Just last month Dr Paul Choo conducted a seminar on Principle of teaching for the 100 teachers of the seven schools under an Indonesian educational NGO (in English called “New Sprouts”).
Subsequently, Goducate was invited to conduct English camp for their first year Junior high students on the 7th and 8th August at one of the seven schools, called Tunas Bahru.
Camp started at 3.00 pm after school on the 7th which was a Saturday. 54 students came and attended the camp together with 3 of their teachers. How excited the kids were while waiting for our volunteer helpers from Singapore to come and spend time to teach them speech drama and play indoor games that will help them speak English!
We picked up our 7 Singapore volunteers from Sekupang ferry terminal and brought them to the school where the camp was held. We commenced with ice breaker action songs and games to help them break from their shyness and prepare them to converse in English. They were then divided into three teams and each team was to compete with the other at the end of the drama practice. The kids were so full of energy and did their best to speak English.
They spent a night sleeping in the school classrooms and were up early Sunday morning before the sun is up to play volleyball. Thereafter, we continued with our session with them.
The 3 Indonesian teachers really appreciate our coming to help their kids especially foreigners who can speak and teach English. Though not much can be done in term of teaching them to be fluent in English in just two days, yet our coming was an encouragement to the students to see the importance of learning English to prepare for a better future.
We will be back next month for another English camp. Any volunteer care to join us ???