English Camp

I went to Sumiyoshi English Camp in Shinodayama last week. It was two nights and three days of English immersion for Sumiyoshi High School's International course kids. In Japan some high schools have special courses that focus on a certain element during the three years the students attend. It's like the magnet schools for art or music back home. The kids take all the rest of the subjects like math and science and history, but most of their electives are focused on something else. The international course kids focus on learning foreign language and taking classes in English. They have a lot of current events discussion groups and debate classes. This English Camp was the culmination of their first year in school and it was supposed to be like a mini home stay. There were about 35 ALTs and 20 Japanese teachers (English teachers and other subjects too). It was a pretty good experience both for the teachers and the kids.

The first day we had a meeting after we got up from the station. Most of us had cabbed it up there because it was a 20 minute walk up hill ain pretty iffy weather. It started to rain when we got there so I was glad for the ride. The subsequent meeting was about an hour and included lunch. The SUmiyoshi ALTs did a really great job of explaining what was to happen during the camp. We all felt pretty prepared after that. The kids came soon after that and we had our enterence ceremony. We did a little self introduction and slpit into small groups for more self intros. Our main activity of the evening was making a newspaper. It took two hours and the kids were given a picture to create a story around. Our articles were cute: The true founder of Akihabara being a foreign guy who first owned a shop there, the man who invented the stuff that takes the itch out of mosquito bites and something to do with two lovers. It was a good time, although my group was pretty quiet. We split for dinner, half eating and half playing a game called Lost (which items would you take after a plane crash?) and then switch. There wasn't room in the cafeteria for all of the kids at once so we took shirts for all the meals.

Journal writing was the last activity, and it was the one we had all dreaded the most. However, it ended up being one of the most fun times we had. It was a chance to chat with the kids about their interests and to get to know them well. The first night we were going to take shirts but ended up all just staying in and playing with the kids. The second night Abe brought his copy of Joe's Apartment and we listened to the kids play piano. The kids are really great over there and willing to get to know people so I think that this was the most useful part of the camp. Free conversation is how you really learn to use a foreign language well.

The second day was a big debate tournement. We did a demo for the kids the day before so they could see what they needed to do. For medium level English skills they did an amazing job. The final debate was pretty good on the part of both the pro and con teams. The subject was "It is better to get a job after high school than to go to university." It was a hard one to argue but the kids did really nicely. There were some different activities for teams that were eliminated early in the rounds so they got a break from the debating. That evening we had a cook out (Japanese style-I'll give it a special post!) and a bonfire. Those were probably my favorite parts with the fire, s'mores and singing. Journal writing followed again and we all stayed up much later chatting that evening.

The last day was for English comedy. The kids made some funny skits and played them out for different ALTs. Then a group of pro English Rakugo peeople came in and performed for them. It was great bcause they spoke slowly and sometimes mixed in japanese so een the kids who were burning out had a good time. Saying goodbye after the awards ceremony was sad, be we had all had a great time. I wish them well with the experience next year. I'm sure it will come to be a time honored and much looked forward to tradition.