English Camp with Awesome Kids

These are the tales of Saturday- Part 1

(Because of how much happened on Saturday, I'm splitting this into two parts.)

1:30-5:30pm: English Camp

Andrew (the foreigner who works at Kilgu Middle school) asked me earlier in the week if I wanted to earn some extra cash by teaching an English camp at his school for 9th grade (which they call 3rd grade, for the 3rd year in middle school). I was really excited, because it meant: a) students that speak more English, and b) a curriculum-free lesson!

Another perk was that the class size was 10 students. There were two groups, with two lessons needed for each group. The first two hours were spent with one group, then the second two with the next group. This is what I ended up doing:

Lesson 1: Movies

Intro and handout: First, I discussed and gave them a handout about movie language ("Who's in it?" "What's it about?") along with plot, setting, genre, etc.

Movie: We watched the short animation "Oktapodi" on YouTube.

Discussion: We talked about the movie, using the elements on the handout. There were blanks for them to fill in, like "The movie was about ________" next to "plot".

Game: I separated them into three groups, assigning each group one of the following: characters, setting, or plot. I explained that we were going to come up with a movie, but they were not to talk with the other groups. After a short period of time, I asked them to tell me what they came up with and wrote each thing on the board. Once it was put together, we talked about what genres the movie might have. We did this three times, so each group had a turn at the different part, then voted on the best one.

These were a few:

Characters: A monkey and an ant
Setting: In space
Plot: Falling in love
-Possible Genres: Sci Fi, Romance, Comedy, Animation

Characters: Me, and two of the Korean teachers at their school
Setting: The middle of the desert
Plot: Playing soccer
-Possible Genres: Documentary, Comedy, Romance (when I asked why, one student explained that we were playing soccer waiting for men. Then another student added "but the men don't want anyone!")

Characters: A tall ugly woman, a short beautiful woman, a handsome beggar man, and an ugly rich man.
Setting: The white house
Plot: On vacation, then drowning while trying to swim
-Possible Genres: Horror, Action, Comedy

Lesson 2: Word games

Mad Libs: I wrote up some mad libs and had them tell me the words to write in, without knowing anything about the story. Then I read it back to them.

These were my two favorites:

1. My favorite animal is a (animal) dragon. My parents won't let me have one because they are too (adj) happy. Instead, they bought me a (animal) shark for a pet. He is very (adj) wonderful and likes to (v) chase (me) in the house.

2. Before I go to school, I eat (a food) jelly for breakfast. I make sure to put (n) the earth in my bag before I leave. I always (v) rush to school on warm days, and if it rains, I bring my (n) ant.My school is very (adj) terrible and has a lot of (pl n) tigers. I'm a very (adj) cute student, and I always raise my (body part) eye when I have a question.

Balderdash: I put students in pairs and then wrote a word on the board that they wouldn't know. As a pair, they had to write a definition for the word and then pass it to me. I wrote each definition on the board, including the real one, and they had to vote on which was the right definition.

I used these words:
ragamuffin
blubber
pizazz
footloose [my favorite student definition: "someone who is lame"]

Story Chains: This was awesome. I had no idea whether or not this would work, or if it would go way over their heads. In pairs, I had the students write three words that they want their story to be about (characters, objects, etc) at the bottom of the paper, and then write the numbers 1-5 (because there were 5 pairs) on each line starting at the top. Then, they had to write the first sentence of their story next to #1 and pass it to the right. Then, everyone had to write the next sentence in the story on line #2, then fold over the paper to cover the sentence on line #1 and pass it to the right. They were only able to see the most recent sentence, until the end when we read them aloud.

(these were from memory- I wrote them down quickly but I may have added some articles [the, an, a] that weren't there originally)

My favorite:

[The words at the bottom: hunter, rabbit, arrow]
1. The hunter shot the rabbit with an arrow
2. The rabbit was shot by the hunters arrow
3. The hunter went to take the arrow out of the dead rabbit
4. The arrow liked the rabbit so the rabbit was not dead
5. The hunter took a gun and shot the rabbit

THE END

Another good one:

[The words at the bottom: wizard, bishop, dragon]
1. A wizard turned a bishop into a dragon
2. The dragon bishop turned the wizard into a dragon
3. The wizard made the dragon a bishop
4. The bishop made the wizard a dragon
5. The dragon ate the bishop
THE END

I hope I get to go back and do another camp, because it was a ton of fun!