2009 Fun & Up! English Camp

Winter break for Korean public school lasts from the end of December through the beginning of February. Instead of being allowed to take the long break and relax, most English teachers are forced to attend one of the many Metropolitan Office of Education sponsored Winter English Camps. The camp we were selected to attend was a 6th and 4th grade camp located in Gyeongju, about an hour north of Ulsan. The camp was at Sorabol College, where we had orientation/H1N1 quarantine when we first arrived in Korea. We spent the first 3 weeks of January there, teaching Monday - Friday, 10+ hours a day. We would meet the bus near our apartment every Monday morning, then stay in the dorms until Friday when it was time to load back up on the buses. It sounds like hell, but it wasn't that bad...

Reena, Teresa & Andrew at Folk Dance

Every afternoon, we grouped together with other teachers to do an afternoon activity, such as watching a movie, playing a mini-Olympics game or folk dancing. Judy and Andrew were lucky enough to land spots on the folk dancing team!

(Andrew made the mistake of wearing that stupid monkey hat all day for the first few days, which basically forced him to wear it for the entire camp. He was known as 'monkey teacher,' 'gorilla teacher,' or, his favorite, 'handsome gorilla.' The students also thought he was wearing it to hide that he was bald or had a skin disease, so it became quite the mystery until he finally took it off.)

"Please don't stop the music..." - Rihanna

Before dancing each day, one of the Korean teachers
led the students in an incredible warm up/stretch routine
to Rihanna's hit song. It was amazing!

Work it gurl!

Ahahahahahahaha!

During the second or third week of camp, one of
the students thought he was really cool and jumped
onto the roof of this shed, then fell through!
(The lil' punk wasn't injured in the fall, don't worry.)

From the bus on the way home one Friday, we saw this
man out for a stroll about a block from the hospital.
What better time and place to light up?!

This is a student from Andrew's school
participating in the mini-Olympics.

If only the kids shared Dave's enthusiasm...

Somehow they turned this into a mini-Olympics event

This girl was the devil.
Andrew and his co-teacher lovingly referred to her as, "Pink Glasses B***h."

The side of a bus in the parking lot.
What?

Judy's Class - Vancouver

(To aid in the disorganization of the camp, each class and classroom was named after an English speaking city. The students were only told city names and the teachers only had room numbers, so no one knew where they were supposed to be.)

Some of Judy's boys. The one in the purple hooded sweatshirt was one of her best students.

And some of her girls. One evening, the girl flashing the peace sign ripped the butt of her pants!

Toronto, Andrew's Class

During each break between classes, the students would always draw Andrew a picture.

One morning, he walked in to find this on the chalkboard!

On the last day, as he was walking out of class to go home, this kid turned to Andrew and said, "I wish you and Judy travel everywhere. I'll see you in the heavens!" That was the most he ever said in English!

Judy's boys at lunch

Judy playing Scattergories, her evening activity

The last class of the night was a two hour evening activity. The teachers paired up and created fun activities for the students to give them a break from the all the studying. Judy and Teresa did Scattergories, which was a big hit.

Other evening activities included crafts...

...and sandwich making.

This boy, Lan, is another student from Andrew's school,
and is the sweetest and cutest child alive.
He might be coming home with us.

Andrew and Dave taught card games as their evening activity.
They taught Black Jack, Crazy 8's, and Gin Rummy to the students.

Not happy!

At the end of camp, we had a talent show where the students were allowed to show off their skills if they liked. Many students got together with their friends and preformed K-Pop dances which were pretty amazing. Some entire classes even did songs together or acted out skits. For only practicing a few days, the talent show actually turned out surprisingly well.

Two of the 4th graders

Dave and Teresa

This kid was great! He loved speaking English...

One of Andrew's

Lan again. God, this kid is adorable!

Judy and Dave were the MC's for the event!

This was another amazing kid. He was a genius, and could dance like you wouldn't believe.

The girls got pretty scary by the end of camp.

On the last day, the teachers couldn't walk down
the hallway without being accosted by flocks of
them wanting to take pictures of them on their cell
phones and have them sign their camp shirts.

They were like the paparazzi,
only scarier and more in-yo-face!