Julianne's First Winter English Camp Ends . . .

Today was the last day of Julianne's first winter English camp for middle school girls. Since it was 'party' day (this seems to be a fairly common thing to do on the last day of English camps in Korea) I put in an appearance to see the "Fantasy Island" English project the girls did during the camp.

My appearance evoked a few funny reactions . . . lol.

I floated around for a while and then sat down at a table and played some games with the girls.

First, we played Scrabble . . . it was fun at first, but after about 20 minutes the girls began to lose interest so I suggested we play another game . . .

While playing the game I kept snapping random shots of the girls--always fun to make middle school girls scream and yell, "Teacher, no!" Moowahahahahah . . .

We played a traditional Korean children's game called "Yut." This is what the traditional game looks like (from wikipedia).

There are four wooden sticks. One side of each stick is flat and has nothing on it, and the other is curved and has a picture of a traditional Korean character on it. You pick up all four sticks and throw them in the air. The number of sticks facing with the picture up equals the number of spaces you can move your team's game markers along a path on the board. The goal is to get all the markers to the finish . . . please bear in mind that this is the info I figured out from talking with the girls--wikipedia's entry on the game is much more accurate.

One of the girls walked right up to me and asked me if she could take my picture with Julianne. Well, asked me in some English with a lot of gestures. I said sure, and here it is.

Later, while walking around to the different tables, chatting with the girls, and taking more pics . . . I saw this girl having what one could call the typical middle-school-girl-having-fun-releasing-stress-going-nuts-screaming-and-yelling-for-the-fun-of-it-I'm-just-glad-that-I'm-not-studying-and-am-allowed-to-have-a-little-bit-of-free-time . . . it'd been a while since I'd seen this so it was fun to watch, lol.

I then saw a group of girls doing a very common student free time activity in Korea: the chant game with hand actions and rules that no native speaker of English (especially guys) ever fully comprehends . . . lol.

At another table was a cool pick up sticks barrel of monkeys game . . . it's really amazing to see how uninhibited the students in Korea are when given a chance to relax and have some fun.

Then the pizza arrived . . . if you've never seen hungry middle school girls attacking and eating a pizza . . . well, you're missing out, lol.

Some girls have eating down to an art form combined with multi-tasking skills . . . this girl is taking a bite while at the same time pouring herself a cup of Coke.

Joy in a box . . . pretty much sums it up.

Some Koreans learn at an early age to multitask: eating, drinking, AND playing a game while standing . . . wow.

Julianne posted the girls "Fantasy Island" materials on the walls of the classroom, and put the buildings they made with cardboard boxes on display too.

The girls made postcards with pictures they drew of different places on the island and then wrote English messages on the back of them.

I'm very proud of Julianne's first English winter camp in Korea . . . the girls had fun, learned some new English, and used their English while doing a project--can't ask for more than that.

Just in case you didn't click on the map picture and missed the names the girls gave to different places and geographical locations here are 'a few' (keep in mind the name of the fantasy island was "Disney Island"--this might explain the theme, lol): Jasmine Waterfall, Nemo Valley, Eeyore Canyon, Piglet Lake, Simba Beach, Dumbo Mountains, Tinkerbell Flower Garden, Mickey Mouse Desert, Tarzan Forest, Tigger River, Minnie Mouse Bay, Aladdin Ocean, Wendy Bay, Goofy Ocean, Christopher Robin Forest, Donald Duck Lake, Pooh Hills, Beast Flower Garden, Snow White Waterfall, Mulan River, Ariel Beach, and Belle Sea, Peter Pan Forest, Genie Beach, Rajah (they spelled it wrong, "Laza") Stream, and the one non-Disney item--Stonehenge.

The buildings are very cool . . .

These pics are of the 'fantasy creatures' the girls had to make, and then label in English the different animal parts and body parts. They had to use their imaginations and creativity to design the fantasy animals that would populate the island.

For a first winter English camp I'd say it was a great achievement--especially considering it was also Julianne's first time teaching Korean students without a co-teacher in the classroom with her--I'll try not to comment on how foreign English teachers are given the title of "assistant-teacher" in their public school contracts yet do all of the lesson planning and teaching--even when there is a co-teacher in the room it generally ends up being the foreign native English teacher taking the 'leader-teacher' position . . . hmmmmm.

Anyways, I'm very proud of Julianne's teaching, and the girls were happy with her too.

J