English Camp

Last week we were recruited to help out at a neighboring school's English Camp because the English teacher bailed. Without hearing the details, we all agreed. It'd be a great chance to see what the normal public school is like, plus we'd get to see more of the country. And to top it off we'd actually be helping another school out. It sounds good, right? 

Then the details came in.

They would come get us at 7:30, we would be split into 3 groups, 2 teachers per group, teaching one of three things: directions, conversation, and ASEAN, and we would be in charge of songs and games for an hour and a half. The enthusiasm dropped significantly, but we decided to stick with it. We had already agreed to help out and I was sure it couldn't really be that bad. Sure, we would be teaching for an extra 9 hours on our day off... but that's what this experience is for, right?? The adventure of the unknown. 

Yeah.. that was all good and dandy until we got there. We knew we'd be teaching in groups of about 30 kids, but nobody said anything about the 'kids' being high school students.

Once everyone was ready to start the coordinator walked over to us and asked us to teach the students a song. We all shared a look of panic before trying to explain that we teach small children and didn't have any age-appropriate songs ready to teach them. She insisted that it was fine, so...

 we taught 240 Thai high schoolers Princess Pat. Actions and everything!! 

It was actually pretty great :)

Oh, and Tang made us these green Imperial Phichit Bilingual School shirts to wear as walking advertisements while we were there. It was awesome :)

But anywho. Teaching was weird. 

I'm officially and forever converted to the ILP method. I was paired up with Shae and we were supposed to teach them directions based on a few vocab words and some signs to match them with (Go straight and a straight arrow, Turn left with a turn left road sign). Our first rotation was the most difficult, but once we made a maze with the chairs and found a blindfold things went so much better. One kid would have to direct the other through the maze using only English. The kids really enjoyed it and I think it helped them understand the words a lot more. 

Someone at that school tried to tell me that language is an equation that needs to be memorized.. I think it was the principal. But no. No no no no. You can't simply memorize phrases and expect to fluently learn the language.. you have to practice it. Teaching at Imperial has taught me that truly learning a language comes through speaking the language. If you don't practice, you can't learn.

We finished the camp by teaching the kids the Human Knot and singing Tiny Turtle with them, after which the coordinator drove us home and thanked us by taking us to dinner that night at a restaurant on our street. The food was spicy, but so good! 

I can't explain it, but Thai people have a thing with serving their fish looking like fish. As odd as it is, I loved it. A few more dishes were served after this one, but this was the fanciest. I'm pretty sure I ate this one by myself... But don't worry, there were 2 fish. 

Oh, so if you ever find  yourself in Thailand and see a red pepper in your meal... don't eat it. It's death. Just take my word for it, Jes's too, we know. 

Overall, it was an interesting opportunity and I'm glad I took the time from my Saturday to help out. Spending the day with older students made me miss my kids so much, though. I think teaching the older age group raised my confidence in my ability with my younger students. Sure, I may not be the best teacher out there, but I do my best and I love them.