GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM! : COUPLE WILL TEACH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

While most Oak Park and Las Virgenes school district teachers will spend the summer relaxing or preparing for next year, Tom and Maria Spence will leave for their new teaching assignment - in Vietnam.

In August, the couple will leave for Hanoi for a two-year stint at the United Nations International School of Hanoi, where Maria will teach seventh- through 10th-grade English literature and Tom will teach second grade at the school for the children of diplomats, businesspeople and others.

But their lives won't be limited to the school, they say. They plan to get caught up in the flow of Vietnamese life, making the entire nation a sort of giant school from which they can learn to appreciate a way of life entirely different from their own.

Tom Spence, a teacher at Willow Elementary School in Agoura Hills for five years, said his new perspective will make its way into his classroom when he returns to Willow, where his job will be waiting.

``In doing so, this will allow (my students) to broaden their horizons, so they think, `The way I live now is not the only way to live,' '' said Spence, 27.

This is a big step for the couple married in 1992 and living in Newbury Park. Although Maria Spence spent about two months in the Philippines while attending college, this will be the first time they will live overseas as a couple.

They agreed early in their marriage they would do so before starting a family.

The couple found the job in March at a three-day conference run by Princeton, N.J.-based International Schools Services, which finds teachers for overseas schools.

Maria Spence, 26, who has taught at Oak Park high for a year, said the couple chose Vietnam precisely because the way of life there is so different from their own.

At first, when they got the Vietnam offer, they almost turned it down - partly because of the negative image of the country they've absorbed over the years, she said.

``It was the typical American view of Vietnam - we lost the war there, there's `Platoon' and all the other movies you see where Vietnam is a barbaric place,'' she said.

But offers from schools in Brazil and Israel turned out to be unacceptable for various reasons. Then they saw a video about Vietnam which painted a positive portrait of that nation.

Also, they ``fell in love'' with the headmaster of the school, she said. ``He seemed like a man of integrity, a man we could trust, and we didn't see that with everyone we interviewed with,'' she said.

Vietnam offers a slower way of life, something the California-raised couple has long wanted to experience.

While in Vietnam, the couple will immerse themselves in the life of Hanoi: shopping where the people shop, learning the language and going out of their way to get to know the people and the society.

``It will allow us to look at things from another perspective, not just a Southern California, middle-income perspective,'' Tom Spence said. ``We'll kind of jump out of our own realm and see how other people view life.''

Still, their anticipation of the trip is mixed with a touch of nervousness.

``We're just praying a lot,'' Maria Spence said.

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Photo: (color) Husband and wife educators Tom and Maria Spe nce will be in Vietnam teaching at the United Nations International School for two years.

Bob Halvorsen/Daily News