Bukit Aping Language Camp Report by Ng Shi Ing
Last weekend, an English Language camp was held at Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Aping, Kota Tinggi for standard six students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Lok Heng, Sekolah Kebangsaan Waha and Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Aping. It was a collaboration between the 4th year TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) students from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Felda Bukit Aping Barat to help spread the awareness of the importance of the English Language to the primary students. The 3-day camp was held from the 24th of January till the 26th of January 2003.

The English Language camp collaboration has been on going for three years and it has received strong support from the Education faculty of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and the Felda officers.

There were 14 4th year TESL students and 2 lecturers that ran the camp with more than 100 participants from three different schools making the camp a success. Many activities were carried out to capture the students¡¯ attention and at the same time trying to drill into the students that learning English is not only educational yet fun.

Before the activities were carried out, the students were divided into 10 groups. This is to allow easy control of the TESL students over the primary students. Each group had a totem to represent such as domestic and wild animals namely lion, bear, ant or even cats. Each group has to attach a certain criteria or character to their totem and the students came out with creative characteristics to bring their totems alive for example ¡®smart wolves¡¯ and ¡®fighting lions¡¯. Not only that, the students needed to create a group cheer to represent their team.

Most of the activities that were carried out were done in games format. The language games were created by the 4th year TESL students as part of fulfilling one of their course requirements. Some of the games that were cooked up by the students were ¡®Word Bingo¡¯ where words were used instead of numbers. This was one of the students¡¯ favorite as it brought out the kids competitive edge to try to complete the game before their friends. Other games included word formation activities and sentence construction games to help the kids to utilize English to the maximum.

Besides that, English nursery rhymes such as ¡®Jack and Jill¡¯ and ¡®3 blind mice¡¯ were taught as well to the students to liven the environment. English children songs were also introduced and taught to the students with songs ranging from ¡®Top of the World¡¯ to ¡®Boogie Woogie¡¯ and ¡®Do-Re-Mi¡¯. The number one song that remained on top of the chart for 3 days consecutively was ¡®Boogie Woogie¡¯. The students enjoyed the action that went with the songs thus making it their favorite song for the camp.

Other sources of motivation were also included in the camp besides introducing games and songs. The other motivation was giving away hampers to each group for each category best suited them such as ¡®the most cheerful group¡¯, ¡®the most polite group¡¯ and others. Not only that, all the students in the group were supposed to present a drama with the given plot. The kids needed to finish the ending for each plot and present it to their friends. The best group who presented the best drama would win a hamper.
All in all, the language camp was a success as it motivated the 4th year TESL students to contribute continuously to the society in educating the younger children and youth to the importance of using the English Language and it open the minds of the primary students about how fun learning English could be.