I'm back from Southeast Asia! With all my pictures now sorted through (over 10 gigs...it took a bit of time) I'll be posting on Vietnam tomorrow, followed by Cambodia and then Thailand.
As for this week (yes, guilty, I've been back since Monday), I made it through my last English camp in Elementary school. I'd say it was bittersweet, but I'm also glad it's over. Unlike the others, where the gender spread was equal and the student count was about 8-10, this week I was gifted with 11 extremely energetic boys and 2 shy girls from the 4th grade.
Like the other two English camps I had at my school this winter, I was alone without a co-teacher. Usually I find the freedom kind of liberating from the routine of the school year, so I don't mind being completely in charge. In this case, teaching was near impossible when the boys refused to go near the girls for circle or team work, and wanted to spend most of the time swiping mop handles from the supply closet and having sword fights.
Even though it was tempting to play movies all week, I resisted (limiting it to one- Home Alone, a popular choice for little boys) and added more race and guessing games to tire them out. Using newly taught vocabulary and words they already knew, a popular game was one where two students faced off with a bell between them. With hands on their heads and backs to the TV screen, I showed the other students pictures to act out, and the opposing students had to hit the bell and say the correct vocab word. I put the girls on separate teams so they could pair up in the face of time-consuming opposition from the boys. Another variation was to use the same team and bell format, but show them scrambled vocabulary words (after, as a warm up for the day, giving them a word worksheet so they were familiar with scrambled words). In this case their teammates weren't acting, they could look at the TV screen this time, it was just a race between the two students to figure out the answer first.
Another invaluable activity I found was Highlights (the magazine for kids) hidden pictures. The kind where a bunch of little pictures are hidden in a big one, with a picture and word key at the bottom. After a search online I found plenty of places to print them out. A great way to get them to speak in English without noticing (because in looking for the pictures they would say the English words when talking to their friends). Very fun and surprisingly challenging. Meanwhile, I could covertly hide the mops.
Now I can rest. I really will miss all those kids, no matter how difficult they are.
Showing posts with label english camp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label english camp. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Friday, 31 July 2009
Kilju English Camp
I have made it to summer vacation.
The final stretch was English camp at my school this past week, which had me a little worried at first. Not only would my mother arrive in the country the weekend before so I'd have to prepare early, but I would have to plan to teach a mix of third and fourth grade students in three rotating groups of twenty at a time for 50 minutes each. I'd never taught the third grade before, and only see the fourth grade on Fridays (half of the fourth grade classes, alternating every other week). After asking about what to expect from the third grade, I was warned ahead of time that they were in the beginning stages of English- in fact only just learning the write the alphabet. Oh dear. Mrs. Shim was set to be there on Monday and Tuesday, Mrs. Im for the other days, so at least I wouldn't be without assistance. And my mom would be there to sit in for a couple of days which was really cool. The worrying went away after I got there and saw everyone all together.
It was great to finally be able to interact with the third grade (my English room shares their hallway but we only talk in passing) and spend more time with fourth. The younger kids seems more willing to speak up around their peers and play without being embarrassed. Plus, with two students writing "Voldemort" and "Barack Obama" on their name tags, the tone for the week was set to be very fun.
(Above: "Barack Obama")
This is the topic breakdown I settled on for the camp:
Day 1: Body parts.
Day 2: Letter games.
Day 3: Animals.
Day 4: Colors, Shapes, Numbers.
Day 5: Likes and dislikes.
On day one, I learned that they already seemed to know most of the basic body parts. Though a few of them still needed to be taught that we have two feet and not two foot. Mrs. Shim encouraged me to teach additional words upon pointing and asking me what things were, and I'm not sure which was more funny, having twenty little kids chanting "belly button" or "butt."
On day two, I found that the third grade had been misjudged. Not only could they write the alphabet, they could write several words and, on a worksheet I challenged them with, the letters that came before and after after other letters. I played two games that went over very well. For the first, I put magnetic letters on the whiteboard and made them form two lines. When I called out a letter (uppercase or lowercase- I had both sets up there), the pair at the front of the lines would have to find and circle the letter on the board. Each team had a different colored marker, and the winning team had the most circles in the end. For the second game they formed three lines. I showed the student in the back of each line a letter, and they had to draw the letter on the back of the student in front of them, which was then passed forward until the person at the front of a line could say the correct letter. The first game required more speed and quick thinking, while in the second the team that went the fastest seemed to make the most mistakes during the letter transfer.
Animals for day three started with a focus on plurals and basic articles since I found out quickly that many students had a vast animal vocabulary already. It can't just be "dog" in a sentence- drilling vocab is great until they start saying "I have dog" or "dog is pretty." We also talked about how animals move and put them into the categories: walk, run, fly, swim, hop, and climb. for the final activity, I made them choose three animals, mix them together, and make them into a new animal. Then they had to circle Yes/No questions (Can it climb? can it fly? etc).
Day four was my favorite. After counting to twenty and reviewing what they already knew about colors and shapes, I put all three things together. I brought a bunch of cut up shapes from various colors of poster paper. I told all the students to scatter them throughout the room, then when I called out a color (blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, and pink), they had to race around the room and find them, then place them around the corresponding color name card on the ground around the room. One student chose to put a blue triangle in Mrs. Im's hand, so she had to stand there in the same place holding it up until I called out blue- which of course I held out on for a few rounds. Once all of the shapes were found, I made them tell me the number of pink shapes, blue shapes, squares, triangles, animal shapes, etc.
Afterwards, they returned all of the shapes to me, and I called out other colors or shapes for them to find in classroom objects. The door was a rectangle, the computer a square, the clock a circle. My favorite was oval- one girl pointed to my face, another boy found a paper cup and squished the top of it down a bit.
The final stretch was English camp at my school this past week, which had me a little worried at first. Not only would my mother arrive in the country the weekend before so I'd have to prepare early, but I would have to plan to teach a mix of third and fourth grade students in three rotating groups of twenty at a time for 50 minutes each. I'd never taught the third grade before, and only see the fourth grade on Fridays (half of the fourth grade classes, alternating every other week). After asking about what to expect from the third grade, I was warned ahead of time that they were in the beginning stages of English- in fact only just learning the write the alphabet. Oh dear. Mrs. Shim was set to be there on Monday and Tuesday, Mrs. Im for the other days, so at least I wouldn't be without assistance. And my mom would be there to sit in for a couple of days which was really cool. The worrying went away after I got there and saw everyone all together.
It was great to finally be able to interact with the third grade (my English room shares their hallway but we only talk in passing) and spend more time with fourth. The younger kids seems more willing to speak up around their peers and play without being embarrassed. Plus, with two students writing "Voldemort" and "Barack Obama" on their name tags, the tone for the week was set to be very fun.
(Above: "Barack Obama")This is the topic breakdown I settled on for the camp:
Day 1: Body parts.
Day 2: Letter games.
Day 3: Animals.
Day 4: Colors, Shapes, Numbers.
Day 5: Likes and dislikes.
On day one, I learned that they already seemed to know most of the basic body parts. Though a few of them still needed to be taught that we have two feet and not two foot. Mrs. Shim encouraged me to teach additional words upon pointing and asking me what things were, and I'm not sure which was more funny, having twenty little kids chanting "belly button" or "butt."
On day two, I found that the third grade had been misjudged. Not only could they write the alphabet, they could write several words and, on a worksheet I challenged them with, the letters that came before and after after other letters. I played two games that went over very well. For the first, I put magnetic letters on the whiteboard and made them form two lines. When I called out a letter (uppercase or lowercase- I had both sets up there), the pair at the front of the lines would have to find and circle the letter on the board. Each team had a different colored marker, and the winning team had the most circles in the end. For the second game they formed three lines. I showed the student in the back of each line a letter, and they had to draw the letter on the back of the student in front of them, which was then passed forward until the person at the front of a line could say the correct letter. The first game required more speed and quick thinking, while in the second the team that went the fastest seemed to make the most mistakes during the letter transfer.
Animals for day three started with a focus on plurals and basic articles since I found out quickly that many students had a vast animal vocabulary already. It can't just be "dog" in a sentence- drilling vocab is great until they start saying "I have dog" or "dog is pretty." We also talked about how animals move and put them into the categories: walk, run, fly, swim, hop, and climb. for the final activity, I made them choose three animals, mix them together, and make them into a new animal. Then they had to circle Yes/No questions (Can it climb? can it fly? etc).
Day four was my favorite. After counting to twenty and reviewing what they already knew about colors and shapes, I put all three things together. I brought a bunch of cut up shapes from various colors of poster paper. I told all the students to scatter them throughout the room, then when I called out a color (blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, and pink), they had to race around the room and find them, then place them around the corresponding color name card on the ground around the room. One student chose to put a blue triangle in Mrs. Im's hand, so she had to stand there in the same place holding it up until I called out blue- which of course I held out on for a few rounds. Once all of the shapes were found, I made them tell me the number of pink shapes, blue shapes, squares, triangles, animal shapes, etc.Afterwards, they returned all of the shapes to me, and I called out other colors or shapes for them to find in classroom objects. The door was a rectangle, the computer a square, the clock a circle. My favorite was oval- one girl pointed to my face, another boy found a paper cup and squished the top of it down a bit. Day five was shorter than the rest, because the start of the day was spent on surveys and the end on a quiz game and distribution of gifts to all of the students. The class was only thirty minutes, so I spent the time talking about likes and dislikes and what our favorite things are. I ended with a game where everyone sat on chairs in a big circle with one person in the middle to start by asking the question "Do you like _____?" If the seated students liked whatever they chose to say, they had to shout "yes I do!" and quickly run to a new chair. The person left standing without a seat left had to ask the next question. It wasn't a game of winners and losers, though in one class they deemed me the loser because I was the one left without a chair, well, "teacher, six times!"
Sunday, 17 May 2009
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:
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
(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 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!
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!
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