High School Camp

The students have worked hard on each English challenge.  We are enjoying working with older students whose command of English is quite good.  Here are some of my students composing their English song.  The other photo shows Luke outside his classroom door.  (Audrey)

High School Camp Music Day

On Wednesday morning, the students "composed" English songs to familiar childhood tunes and performed them for the other campers. In the afternoon, they had to perform one Chinese traditional song and one Chinese pop song and contrast the two types of music on a t-chart.  It was a lot of fun to watch. (Audrey) 

High School Camp

Here are some views of our camp location, Doumen Number Four Middle School, a place that has become so familiar to us for the last three weeks!  

Our Esteemed Judges

The week long high school camp consists of daily competitions.  The theme is "Who's Got English Talent?"  Every day, the students have time to complete an English task in a limited amount of time, and then they present their final product to the whole group in the lecture hall.  Terry and Val circulate to every team as we work to encourage us and to keep tabs on progress to make sure each group is ready on time.  Then, Val and Terry have the difficult job of deciding a winning team for the morning contest, and then for the afternoon challenge.  They are doing a great job.  (Audrey)

Val was asked to be the narrator of The Three Little Pigs performance for a primary school graduation. We were act 11 of 22 that night!

You never know when you're going to come home to find live crab in the bathroom.

Victor and team Tidal Wave deep in thought about song lyrics

Melissa coaches team Lightning during the song writing competition.

Busily working on writing English songs

Teamwork

The high school students are working so well together on their team activities.  We are enjoying working with smaller groups.  Each of us is responsible for leading eight or nine students in daily English challenges for group competition.  We are having fun!  (Audrey)

Week Two Team

Our team has gotten smaller for this last week of high school camp!  We continue to enjoy the time of interaction with local friends over evening meals. (Audrey)

Macau Trip

On Sunday, some of us traveled to Macau together.  It was Terry's first trip there.  Here he is standing in front of the St. Paul's ruins.  Jumbo went with us, as well as the Lu Family, neighbors of Jumbo who hosted Janessa and Andrew in their home while they were here in Doumen.  (Audrey)

Old friends

Posted by Jeff

Petrel, Anna, and Joan have all been to our summer training one or more times beginning with our first camp in 2007. All teach at the No. 2 Middle School in Doumen. I've taken Taylor University students to do activities at their school during our January term trip. Luke Fetters and Greg Sweetland have taught some classes at their school. We always try to connect when I am here. Thanks for thinking of these dedicated and skilled English teachers.

Haiku compositions

This morning's competition activity was writing Haiku poetry. So picture this: a Jamaican student (Melissa Lawrence) leading Chinese students in writing Japanese-style poetry in English! What a global camp we have! Incidentally, Melissa's team, Lightning, came in second place in the Haiku competition, writing poems on the topic of Chinese festivals.

Here is one of Melissa's team' haikus celebrating the Mid- Autumn Festival:
Where are you, dear Moon?
Watching moon, eating moon cake.
We are together.
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The high school English Camp teams marching in and shouting their team chants. Revving up for a lively week of English-based competitions.

Look at team Sparkle shine

And here's team Tidal Wave strutting their stuff

Team Lightning (but note the spelling on the flag!)

The English Super Monsters presenting their team flag and chant

One of the team banners from high school English Camp

Twins!

Patricia was one of the teachers I coached last year, and she returned for the teacher training again this year.  She and I have kept in touch for the past year, and we share a birthday!  Here is a picture of us on Friday, our birthday!  We made sure we had lunch together so that we could quietly celebrate together!  We enjoyed knowing that we could share a day that is special to both of us together!  We laughed together calling ourselves "twins" though I am older!  It is great to connect with teacher friends from other years of training.  (Audrey)

A Sea of Pink

We will miss the classroom time with all of the middle and primary students.  This year we couldn't help but feel wide awake every time we walked into the classroom to a sea of pin shirts!  Friday morning, instead of a lesson, we did games in the classroom with the students.  Then in the afternoon we had our annual closing program.  The students were already expressing to us on Wednesday how sad they were that the camp was about over.  They told me I might need to bring tissues on the last day when we had to say farewell!  Here is Geri, one of the primary teachers, monitoring a play-doh vocabulary game.  The other photo shows the students singing during the final program.  (Audrey)

Final Day of Teaching Training

Shoshannah has done a wonderful job organizing the teacher training.  The teachers expressed that they felt like they grew professionally and had the opportunity to improve their English and make lots of new friends.  They were all excited to receive their certificates verifying their participation in the training.  (Audrey)

Closing Statements

Friday was filled with end-of-the-camp formalities and festivities.  There are always formal short speeches of thanks from both sides of our cooperative effort.  Here are Luke and Jumbo, and then Adam, expressing thanks about the hard work and effort of all involved.  (Audrey)

Amazing Teachers

Imagine that you are a teacher in your school and you are trained to teach Math or Chinese. An English teacher is needed, so you are moved to teach English with little or no English training. Your own ability to understand and speak English is very limited. THEN, you are assigned to attend an English camp lead by native English speakers. The training is in English, the materials are written in English and you will have to develop 2 lessons and present them to a classroom of 36 Chinese primary students in front of an American trainer and your peers. No pressure!

That scenario was true for some of my 20 teachers in my group.  Two of them, trained to be Chinese teachers (they teach Mandarin in the school), were asked to teach the English classes instead. They just finished their first year of teaching English. Another teacher said that she has been studying English for only 3 years. Our focus is teaching ways to teach spoken English. They have an excellent curriculum to follow for teaching grammar, but they are lacking in the practical side of developing the speaking that is so important to learning a language.

Jumbo and other administrators see the importance of this and that is why we are into the 3rd year of our contract with this school district. So, these primary teachers showed enormous courage every day. These teachers worked so hard and learned so much.  Their personal English speaking improved dramatically as well as their confidence! Audrey and I are so proud of our primary teachers and have grown to love each one!  We will miss them!

Thank you for thinking about us!
Nancy

More last day activities!

Teachers receive their certificates from Huntington University
and the Doumen Educational Bureau.

Happy teachers!

Teachers celebrate with cake.

Yes, it is a good as it looks.

More happy teachers!

The final day's program included lots of singing.

Shirt signing is a big hit.

"Let me take your photo - wait, just one more!"

Final Day Fun

Autographing camp shirts is the order of the day!  Melissa signs a shirt. 

We have more than 130 students and they all want a photo with their teachers.  This is my home room and today's activity was taking photos.  By Charlie

A toast!

Agnes, Andrew, Janessa and Charlie will return to America after camp Friday.  Last night Jumbo and Adam held a banquet for the returning team members.  The balance of the team will present a first ever senior high camp next week.

Andrew watches as students play games - for the last time!

Middle schoolers still appreciate fun classroom materials!

Middle school teacher Emily explaining a group activity

Primary Student Energry

The whole team has enjoyed the two energy-filled weeks of camp with the primary and middle school students.  Their enthusiasm is contagious, and they are already talking about how sad they are that the camp is over tomorrow. The team will begin to prepare this weekend for a whole different kind of energy for next week's high school camp! (Audrey)

Last Teacher Lessons

Today was the last day for the Doumen teachers to teach their sample activities.  We American teacher trainers are so encouraged by their hard work and creativity.  (Audrey)