So, here it came the very day. We set off
early in the morning, everyone was on the dot (a round of applause for our
punctuality ^^). After arriving at our destination, all of us helped to carry
the materials and prizes needed to the hall.
Firstly, my friends who were in charge of
registration and ice-breaking informed all the facilitators about their group
names. Each of us was assigned to represent a superhero. Surprisingly, I got
Ultraman, who has been missed for ages :P
After that, we were asked to stand in front and hold our group cards
high so that students could go to respective facilitator accordingly. The first
student I met was a helpful boy named D. D kindly offered to be the card holder
as he is taller than me. I was of course more than willing to let him do it,
with gratitude. It was always good to see students take charge of their own
learning even if it’s just a simple gesture. It’s like instead of giving them
fish, the better approach would be letting them to touch the fishing net,
giving them chances to slowly figure out how to catch fish, and at best,
develop a liking for fishing at the end of the day. Opps I think I have gone
too far xD
Going back to the square one, having gathered all the superhero
apprentice, we proceeded with ice-breaking activities. To be frank, I am not a
person who is good at creating warm conversations with strangers. But I had
this sense of mission to talk to them and get them talk because if the
facilitator didn’t do it, who else will? Thus, I tried my best to bring up
relevant topics that they are familiar with and would be able to respond to,
such as school lives, hobbies and even favorite hang-out places in JB. The
students were still quite shy, but at least they did talk a bit in English.
We
then worked together on our group logo and cheers. I didn’t help the students
much with the logo design because I think it’s better not to restrain their
very own aesthetical creativity, at the precious age of 13. So they drew an
Ultraman head and some cute-looking monsters around the Ultraman
collaboratively. As for group cheer, they didn’t have enough confidence and
related experience (perhaps) to come up with one. I didn’t blame them because I
reckoned 13-year-old me probably can’t think of one also. I coached them a bit
regarding what a group cheer is and taught them one that consists of rhythm and
simple adjectives. Hopefully by the next time they join another language camp,
they would have been equipped with better ideas on how to construct a group
cheer on their own.
Right
after breakfast, we had our first game which was Charade. I combined with the group sitting next to mine. My students were rather shy to speak out the answers loud at
first, but they got better and more engaged gradually. Speaking about vocabulary
acquisition of this game, the words used were mostly what they already know
thus it didn’t contribute to this point. However, they did learn some
mispronounced words. At the same time, this game was a baby step for them to be
brave in expressing themselves and voicing out their thoughts. Sometimes a
language camp isn’t just all about English, the inculcation of generic skills
is an important part too. The same held true to the second game, Win, Lose or
Draw. I personally had a whole lot of fun watching their lovely drawings and
the humorous contrasts between pictures and their real meanings. Seeing the
cheerful faces shown by the students, I believed they felt the same way.
The
third game was Tandem Writing. I felt so touched to see a student who wouldn’t stop writing even when time was up (and she told me that Tandem
Writing is her favourite game at the end of the language camp). That’s the
spirit ! She has been a strong proof of how Tandem Writing can trigger
students’ interest and motivate them to write with ego-involvement. She really
tried to write as long as she can in a logical and meaningful manner. Although
there were grammatical mistakes, I am always convinced that writing at young
age without fearing mistakes is the best experimental platform for one to learn
and improve by leaps and bounds over time, for this was my own learning
experience. Apart from that particular inspiring student, the rest performed
quite well too. Their stories were all coherent and interesting. But it was an
unfortunate thing that I didn’t have adequate time to go through the language
parts of their stories in details. What I could manage was only to re-read
their stories in a grammatical manner (without telling what’s wrong
explicitly)with hope that they could realize some of their mistakes.
Following
that, we had to choose the best story from Tandem Writing section and acted it
out. I helped the students with role-delegation as it was required that all the
group members must be involved. Then, they started creating their props. I
suggested them to build a grave with mahjong paper (my group was under ghost
story) because I think that would be the opportunity to give some language
input (as in normally what is written on a grave?).At first they tried to write
themselves, I corrected them afterwards. Having done the props, we began the
rehearsal. I facilitated them quite a lot at this phase to teach them what to
say and how to say it correctly and with suitable intonation. When time was up,
we were formed into three zones according to theme and kicked start the drama
competition. My students’ voice were still too soft to be heard even though I
had reminded them repeatedly that they need to speak louder. I guess this is my
weakness as a facilitator, I couldn’t make them comfortable with the entire
situation that they were nervous to speak out.
All
in all, it has been a golden experience to be involved in Language Camp B. It
has made me reflect quite a lot on my past experience as a student, as in how I
used to hope my teacher to be and what are the things that I wish to get from
the teacher (compliments, patient guidance, smiles, some cheering jokes, etc).
I am really passionate about helping students with their language development ,
but I need to improve more on the teacher-student interaction part.
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