English Camp, Phang Nga Town

Had an English Camp sprung on me by our supervisor who never tells me what is going on. He'll only talk to Chris, who also lives in my province.

I was on my way home from Thanksgiving weekend when he calls me and says,
"So you're coming, right?"

Completely confused, I reply: "Uhh, what are you talking about?"

But off to the English Camp I went, and so did a Swede English teacher, who didn't know that she was going to an English Camp until she arrived and saw all the children. She wins. We planned the camp as the school principal was giving the opening speech.

An English Camp is basically a day-long (or several days long) event with the basic components of a (an):
1. Opening ceremony
2. Big group activity. Usually an ice breaker or some such that forces the kids to do some activity that pushes them out of their comfort zone and by some miracle this kind of humiliation forces a bond between students. Lesson learned: discomfort leads to comfort?
3. Break
4. Rotation. In essence, a class where a pre-assigned group of students will learn/do/sing/make something. The students will of course, use and enhance their English skills and have one heck of a good time. A rotation can focus on speaking, listening, reading, writing or any two of the above or all of the above. One teacher teaches one rotation and kids will move from rotation to rotation. Rotate, if you will.
5. Rotation.
6. Lunch.
7. Big Group Activity.
8. Rotation.
9. Rotation.
10. Closing ceremony.

This is the basic setup. Some camps have more rotations, less big group activities, some have more breaks, some have less rotations. You get the picture.

For this camp, there were around 240 students, 4 farang trainers [which meant 60 students per teacher. which is A LOT of students] and one building with no walls or desks or chalkboards to do all our activities in. Months ago, this complete lack of organization and planning would have had me tearing my hair out. On the second day of the camp, supervisor Nimit managed to shanghai a Dane who had been staying at a local hotel to come and help out. I just had to laugh. The camp was successful, the trainers and I all enjoyed ourselves and (I believe) no one lost any hair. This job definitely teaches you how to go with the flow.