Observing the experts...

Tuesday

As there are no students coming to the 'teaching centre' this week, all the teachers are sent out to a school somewhere in the countryside with what is called a 'Travelling English Camp.'
At 9am a large coach turns up outside the school. Onto it is loaded many boxes of stuff, and a banners is taped to the side of the coach - 'Travelling English Camp.' I tried to find out what the format for the day is, but was met only with grins and 'just wait and see...you are gonna have a lot of fun' (that was Pete).

We drive for about 40 minutes and arrive at a middle school...somewhere. There is a total of 66 students at this school...so it's pretty small. All the stuff is taken off the bus and put in various empty classrooms cleared of desks. Then, in 4 classrooms are set up large screens with picutes of an airport, a restaurant, a supermarket, and a doctors surgery. Four more classrooms have been cleared of desks...and are reserved for something else. I am told that 'the performance' begins at 1pm. Still I am not told what this is...just get cheesy grins and 'you are gonna love it' from Pete (in very loud voice so everyone can hear).

We had lunch, which for me was just rice (Korean food + a vegetarian = bowl of plain rice for me, and the usual 'why are you vegetarian?' questions that I got in China). Then, in another cleared classroom, people started dressing up for 'the performance'. Gerrud, a well built, hairy Australian with a goatee put on a dress and then had his makeup done. Cheney...a Korean male teacher also put on a dress and a wig, and had her makeup done too. The others put on various outfits. Pete put on some old torn clothes...he was to be 'the garbage fairy.'

The performance was about to begin. I couldn't hold my excitement, and went to stand at the back of the hall, well away from the stage. Then the sound system that had been bought especially for the 'travelling english camp' kicked in, and on came Gerrud in his dress and bright red lipstick, with a broom, sweeping the floor. It was a kinf of adaptation of 'Cinderella', except it was called 'Smellarella'. The students laughed. I watched from the spaces between my fingers. On came the others, and spoke at their normal speed. The students didnt understand a word, but laughed anyway. The 'garbage fairy' came on (Pete was careful not to let the kids see him before the show, as it 'would ruin the surprise') and a few kids laughed. The garbage fairy spoke to Smellarella - 'you wanna go to a party?' (kids not know what is going on, some are chatting to each other). The play goes on for about 10 minutes, and end up with the prince, who is a woman dressed up marrying the hairy mangirl cause he/she loves its bad smell that no one else can stand. Oh it was so funny and hilarious. What a fantastic idea this is! Get a group of foreigners to dress up and prance around on stage using English at a level way above what anyone watching can understand, but just make faces and gestures that would make a baby laugh...and tada!...you have a bunch of happy kids in a school in the countryside that is honored to have us visit. Monkeys would have done the same job, but I guess everyone has seen a monkey in a dress so it just wouldn't work. This was something special. But it is also something I am not going to do. I just finished a CELTA course, and learnt a lot from it. I will have to write to the course organisers, as no part of the course had anything like this as an effective way to teach English. I am not putting on a dress and lipstick for anyone. Those days have long gone. No way in the world. It's not an English Camp. It's a Freak Show...and they don't know it!

After the show came the games.

The games were set up in 4 empty classrooms: darts (magnetic), throwing a rolled up newspaper across the floor at empty bottles, a magic trick, and draw the shapes described by the loud American called Pete. This must be the 'fun' part, as hardly any English was used. In fact Pete's activity was the only one that used English. The others were just games. What was the aim of this? I guess to bring the kids some 'fun'. However, many looked pretty bored after a few minutes of each activity that they were rotation around. Darts? They stood in lines and waited their turn to throw a dart at a board pinned to the wall. Then they went to the back of the line. At the end they falsely hyper excited foreign teacher asked her assistant who won, as she hadn't got a clue. After the 20 minute activity, some marshmallows were handed out, which made the kids happy and forget to question the point of what they were doing.

Pete's activity required students to sit in a circle and draw shapes where he told them to draw them. It was a fairly useful listening exercise, but they all copied from the one kid who could understand what Pete was saying, and after 15 minutes of doing it twice more, the kids were bored and Pete told them 'now, colour in your shapes' - what a treat! He finished by giving high-5's to everyone, or rubbing them on the head if they didn't want to high-5 with him. Pete is just a big friendly American chap doing his bit for the poor kids, and bringing happiness to their mundane lives. Well, that's what he thinks anyway.

After the games came the rooms set up as places they might go to one day in their lives, if they can ever leave the poor place they all come from. An American restaurant, an airport, a supermarket, and maybe more useful to them...a medical centre.

Pete was the doctor, and put on his white coat and sat at a desk. The kids lined up and were told to choose from 4 things wrong with them. They then went to see the doctor. They spoke one sentence each, and the doctor then checked them out before putting a plaster on the affected area. The problems were any from: a sore throat, a cold, a stomach ache, and a toothache. For each a plaster was stuck on the student by the doctor, after he had touched and prodded the problem areas. Some were comfortable with this, others not. They then had an eye test with the Korean partner teacher. Most of them had poor eye sight. Then that was it until they rotated onto the next venue.

All the other activites had a similar amount of English, ie..hardly any at all. I was just observing, as it was all far too complex for me to do straight away. I should watch the experts first. And so I did. I got the feeling lots of the kids wanted to speak more, as they were coming over and talking to me rather than do nothing. Pity they didn't get more of a chance really. But soon it was the end of the show, and all the stuff was packed up and the coach rolled away. The staff of the school waved us all off after a happy fun day for their miserable deprived kids. At least I think they were waving. The kids were not sad that we were going it seemed...so the show must have been a great success. That's what the news on the local TV station will say tonight.

(Happy Birthday Mum!)