Oct
8
Sanuk Day at English Camp
October 8, 2007 |
The other day, as we parked our motosai outside the bank in Putthaisong, we where approached by someone who turned out to be a somewhat desperate Thai English teacher. It turned out that he was organizing an “English Camp” at the Marie School in Nangrong, and they did not have any native English speakers. And he practically begged me to come and spend a day with them.
Sometimes I find it very hard to say no. So I agreed to come and help out for a day. I did point out to him that English is not my first language either. But he assured me that did not matter. And my task would be very simple. Just show up, be myself and all I would have to do was to answer questions from the kids like: “Where do you come from?”, and “what is your name?”.
So fast forward. I am having this out of body surrealistic experience as I find myself dancing to the “chicken song” in front of 150 kids who are laughing their socks off.
English Camp turned out to be all about making it fun for the kids, while cramming down a few English words and help them pronounce such profound sentences like: “She sells seashells by the seashore”, throw in the “How Many Verbs There are to Be” song, the “Chicken Song”, a lot of dancing and singing, goofy kids fueled to maximum overdrive on ovaltine and pure sugar and you have the heap of fun that is English Camp.
And contrary to all the excitement, the kids where amazingly disciplined. Sitting down in neat rows and actually looking like they listened to the excellent set of very dedicated teachers from different schools from the area who where there giving a hand. And by the amount of joyful smiles and roaring laughter they all had a great sanuk filled time.
Ajarn Tony and the rest of the teachers, who where all his former students had the kids attention from beginning to end. And the kids where going from 8 in the morning to 7 at night. With just a lunch and a dinner break in between. Well, there where a couple of fueling sessions with ovaltine and sugar also.
But to manage to keep the kids attention for such a long period, and actually manage to teach them something at the same time. These people are heroes. And the kids who have them as teachers at various schools in southern Isaan are indeed lucky. Even if some of these teachers did pronounce certain words a bit strangely, they where all very enthusiastic.
I had a fun day, and the kids mobbed me for autographs. And once they overcame their shyness, I was asked all kinds of questions too. Well, a day to remember. So if you get approached by someone asking you to spend a day with a bunch of kids at English Camp, please do. It will be a great day for both you and the kids!
Finally, thanks to fellow blogger Brunty, who is an English teacher and who lent me a moral booster, and called me during the day to find out how I was doing!
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Comments
4 Comments so far
I knew something like this was going to happen sooner or later ;o)
He he, you know me. And you would have done the same.
Hey Rune.
I hope you didn’t give your email address to the kids! I did this once at an English camp and was bombarded with emails in English that at times was impossible to interpret and then some also sent emails in Thai that of course I had no idea what they were saying.
Sounded like a good day and now you are a superstar. Good stuff mate.
No worries, I did not go that far, he he.
But it wasa good day out