English Camp

January 31st-February 2nd there was an English Camp at Shonen Shizen No Ie in Gotsu, Shimane Japan.
It was held by Gotsu Senior High School, and overseen by yours truly, 6 JTEs and 11 other ALTs. (For those of you still unfamiliar with these obnoxious acronyms...ALT=Assistant Language Teacher, JTE=Japanese Teacher of English.)
The 24 students were separated into 4 teams of 6, 3 ALTs were assigned to each team. I think I was supposed to be the third ALT with one of the teams, but I was so worked up about keeping all the pieces in place and everything running smoothly that I kind of abandoned them.

But I digress...

The ALTs that helped with camp were: Lena (Ireland), Fiona (Great Britain), Rebecca (Scotland), Gemma (Wales), Donna (New Zealand), Evan (USA), Leif (USA), Katy (USA), Eddah (Kenya), Leah (Quebec), and Ben (USA).
Diverse group, right? With this in mind, I decided that the theme for the English camp was "World Travelers" and that workshops and games would be loosely based on that theme. For example, we had a cultural guessing workshop, New Zealand bingo at dinner, Scottish Dancing, funniest play and best play all got world maps, and one of our auction prizes was a bag full of compasses. Just to name a few.
Now that I sit back and look at it, there was A LOT going on those three days.
The first day the teams introduced themselves in every creative way, using all sorts of lovely games the ALTs has stored in their psyches and pockets. Each team came up with a team name. Let me introduce you to...

THE TRAVELING COOKIE MONSTERS!
GB AND HIS BMCS!
(Gorilla Boss and his beautiful, crazy monkeys)THE CC LEMONSHAKERS!
and
THE NATURAL CRAZY KILLERS WITH MAYZELG
(M.A.Y.Z.E.L.G.=first letter of everyone involved in the group)

These group photos were taken at the end of camp. The posters were made during the first day to help introduce each member to the rest of the team. They made small posters about another member and created the large piece as a group.

The team names continuously cracked me up. And the ALTs with their competitive team spirit created cheers, dances and even T-shirts for their students. Yay team pride.

We had the introduction and poster-making workshop, a cultural guessing game workshop where the students learned more about the country where their ALT was from, a dreamcatcher workshop with Bentha Stewart, a slang workshop with Leif (there is nothing funnier than watching a group of extremely unhip foreigners try to get a group of Japanese teenagers to say, "Your shoes are soOo fly, girl"), a speech contest, drama competition, auction, outdoor (in the snow) activities, a scottish dancing lesson and dance party, several touch rugby games, a spa night...the list goes on. The schedule was tight, the kids were excited, the JTEs were drinking every evening and the other ALTs saved the day.

I cannot express how happy I was with how it turned out. The students have come to me and said that they had a great time and wished to do it again. More of them are speaking to me now, more of them are willing to make mistakes in front of each other, it's like they all received massages and can relax in class.

Camp had its awkward moments. I was working with a JTE who has an anxiety disorder, and has problems improvising. No matter how much preparation we put into things (which was A LOT) we still needed to bend a little on some matters. This was difficult to pull off while working with someone who couldn't be flexible without chain smoking eleven cigarettes beforehand. He is a great guy, eager to teach English and keep the students excited. There were just a few moments when I wanted to ring his neck.
There were other awkward times when I wasn't sure where my role was. I really wanted to connect to my students because I was seeing some of them open up and feel comfortable speaking with other people, and I wanted to be a part of that. At the same time my JTEs were drinking and asking me to join in, or wanted just to chill out with me. Also, I am making new friends with ALTs and wanted to be there for them because they were basically taking my plans, improving and executing them for me. I didn't know how to express how wonderful that was without sounding like I was gushing...and most of them had done something like this before so I figured it was old hat.
Trying to understand my role didn't weigh me down or make any part of the experience less enjoyable. It was just hard at times to know where I was supposed to be and how I could best be there for all three.

Overall, great camp. The dramas were hysterical, all written and performed by each team competing for prizes. Some of my students showed their true colors HAMMING it up, dressing in drag, screaming and play-fighting.

Each student spoke English and was a part of something interesting and fun. I have never spent so much energy at one time as I did at the camp.
That is why I have a cold now.
That is why I have no voice now.


This is the greatest zipline...EVER:



This was a part of our "outdoor activities". Wicked fun.