Monday, August 07, 2006
Sriwiangsawittayakarn English Day Camp 2006
Last Saturday my school held its annual English Day Camp, well annual since they've had GAP volunteers at the school. Basically an English Camp is a day for the students to have fun, play games, sing songs all in English (theoretically).
Nick, Joss, and Paradie (the other GAP volunteers placed up north here) came to help out, so we had a decent camp ratio of 5 volunteers to 150 thai students. Some english camps there is only one native English speaker who is expected to run the camp themselves, so having five of us much easier!!! I have participated in a few English Camps while i've been here in Thailand, but this was my first time organizing and helping run one. A little different, but not much since my Thai teachers really helped out and took care of most of the annoying organizational stuff. We had 5 stations that had 5 different activities focusing on basic English conversational skills.
1. Telling time
2. Listening
3. Holidays
4. I like/ I don't like
5. Nationalities
So groups of 30 Pratom 4/5/6 students would go around to each station and play the games run by us volunteers. We did Christmas Bingo, The "hello" game, What Time is it Mr.Wolf, and other wordsearch style games. It was actually pretty easy and fun at sometimes!! The best part though was when we had all 150 kids together and we'd teach them some of our favourite english songs, like the banana song or the som tam song you get all those kids dancing around...its pretty hillarious. Of course we ended off the English camp with the obligatory autographs, pictures, and certificates that every Thai event needs to have. Our certificates this time were really colourful, but of course they spelt our names wrong (Laura Daviesse and Marper Harper) and our little envelope of pocket money - 500baht (same as one week's wage for me!). After I signed every single kids book with my name, email, canadian phone number, birthday...etc. I don't know how they're planning on calling me in Canada, but its pretty funny anyway.
After the english camp we biked back to my place with the kids following us and wanting to play more games...But us volunteers piled into the back of a teacher's pickup truck and headed into Nan for a celebratory dinner at the Runway Restaurant where I proceeded to eat more than I ate during hte whole month of July. It was soooo good. After dropping Nick and Joss off we went to Tescos for the 15baht DQ blizzards that are my life now!! And back home with Paradie to watch Traffic. (which I rented thinking it was Crash...I told you my English skills are slowly diminishing) After the exhausting Saturday English Camp, the rest of the weekend I spent sleeping and finishing (finally) Anna Karenina. Now its Monday at 2:45 pm and since i'm done my teaching for the day I'm heading for a massage. 2 hours for 50 baht (ohhh $1.50) It was a tough day today.... ;)
Nick, Joss, and Paradie (the other GAP volunteers placed up north here) came to help out, so we had a decent camp ratio of 5 volunteers to 150 thai students. Some english camps there is only one native English speaker who is expected to run the camp themselves, so having five of us much easier!!! I have participated in a few English Camps while i've been here in Thailand, but this was my first time organizing and helping run one. A little different, but not much since my Thai teachers really helped out and took care of most of the annoying organizational stuff. We had 5 stations that had 5 different activities focusing on basic English conversational skills.
1. Telling time
2. Listening
3. Holidays
4. I like/ I don't like
5. Nationalities
So groups of 30 Pratom 4/5/6 students would go around to each station and play the games run by us volunteers. We did Christmas Bingo, The "hello" game, What Time is it Mr.Wolf, and other wordsearch style games. It was actually pretty easy and fun at sometimes!! The best part though was when we had all 150 kids together and we'd teach them some of our favourite english songs, like the banana song or the som tam song you get all those kids dancing around...its pretty hillarious. Of course we ended off the English camp with the obligatory autographs, pictures, and certificates that every Thai event needs to have. Our certificates this time were really colourful, but of course they spelt our names wrong (Laura Daviesse and Marper Harper) and our little envelope of pocket money - 500baht (same as one week's wage for me!). After I signed every single kids book with my name, email, canadian phone number, birthday...etc. I don't know how they're planning on calling me in Canada, but its pretty funny anyway.
After the english camp we biked back to my place with the kids following us and wanting to play more games...But us volunteers piled into the back of a teacher's pickup truck and headed into Nan for a celebratory dinner at the Runway Restaurant where I proceeded to eat more than I ate during hte whole month of July. It was soooo good. After dropping Nick and Joss off we went to Tescos for the 15baht DQ blizzards that are my life now!! And back home with Paradie to watch Traffic. (which I rented thinking it was Crash...I told you my English skills are slowly diminishing) After the exhausting Saturday English Camp, the rest of the weekend I spent sleeping and finishing (finally) Anna Karenina. Now its Monday at 2:45 pm and since i'm done my teaching for the day I'm heading for a massage. 2 hours for 50 baht (ohhh $1.50) It was a tough day today.... ;)
# posted by Laura Davies : 12:35 PM
