Around this time of year, most schools in Thailand have an English camp of some kind over 2-3 days. Our school, being a government school, had an in-school camp instead of travelling somewhere. It must be noted that it was not really a camp at all, as the students and teachers went home at the end of each day. And in fact, different students came on different days, so that Monday we had grades 4-6 and Tuesday grades 1-3.
Our theme was Asean. Our goal for the 2 days was to educate students about different aspects of the 10 Asean member states in English. Each foreign teacher was assigned a topic (mine was 'food') and after the morning's welcoming ceremonies, we broke the students up into groups that would rotate between each topic.
Sounds simple enough, right? It should've been. But most of what we had was thrown together in the last week because my boss kept changing her mind between ideas that didn't make sense. Fortunately there were no classes in that week - students from schools in southern Thailand spent 10 days living in our school so they could attend a sports tournament here in Ubon. They slept in the classrooms, showered in the toilets, and hung their washing on the playgrounds to dry. It was a bit strange, but that's just Thailand I guess. Interesting reason to cancel an entire school's operations for 10 days...
And then we had our Asean camp:
* 10 girls, representing each of the Asean countries, played a large role in the opening, dancing and giving a brief introduction of their country in English.
* On the first morning, one of my colleagues, who had set up the signposts for his station's game the night before, was surprised to find that they'd built a stage for him... exactly where he needed space.
* This looks safe...
* Most of the Thai teachers didn't take part or help out. No one had explained to them in Thai what to do, so they figured it wasn't their responsibility. And, not being big fans of my boss (the head of the English department), they were over the whole idea before it even began.
* No one knew the important specifics of what was going on. My boss was the only one who had a schedule... and she lost it. This caused a particularly big problem on the second day when our three stations rotated. No one knew where the students had to go, so grades 1 and 3 switched stations, leaving me and another teacher with the same group of 340 students for another 40 minutes. I asked my boss where my group was supposed to be going so I could fix the situation. Her reply was: "I don't know."
* I was lucky enough to have a select few Thai teachers willing to help on the second day. After doing nothing on Monday and getting very bored, they took matters into their own hands on Tuesday. My station went from being a place of Asean food-related games to a dancing contest.
I have to say, I didn't mind. By this point, I was as over the whole idea as they were. It wasn't working, so they'd found a way for everyone to enjoy themselves.
* Some of the Thai teachers set up a game at lunchtime, where students had to race with water-filled balloons. One of my grade 3s got wet when her balloon randomly exploded. It was very funny.
* With about 1000 students on each day, it was a good thing we had the space of the oval to play our activities! Oh, wait... Nope, they've put the sprinklers on and it's become a swamp. Never mind.
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Lack of organisation comes with the territory of life in Thailand, so it's all a part of the experience. There are frustrating moments, sure, but I usually find this stuff quite funny, which is why I revel in sharing it.
What can I say???
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