School Holiday Camps in Thailand supported by OpenmindProjects - A campfire story.
School holiday camps provide a golden opportunity for volunteers to help and encourage Thai children to improve their English and other skills. Meeting
travelers from other countries and learning about exotic cultures is
an exciting way for the kids to learn by doing.
By combining the skills of our volunteers and our trainees the
camps focus on learning English and computer skills, as well as
cross-culture training and other activities. The camps tend to be
light hearted with much fun interaction including games, role-plays,
sports, songs, art and other creative activities.
The goal is to offer a way of motivating and helping under privileged
children to learn. For young Thai and Lao people, better English means
better chances for university admissions and better job opportunities.
Our volunteers Tom and Christian recently helped out at a school camp in Isan, Northeast Thailand, and we got a chance to interview them about their experiences.
During their camp volunteering Tom and Chris stayed at Kiednarong's house. He's the vice principal of the school and in charge of organizing the camp.
During the first week they focused on training the teachers. The goal was that all the teachers, not just the English teachers, should be able to teach their own subjects using English.
'It went great,’ said Christian. ‘They knew a lot of English so we
could focus on teaching them alternative ways to teach and
pronunciation. Everyone was really into it’.
‘We showed them how to teach learning by doing,’ Tom said. ‘Role
playing and interactive teaching. The Openmind philosophy of teaching’.
The first week concluded with assignments for all the teachers to see
if they had understood the idea of learning by doing, for example,
a chemistry teacher created a quiz for her lesson. The teachers then
put on a show for the whole school. Tom and Christian participated as
Thai sword fighters in a mock battle using actual, if blunted, swords.
‘That was really good show,’ Christian said. ‘We were giving it everything we had!’
‘We practiced every evening after teaching,’ said Tom. ‘My teachers
were two soldiers named Teuy and Elf. It was great fun!’
At the start of the second week Tom and Christian switched to teaching the
students. Lessons started early in the morning and continued after a
lunch break.
‘The children here were older than those we had been teaching before,’
said Christian. ‘They knew a lot more English but it was much harder
teaching such large groups. And we had to improvise a lot’.
‘Yes, we had to be creative,’ said Tom. ‘There were no other teachers
there so sometimes they didn't understand what we were saying. We had
to explain using body language a lot. Jocha and Simon were there to help us for a couple of days, though’.
Jocha is one of the Openmind Projects' Trainees. He's from a Karen hill tribe from Burma and is staying at the Openmind Training Center in Nong Khai. Simon is another volunteer who stopped by the school before heading to his placement in Krabi.
‘And we tried to come up with activities for the kids,’ Christian
said. 'We were teaching them everything from English slang to body
parts and then how to order food in a restaurant. But sometimes we ran
out of things to do so we just had to come up with something on the
spot’.
The second week went by quickly, and then it was time for the
Graduation Show. The theme was the ASEAN summit, with the some of the
students dressed in the traditional clothes of the member nations. Tom
and Christian played the role of Muai Thai boxers demonstrating their fighting skills along with four Thais. Sven was there to represent Openmind Projects.
So how did you like being in charge of a School Camp? ‘It was amazing’, Tom said. ‘Everyone was so grateful for us being there’
‘It was really good,’ Christian added. ‘Every day and every hour!’
