English Camp

For three days I was asked by my company to participate in an English Camp at a government high school outside Bangkok. 400 students! Ten hour classes of 40 students each. There where 5 teachers including myself and we each had different stations and the students rotated on the hour from one to the next.

It was not as bad as it sounds. I just focused on the class in front of me and then waited until the next group came my way.

The assignment? Create a puppet show using finger puppets and tell a story in English. At the end each group would do their show and we would judge them on Vocabulary use, Grammar, Story, Pronunciation and the creativity of their puppets.

I first I thought it was kinda lame and these cool Thai high school students would not be into it. But was I ever surprised. They turned out to be very creative.

One was a rock band and they introduced the band and played a song from an IPOD. It was really funny. 400 students pretending they were at a rock concert and cheering like mad fans and in reality they are watching a bunch of finger puppets shake and act like they were playing guitars.

Two very good Cinderella stories.

And one story where a group of friends went swimming in the ocean and saw a shark. "Tin swam fast. Duang swam fast. Pon swam fast. Tommy swam slow. The shark ate Tommy. We were sad. We went home."(Not a lot of points for grammar - but very funny.)

The winner? A boxing match between one of the students and Mike Tyson. The turned the box on its side and used strings to create the ring and even had one puppet as the girl who carries the round card. They asked us what her name was and none of us could think of it. I finally suggested - showgirl. The puppets were very well drawn and the kids were really into it.

I had a blast but they were long days and I am looking forward to returning to my regular schedule.