline High School in Dallas visit Bowie High School ESL. They had heard about Bowies' Vietnamese/English book section in the school library (41K) and came to see the collection. The article appeared in the Vietnamese Weekly News in Dallas.

Phoung Pham (55K) was selected as one of ten outstanding senior students graduating in 1994 from James Bowie High School and won a scholarship from the Arlington Rotary Club.

Most of the E.S.L. students at James Bowie High School between 1991 and 1995 were Vietnamese. However, by the end of the 1995 year, there were also students from Mexico, Columbia, El Salvador and Puerto Rico. Mr. Nguyen was hired as a teacher aide during 1995 and established an excellent working relationship with all the students.

Miss Karen Neal taught reading to E.S.L. students and involved them in "hands on" projects during the three years she was at Bowie. One of the projects was the building of a "cardboard boat" which was entered in the Cardboard Boat Regatta at River Legacy Park in Arlington. A spin off of that project involved the writing of an article in both English and Vietnamese (29K) by student Phong Dinh that appeared in the Dân Viêt, a local Vietnamese weekly paper published in Dallas, Texas. The students came in second in the race.

One of the most delightful extended lessons that I taught was in an English IV class made up of 18 senior Vietnamese students. After looking at traditional "Western" epics, we spent time working with "The Tale of Kieu" written by Nguyen Du and translated by Huynh Sanh Thong. We learned about this beautiful traditional Vietnamese/Chinese epic poem which is written in both Vietnamese and English is a cross page format and is published by Yale University Press.

The poem was originally written by Nguyen Du several hundred years ago. It was translated into English in 1973 by Huynh Sanh Thong and later revised in 1983. The translation of the poem is dedicated to Vietnamese refugees and their friends. This epic love poem (3254 lines) is regularly studied by 11th and 12th grade students in Vietnam. The poem will certainly contribute to any American teachers' better understanding of the people of Vietnam.

In April, 1995 I made a presentation to the TEXTESOL V Spring Conference, at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. Dr. Dam Trung Phap, director of World Languages for Dallas Public School System attended my presentation and offered to write an article for the VIETNAM Weekly News of Dallas - Fort Worth. The article and pictures (32K) are included in .gif format so that the Vietnamese fonts might be viewed by those that do not have such a viewer on their browser. The words of the text are as close to the original as I could type them - the actual layout of the page is slightly different than the original article. An English version of the news report was translated for me by my students and Mr. Nguyen.