영어 캠프, Day One - A Bit of a Disaster

Today was the first day of English camp and it was a mild disaster. There are four different camps: 3rd & 4th Grade Basic, 3rd & 4th Grade Advanced, 5th & 6th Grade Basic and 5th & 6th Basic Advanced. I was under the impression that I would teach the two 3rd & 4th grade camps two periods a day this week and the two 5th & 6th grade camps two periods a day next week. I was wrong, and will actually be teaching all four groups one class every day for two weeks. I don't know if I misunderstood the schedule or if the schedule was changed at some point and I just wasn't notified, but I discovered the mix-up fifteen minutes before the 5th and 6th graders showed up. I wasted a few precious moments staring at my co-teacher with wide eyes and whispering that I had nothing prepared for the older students before rushing to my office to swear like a sailor and throw together two lesson plans.

It turned out okay. I taught the 5th & 6th grade basic class a beefed up version of the 3rd & 4th grade lesson and plied them with candy to make up for boring them. The 5th & 6th grade advanced class was saved by an Aesop's Fables easy reader textbook and the magic of Youtube. The girls read an abridged version of The Grasshopper and the Ants, answered the textbook provided listening comprehension questions, wrote their own summery of the story and then watched the 1934 Disney Silly Symphonies retelling of the story. God bless Youtube.

Considering how unprepared I was for the lesson, I'm impressed with how well my 6th grade girls did. This was 엄예솔's summery of the story:

Ants are saving food for winter.
But grasshopper doesn't working. (She struck out the -ing on her own.)
Winter come. Grasshopper was very hungry.
Grasshopper comes to ant house.
Ants and grasshopper eat together.

Pretty awesome, right? She flubs the tenses a bit, but that's a good summery of the story with no major grammatical mistakes, all in her own words. I count it as a win!


3rd & 4th Advanced class playing Go Fish. Assa!