CAMP!

Okay, this camp is FUN!

I have a really great group. They are all pretty enthusiastic, except for one guy. Oddly enough, he's wearing a Ramones T-shirt. Of course he has no idea who or what the Ramones are, but I still asked him. Yeah, I was right.

I taught one class yesterday, and two activities. The class was on "Getting ready for English Camp" which was actually fun. It was just a dialogue, and with ten students, it is really easy to keep things moving. And then after we had done the diaolgue a few times and covered the vocab, we went into a camp game. Thank goodness Jessie and I went to the elephant sanctuary, because that's why I learnt about half of my camp games.

The first activity was ice breakers. As an ex-don of two years, I basically sleepwalked my way through it. hahaha. Way too much time spent trying to get apathetic uni kids doing crap means that I am at least a little prepared to deal with apathetic Korean kids. The only problem was that the kids were too shy to go when it was their turn... oh well, they're getting over it.
The good thing about a week long camp is that you can be over the top and strange without worrying about the kids thinking you are a weirdo and not listenign in class... you still have that "new teacher smell" that captivates them.
The second activity was designing team posters, which I was surprised I manage to get. It's a no brainer, really, you just give some ideas and some markers, paint eyes on your glasses and take a nap.
My team is red, so they came up with the idea of having their mascot being a giant anthropomorphic mailbox that joined the globe by allowing communication between English speakers the world over. Okay, I may have helped a bit, but come on, they chose "mailboxes" as their mascot. Sure, it was a step up from their original choice of "blood", but they clearly needed some help thinking. Their slogan came out as "English from all over the world is in the mailbox", which is pretty clever, but it took a lot of coaxing.

"What do mailboxes do?"
"Stand?"
"Wait?"
"What do they wait for?"
"write postcards!"
"Yeah, you can write postcards and send them to all over the world! What is that called?"

Well, I was going for communication, but of course I never got it. haha. I think that they did really well for their level though.

Today my class was on "Talking about Canada". The first class was good, but I got more and more excited and fast talking as time went on, because I had six coffees somehow. I'm not sure how it happened, they snuck up on me. Something about fifteen minute breaks between classes in a room with instant hazelnut cappucino packets... it'll get you every time.
I worked in too much stuff though, and the class was too long... no big whoop though, because it turns out that the follow-up exercise I had planned was way too difficult anyways.
The activity today was "Learn an English Song". I did "... baby, one more time". That is a catchy little tune, and the kids took to it pretty quickly. Most of them already knew it, so it was easy. Then we split into teams, and judged them on their singing (enthusiasm, mostly). My team won! I was pretty proud.
Then we did chants, and I think we did a really good job of that too. It was really simple, but everyone was really into it (I taught them a new slang - "Get pumped up!!!"). We all screamed really loudly, and I got so pumped (slash full of caffeine) that I shook afterwards.

So camp is a lot of fun. The teachers are all pretty funto hang out with, so that's a big plus too. Otherwise it would be pretty boring.

The only downside is the weather... it is raining all the time, and it is so humid that my pillow feels wet all the time. Last night I slept on the floor with just one blanket, and I kept sticking to the floor. Tonight I'll have a mattress of five camp blankets.

Well, I will update again if we ever leave the camp again to come to a PC bang.

I hope everyone is doing well, I am GREAT!

WOOHOO!