Although He Came from a Rich Country:
Eulogy Technique

It has been 17 years since I was a student of Mr. Jack Peterson at Dalat university, but the impressions of his foreign teacher, brother, friend and lectures I will never forget. 

Teacher Jack was the most respected teacher of my class. He always sought to convey lessons to students in the most interesting and memorable way. Teacher Jack had an effective method for our students in studying, which is different from other teacher's method, but our students really love that. 

He was a young, emotional, enthusiastic and experienced teacher.

He was one of the teachers who gave me a lot of motivation in acquiring a foreign language, especially in terms of listening and speaking as well as cross-cultural understanding. Almost all students in my class were really interested in Teacher Jack's lessons.

That time, Teacher Jack's age was not so older than us, but he was really more academic than us so much. We believed that he had been educated by the higher advanced US school.

He was 5 years older than us, so what he was interested in was exactly what we were. Specially visiting the villages of minority ethnic peoples in Langbian mountain. We had some good trips together though we didn't talk very much. I still have pictures of him when he took part in common activities: Vietnamese teacher's day, camping, picnic, …

He was in many pictures of us although he was not very interested in posing for pictures.

In those days, he had a sense of humour. He was funny, gentle, friendly, and helpful.

We were excited to look forward to Teacher Jack's classes because the atmosphere in the classroom was great. If our team did an excellent job, he would reward us with a good coffee or ice cream. 

I saw a few times he ate candies, bananas in my class.

I still remember yesterday like the image of a young teacher carrying a guitar up to class to teach. 

He played guitar for boys to sing English songs. If I remembered right, Hung, a hotboy of the class sang “Donna Donna”, another boy sang “Top of the world”. The class clapped loudly and praised Teacher Jack's ability to play the guitar. We liked him to play guitar.

I remember the cold weather in Dalat. He still walked on Bui Thi Xuan on his own 

or with his students. 

He looked serious, gentle, kind, responsible, natural.

He was young, handsome and strange to me when he came to the class. He would be the very first foreigner I had ever met until that time. I was a little bit scared of his tall and thin body.

He was very young at that time so he was an idol of my class girls. He looked very cute and generous so many of my female friends liked him. 

The most memorable memory in our student life was the play of classic plays. Teacher Jack assigned each group different plays, we organized plays, role-plays, costumes. After finishing the lessons in class, we stayed at night to rehearse. Teacher Jack had a day to buy bread, snacks, and soft drinks for us. We just ate while discussing how each person acted.

We did learn so much from him. He often talked about American cultures to us which I think is the way to learn the language. He explained carefully what the students asked. 

 We heard Teacher Jack talk about America, American fairy tales, we told Teacher Jack about beautiful love stories in Dalat city, the places found in Vietnamese poetry.

The time Teacher Jack left us to return to America, many of us were very sad and felt a bit disappointed because we could not see our teacher everyday.

From the bottom of my heart, I had many things to regret about the relationship with the teacher. I wish I had spoken English better at that time, so that I could communicate with him more easily. I wish I had understood what he was feeling when he was in another country, so that I would spend more time with him to share his homesick and introduce him more about Dalat and Vietnam. 

I really wanted, then, to make friends and be closer with the teacher. But I was still very shy, 

and lacked confidence. 

And now, I wish he would come back to Dalat one day and we will be able to live these old days again.

I'm not good in literature so I can't compose a poem, but he appeared to me a warm poem and most of all a teacher and a friend. 

I'll keep in my mind the wonderful time under his guidance and teaching.

Around our classroom is still echoing the warm voice of our dear teacher

Thank you for Teacher Jack because he taught us, and that was our dream came to true because we could study with good teacher from leading country for all fields on the world.

We love him so much! 

 Many thanks my teacher, Jack Peterson!