Ashikin's - DURING-Camp

I started to get to know the teachers from 20 different schools and get their names checked. I was quite nervous because I’m afraid of making mistake in such situation (yes, insecurity alert! Haha.) However, everything went well. Few hours after the camp started, the teachers were required to join the facilitators in the groups and help whenever needed. Therefore, I kindly asked the teachers to join any group of their own preferences and I would appreciate it very much if they started to work together with the facilitators. Some of them refused to and preferred to stay but I have no right to force them whatsoever so I let them be. (Now I’m getting more and more nervous.)

At the middle of the camp, I had to take over Wan Muhammad’s group since he was replacing Nazrin to be the MC. Nazrin, on the other hand, was helping Peng Chuan who was not feeling well. (Oh, dear! Poor Peng Chuan!) I also helped out during the prize giving ceremony by asking any of the teacher to do the honour of giving out prizes to the students. I’m glad I did it well till the end. 

During Language Camp.

During the language camp, Alhamdulillah, everything went a-okay! Though, there were a few problems here and there but are managed well by all facilitators. 

One of it was that the hall was so warm! We were sweating. And the kids were splashed with their own sweat. Humid and that made a lot of people uncomfortable. That was out of our control, but we managed to make the students sit and do the work.

Besides that, the students were restless! We couldn't keep them to stay at one place for long. They just wanted to move. We were exhausted after lunch, but they didn't even seem to lose energy. In fact, it's like they just gulped a huge Mountain Dew. It was good, in a way. But maybe we, well maybe I, was just not expecting it. 

I suppose that was it. The others were just minor problems. 

Language Camp A: Maisarah’s During-Reflection

So, this time I’m going to share some of my thoughts during our Language Camp A held in SK Kota Masai 1.

The students could be seen from far and I could already feel the thrill as this is my first time to be involved in Language Camp as the facilitator.

 As we have planned before, we as the facilitators have divided ourselves into 20 groups and what’s interesting was the name of each groups was taken from the name of cartoons characters exist in the world! LOL. We would have Batman, Superman, Captain America, Hulk, Power Rangers and even Upin Ipin! Mine was the infamous Captain America (to be honest I haven’t watch the movie, YET) :p

Thank God that after the ice-breaking session, I could identify a few boys in my group who were quite talkative and actively participating in the activities. Unfortunately, most of the girls were shy and I have to approach them more frequently.

The most exciting part during the camp was when our group, the Captain America made to the final round for Skit Competition! I was blessed to see that my students listen to my instructions well; able to carry out the activities enthusiastically and cooperate with their group mates even they just knew each other that day.

We enjoyed ourselves so much even though we were really really tired as we start early in the morning and ended the camp at almost 6pm.

Thank you everyone who gave their effort for this camp. May God bless ya! <3 

Siti Aisyah's Language Camp Reflection (During)

It's D-day. We woke up early, get changed, thinking that nothing could go wrong. BUT, my shirt was pretty small. So, I decided to tie a sweater around my waist, to pump up things a bit. Haha. We waited for the bus, chit-chatting a bit. And the bus came. We got on it and 45 minutes after, we arrived at the school. The hall was pretty far, so the boys have to carry all the materials. We, girls, just have to be pretty. LOL. Then, the camp started by a simple briefing by our Pengerusi (Sorry, I don't know what is Pengerusi in English right now). We started the camp a bit late as there are some problems regarding the PA system. Other facilitators collect the materials needed for the camp, such as their name-tag, crayons, group name etc. About 9 o'clock, the camp started. Students were given strips of paper, for their group name. And they all line-up in their respective group. Wait, I think if I talked about the whole camp, I'll be typing for two hours. SO, let's make it short. What I did during the camp are :

1. Preparing the food for the facilitators. However, I did not know that we were also in charge of the students' food as well. so, what happened is the food was too spicy for the students. I did not foresee the problem as as a Sabahan, I always thought that Johoreans can handle spicy food. Some students cannot eat the food at all, so I was partly to blame.

2. I become an MC for half of the afternoon. One of the facis fell sick, and one of the MCs help sent him back to college. So, I replaced him for a bit. I'm not kidding, I really love being an MC cause I can unleash my craziness. However, it seems that it may not be appropriate for the students.

3. Temporary faci. Sometimes, I went to the group and help the facis when they have problems. For example, during the tandem writing, I help the students to 'colour' their writing. I also help students to re-think their grammar while writing.

Overall, I have fun in the camp. It was tiring as I ran around a lot, but yeah. It was fun.

Wan Zahidah's Language Camp ( During)

On that day, we gathered at D06 before we left UTM for SMK Masai 2. We arrived at the school around 8.30am. By that time, most of the students from different primary schools already arrived and done with their registrations. As soon as we arrived, we were asked to introduce ourselves to the students.

The ice-breaking started as soon as the introduction of facilitators ended. After a few minutes, the students finally gathered in small groups. The facilitators went to their respective groups and continued the rest of the ice-breaking activity. We also played a lot of games, for instance, ‘Win, Lose or Draw’ and charades after we had our morning break.

Right after the lunch break and Zohor prayer, we started the short skit competition. The students were very enthusiastic to play the drama although they were not very competent in the language.

The language camp ended around 5pm and we arrived at UTM around 7pm. It was very tiring but was joyful. This is because I had no or little experience dealing with primary students and through this camp, I had a little bit of exposure on teaching primary students.

During Language Camp B

           A briefing among the facilitators as well as the committee members is conducted by the camp director (Mohd Hafiz) to ensure that our last preparation is completed. Although we faced problem with the PA system, our facilitator who is responsible for it (Khairul Syafiq) managed to solve the problem with the help from the school staffs.

Before we begin each of the activity, each of game masters will distribute all the materials needed to each group and also make sure that it is enough. Only after that we will start the activity. We officially start this camp with the ice breaking session. Each of the facilitators was given a piece of paper with a superhero’s name written on it, in big size to add. The students who got the superhero’s name will go to their designated facilitators with the same superhero’s name. This activity runs smoothly although the students seem to feel very awkward looking at each other faces (* I find this very funny though. I can’t stop laughing when looking at their faces :P).

As time flies, their shyness also flies away. In the second activity, they start to talk to each other in order to complete the group cheer and logo. To my shock, all of them are very creative in creating their group’s logo although some of them are not using English as their means of communication. Even so, I still encourage them to talk in English by using this language the whole time. Although they are not very competence in using this target language, I can sense that all of the students in my group understand my instruction. Well, sometimes I will need to paraphrase my instructions in order for them to get the intended meanings of my sentences. That is not a problem for me. They just lack of self-confidence to response to my instruction in English.

Although this is not my first language camp, it was a very great experience to be able to learn from the real experiences. I learnt to deal with the real students, the real teachers as well as the real problems in teaching English as second language.

Picture : Teamwork among my group members

Language Camp A: On the job! Facilitating a group of minions like a Boss!

Hello peeps, it's me again~ ^A^/

In this post, I'm gonna talk bout my experience during Language Camp A. I hope my experience during this camp can come in handy for you guys. 

I woke up that day with anxiety and in all honesty I really have no idea what to expect. I have never until that day handled a group of elementary school kids. When I stepped into the hall I was overwhelmed by the sheer sight if all the small lil' students. I had to convince myself it's going to be just fine just to be able to not panic. 

That whole day I tried my best to interact with my students as much as possible, they are really shy at the beginning but slowly they warm up to me after I made one of them laugh at my gesture later during the one of the games. I spotted that one of the students in my group is really good at getting others to join in, it was a blessing for me. The lil' angel really helped a lot to get others to warm up to me and participate more actively in the activities. I also assign simple small tasks for each student in my group while conducting the activities such as cleaning up and arranging things to let them feel like they are a part of the group. I think my group of students like it. My group students really like the attention given to them when I call out their name to help me and when I listen to what they want to say. 

My group English proficiency is mixed, some are low and some are intermediate and high. I needed to ensure my instructions where simple enough that they can easily understand and I did cheat a little by repeating my instruction in Malay.  The high and intermediate proficiency students get bored easily since they can do the activities faster than most of their peers in the group so I asked  them to help their friends during the activities especially during writing and reading activities to keep their interest and attention. .

The best moment during the language camp was during the drama activity. They are elementary kids, so I have taken it upon myself to write out their scripts in big letters so they can read them out but I had all of them contribute telling me what they want to say. My kids love making the props for the skits, we did the props together and well long story short it was a messy, a very FUN MESS.

At the end of the day, I had tons of fun. I love those cute lil' angels. I am very proud that my group manage to do the drama successfully since all of them overcome their shyness to talk in English at the beginning of the camp. I wish to have more and more fun experience like this again.

Alison's Reflection During the Language Camp B

This was my first time in joining a language camp and truthfully, I was anticipated in it. I used to teach in a classroom but in language camp, the students can learn in a free and unrestrained way. I used to have otherwise-minded thoughts on language camp but then, after having an immense thought, language camp acts as a crucial role in enhancing students’ interest in language learning and it gives more space to the students to have their own authentic learning compare to dull and boring lesson in school.

During the camp, I was assigned to be the facilitator of Group “Harry Potter” as the students were all divided into different groups of Super Heroes. The members in my group were all come from different school but in same level of Form 2. From what I have observed, the girls in my group were more active in learning whereas the boys were came to the camp to have some fun with their friends as they were not concern on the activities and they tended to chat with their friends from other groups than discussing their tasks with their group members. In short, the girls were the active learners and the boys were passive in learning.

At first, they seemed to be not interested to the activities in the camp. They did not show significant interest in the Charades and also the Win, Lose or Draw. Most probably they were not familiar with each another yet and both of the games were kind of demotivated once they knew there will be no prizes given for the winning team. Well, they started to bond as a team for the Group Logo and Cheers session while they have to work together in order to create their own logo and cheers. Their passion in ideas finding and giving out their opinion did made me have the faith that they were meant to be here for learning and to be more stand out compared to the other groups.

 As it was a language camp so the main aim of the camp is English learning. In the tandem writing part, the students were required to take turns in writing different version of story based on different theme set and for my group, they were required to write stories about animals. The idea of this activity is to produce different versions of story with different perspective of students as each of them were have to write one sentence for each of the different version of story hence ended up each of them had to write 1 sentence in each of the 6 different stories (total 6 sentences). It was a disaster at first that different students have different proficiency level as some of them were not able to write a structured sentence and thus, we did not manage to get a full and proper story to be presented for the Skit competition. However, they finally came out with a creative and funny story by editing one of the stories written by having a group discussion. Their passion to get good scores in the skit competition motivated them to be creative and innovative and finally they got the Second Place for the competition. A tiring but yet a fruitful one!!!

Language Camp B (During) by Afiqah Hani Bt Baharom

On 11^th Oct 2014, the day started when we gathered on 7.00pm at D05. Then, we ride a bus to SK Masai 2. The program was held at the Dewan Besar SK Kota Masai 2. As soon as we arrived, we set up the place according to the plan. Even though we faced some difficulties such as failure in PA system and also lack of accommodation at the school. Alhamdulillah we could overcome the problem and came up with Plan B. For the whole day, I became as a facilitator for Minion group. I got 8 students in my group. They were from different schools around Pasir Gudang area.

We did our activities together and I must say I had a great time with them. Even though initially, most of them were shy to speak up and use English, but as the time passed by, they started to use more English in the discussions or communications especially in completing the tasks of each and every game. The most interested parts are Tandem Story and The Skit. During Tandem Story, as a future teacher I realized that some of the students from were actually could write the complete sentences. However, it is such a relieved when I could still understand what they’re trying to say. For the Skit, they gave full corporations and enthusiasms and we won the skit as a whole.

The program ended earlier than what have been planned. At around 4.00 pm the students back to their home and we cleaned the place and packed things up and went back to UTM.  

During Language Camp B by Stephanie Young

That morning, we arrived very early at SK Kota Masai. Each one of us was assigned to groups based on name of the superheroes. I got Hulk, the Incredible Hulk. Personally, what attracts me the most is the unique colour of Hulk :P Unfortunately, there was technical problem with the PA system. But then, the emcees managed to work together with the school teachers and the facilitators to control the flow of the program. The emcees really did a great job at attracting the students. *Thumbs up*

After that, we were asked to stand in front of the hall and raise up our group cards so that the students could go to the respective groups. We gathered around and carried on with the first activity, Ice Breaking. The students were active and introduced themselves. We combined with Shirley’s group during the game. The student chosen to describe the word was rather shy at the beginning but he went better after few rounds. We won the game as the students were giving full cooperation throughout the game. What impressed me the most this that during the designing of group logo and group cheers, the students came out with many creative ideas. At the end, the students came up with a group cheers sounded, “Incre Incre Incre! Incredible Hulk! WE ARE HULK! NEVER GIVE UP!” Moving on was the Win, Lose or Draw. The students enjoyed the game and it was filled with laughter. After spending few hours together, the students actually created the ‘chemistry’ among themselves. What can I see is that, it is not about winning the game but it is about the fun and moments they spent together.

Next activity was the Tandem Writing. The theme assigned to our group is Love. The students laughed each time they received their friends’ paper. Each one of them was trying their best to be as creative to create a different storyline for their stories. The students discussed and agreed to choose the best story to perform the skid. They started to delegate roles and prepare props. I facilitated them throughout the rehearsal and gave suggestion to make their skid more interesting. Although we did not win in the competition, the students were enjoyed themselves. They became more confident and tried to speak English to their friends.

After all, it was really another great experience being a facilitator. I realize that I am carrying a big responsibility as a teacher. Every student is depending on my instruction. Everything I say will have an impact on the students. My attitudes get contagious too. There is a lot more to learn everyday and I hope to be better each day. 

Reflection (During the Language Camp A)

During the camp

On 27^th of September, we gather at 7 a.m and departed from UTM by bus. We arrived SMK Kota Masai 2 after an hour of journey. All of us feel a bit nervous because we do not know the participants. While walking into the school’s hall, we saw primary school students around the hall and that moment we know that they are the participants for this Language Camp. Almost all of the facilitators do not have the experience of handling primary school students.  The camp started with registration for both participants and facilitators. We were asked to make a line on the stage and briefly introduce ourselves to the participants. We did a small scale of morning exercise before we divided them into 20 groups. The grouping part was fun because both facilitators and participants are eager to know their groupmates. Next, we proceed with the first activity which is ice breaking. I believe almost all facilitators faced the same problem whereby some students were too shy to speak. Luckily we manage to overcome the problem by guiding the students to speak. We proceed with the next activity which is drawing logo and create group cheer. As for my group, I have no problem in conducting the drawing part. However, it took a long time for my group to come out with the group cheer because they do not have the experience of listening or even creating a group cheer. As a solution, I gave them an idea and let them practice it together. Next, we had our breakfast before moving to the next activity. For the next activities, we have to combine with the other group for few games. We played charades and Win, Lose or Draw. I found that all of them enjoyed these activities so much because they are able to move and compete with the opponent. After finished playing these two games, we create stories in a game named Tandem Writing. Most of my students do not know what to write. Hence, we create the story together. I asked for their opinion but still according to the sequences. Based on the story that we created, we have to act out in front of the other groups. During the rehearsal, my students were very excited and they practiced again and again. When it come to the performance, all of them started to feel very shy and they kind of whispering on the stage. Still, I congratulated them for their effort. We had so much fun together. My students started to speak in English from time to time. I really hope they will always enjoy learning English.

During Language Camp B by Yuanyi Tan

       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.

DURING THE LANGUAGE CAMP B

Hi, Hello. Now I proceed with my personal reflection during the language camp. 

We arrived quite early, half of the students have arrived and half of them were on their way. Even though we managed to arrive early, there was a technical problem where the microphone was not working at the beginning so the program started off a little bit late. Everything got solved later and finally the camp started off by dividing the students into groups. The emcees did a very good job to gain the students attention by doing the "hi" and "hello".

I was not assigned with any groups as I was the person in charge with the materials so I have to be aware with the timings and the slots to get the materials ready. Other facilitators helped me out with the materials which I appreciate a lot, thank you very much. However I did join Fatin Alia's group to facilitate the students and in the middle of the drama session, I took over another group. So basically, I co-facilitated more than one group during the camp.Even though we started quite late, we managed to carry out all the games and finish the camp on time.

About the students, since they are still in form one and they had to mingle around with students from other schools, they were actually quite shy. Some of them talked only after we asked them multiple times. They needed guidance throughout. I know there were students who are smart enough to participate actively but because most of them were shy and quite, the situation had hindered them to contribute towards the games. However, unexpectedly, during the performance of the cheers and drama, the students performed well enough after doing some rehearsals. To be honest, facilitators had to play quite a big role to make the students participate which I think all of them did a very good job. 

About the food, the students complained that it was quite spicy. Overall, everything went well. Everyone gave a very good cooperation. I think that is all. 

During the Language Camp B... by Lim Pei Rong

Hi all.

Now I am going to continue my story of Language Camp B. Hehe

After all the preparation, me and my friends went to SK Kota Masai 2 for the language camp on the 11st of October 2014. We started our camp by divided the students into 20 groups. My group named Spiderman. There are 8 students in my group. Not forget to mention, before this, I had attended a language camp as facilitator too. My previous group, a group of primary students was quite active in presenting their ideas, therefore, I put high expected on my little Spiderman as they are much more older than my previous group. However, little Spiderman surprised me during the ice-breaking session. They were really shy and refused to talk when I requested them to introduce themselves. It made the situation turn awkward as I was the only one in the hyperactive state. Huhu.

After that, we played the Charade game. Due to the shyness, all of them refused to come out and do the action for guessing (at last, I forced to pick randomly from the group). Next, we continue our session with group logo and group cheers. The students started to show cooperation and participated actively, especially come to the game of Win, Lose and Draw. 

However, when it comes to the Tandem Writing activity, students started to lose their interest. I discovered that their ability in writing sentences are low because of lacks of vocabulary and having low proficiency level of English, thus make them dislike the writing session. Therefore, I tried to motivate them by providing them with lots of idea and taught them how to write the sentences with their own idea. I assisted them in sharing the stories among the group members and choose the best story of the group. What made me felt relieved was there were few little Spiderman were willing to volunteer them as the main character when I told them they need to present their story during the skid competition. Fuhhh…

Generally, that was a well spent day as I gained another new experience. Although we faced problems during the camp, but at least we put all our efforts to solve it and make the language camp succeed. 

After a tiring day, Say Cheese!! Haha

Skit by NS

During: English Language Camp, September 27, 2014.

Right after the Tandem Story ended, we started the Skits. We asked the students to choose one of the stories produced by them. Unfortunately, they couldn’t decide which story. To make it easy, I chose the story for them. After that, I appointed a director and script writer. Again, they could not start anything. I have to help them to come out with a story line and script.

It was a bit hard to make some of them talk. Even when they talked, their voices were low until I have to make them repeated more than twice. I told the flow of the Skit which only took about 5 minutes. Some of them listen, the other were talking and bugging others. I was pretty sure and understood they were very excited to join this yet it was not that easy to make them listen carefully to what I was saying and of course they made me repeated the same parts more than twice. 

After they were all listen to the flow of the story, I asked them to act accordingly to the story. Most of them understood their roles yet they were still confused about which and when they should say the lines.

So I guided them to do a pre-skit starting for the first person to enter the stage until the last person. It was a great thing to do because they kept on giving me ideas to improve the Skit. They were really into the Skit thing.

During the presentation, they were all nervous. They were really scared but at the same time excited to do the skit. Even the story line was changed due to certain circumstances, they were all glad it was over.