2007 SK Winter English Camp

Winter camp is over and was one of the most enjoyable/rewarding experiences I've had in Korea.

After struggles with immigration over me and my 5 friends teaching without diplomas (not even English education diplomas, but any ole' diploma - engineering, physics, hair dressing, doesn't matter), we decided to work for the English camp as "volunteers." We signed volunteer contracts and headed down to the most boring college-town on the face of the peninsula, SuWon.

The kids arrived on the 5th on January, and we were instructed to greet them with excessive enthusiasm. Classes started on the 6th, rather slowly at first but picking up with time. There were 50 kids at a variety of English skill levels, but they were all cute and well behaved with the exception of 4. By the end we were all the best of friends, and I could have spent another ten days with them.

The camp day was divided into four one hour periods before lunch and starting at 9, then an hour for lunch, then four more hours of fun classes.

We divided the students into 6 classes since there were 6 teachers. Each of us had a homeroom with which we spent the most time. My homeroom was class 3, and together we had one class in the morning. After lunch for the first three days we worked on adapting a story into a drama and making a newspaper about the camp. After that I was teaching theme classes, some days about Halloween, some days about Western restaurant menu/etiquette. Other teachers taught classes about bank or airport scenarios.

At the halfway point, the teachers were given a break while the students went on a pottery making field trip. When everyone returned, the morning classes restarted. In lieu of teaching drama and newspaper to my homeroom, I began rotating through every class to teach them a "science class." We did a few experiments dealing with static and Newton's first law. Other teachers were rotating around teaching cooking, geography, quiz show, arts and crafts, etc.

The theme classes were also shuffled around, and I began to teach model U.N. and scavenger hunt in the late afternoon. A field day was introduced into the rotation as well. We made kites, memorized the seven dwarf's names and the longest word in the English language, colored a United Nations flag, and gave speeches about the Kyoto Protocol.

When it came time to leave, everyone had become close friends indeed. For many of the kids it was their first time not living at home, and for most it was the most English they had ever been required to speak/listen to. I have a lot of individual funny stories, but that is a decent general overview. Of course not all of ten days can be posted, but feel free to skype me about details!