School is now closed until after the Mar 1 national holiday. The first week of january we have a five day winter camp. We have 4 classes in the morning lasting until 12.30. Officially we have to then stay in an empty school till 4.20 but I have been going home after lunch. There are two visiting english teachers from two other schools. One is British and one South African, to divide the four classes between the 60 students. In the past camp was 10 days long, which meant I had to come up with at least 15 lessons to cover the period. This year it has been reduced to 5 days which is better for me with lesson planning. A problem in the past was that students would not come for the 10 days at it overlapped with other camps such as maths or science so they would skip days to goto those camps instead. Every camp has also included some local elementary students whereas I teach middle school. This time I have 4 elementary boys, whereas in the past I've had upto 10 elementary students. The elementary kids are really cute and tiny, but smart and advanced to be allowed to come to middle school camp. An unfortunate incident happened one day. An elementary student didnt return from break, and when he did he was in tears. One of the middle school students that was not part of english camp had beaten him up outside. When questioned after the middle school student who is my size and double the elementary kids size said that he had done it just for fun. I felt bad for the elementary kid and gave him extra candies, but then his friend wanted them too so I had to give to both. Lesson topics for this week were - at the hair salon, choosing different styles and expressing a positive or negative what they thought of their haircut (trying to do something girls will like as hard to plan for them) - sports in canada and they have to act out activities (they liked acting out log rolling and rodeo) - famous black personalities. This was needed as they think everyone is part of obamas extended family (mandela is obama father/ oprah is obama wife). They thought Colin Powel was Bush's brother as they had the same hair, and that Condeleeza Rice was Colin Powels wife. They get Oprah and Whoopi Goldberg confused and thought Oprah was in Star Trek The Next Generation. One Kid also put Mohammad Ali down as the first black president of South Africa. They had no idea Michael Jackson had four brothers and a sister who all sing. Then I played a korean version of Tina Turners Proud Mary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q8n0fbc UhU They told me he is a tv actor. I've heard this playing in coffee shops before thats how I know about it. - opinions of music videos. I play different videos and they progressively express their opinion of the song/artist/hair/costume then later ask their friend for their opinion and whether they agree/disagree. I try to pick interesting visual videos as anything not korean they always find boring. I picked David Bowie's Starman for his outrageous look as that would keep them awake. One girl thought he was handsome while a boy said they were all gay. They all loved the Jedward video and wanted to see it more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXouSYab Dig I also used an outrageous song from Ukraine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hco0bR_m fzo&feature=related and a monster performance rock song from Finland which they liked http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA-XRYAp pdU&feature=related These all kept them awake which is quite hard if its not K-Pop and they automatically switch off. Each day we have a double class as there are four lessons and only three teachers. For the last two days I did the survivor auction where they have fake money and bid on food items like chocolate and other prizes which I bought for them. Even though it was fake money they were very tight and didnt want to get into bidding wars. One group was so tight with their money they wouldnt bid on anything. To make it fun a wildcard was 'steal' so they could take another teams prize. That got them a bit excited and bidding higher for the steal card. On Friday there were no classes. Instead we all went into the auditorium to play large team games. First I did hobbies game, after the visiting two teachers did a jeapordy game review of the four days classes while I had to keep score. Then all the teachers went for lunch. Overall this was a much nicer camp than the previous summer and winter camp I had done. First of all it was shorter so easier to plan. Second the students that wanted to come and that were interested came which made it more fun. Last Summer they made it mandatory for all grade 1 students who didnt want to be here so made it diffucult to manage. Now school is closed to till after the march 1 holiday. During this time I have to come and sit in an empty school, and use my 10 days vacation in the remaining time. In two weeks i'm off to thailand/cambodia/vietnam so that will be a nice break! :) Visit My Page on Facebook Departures1