English Camp

Chris drove me to Gate 17 where I met up with the rest of our group (same group as yesterday at DHL). We were taken by taxi to a school somewhere in Seoul. Our job was to teach English to disadvantaged Korean kids by reading and doing vocabulary exercises for the story "The Lion and the Mouse". There were 5 sessions of 40 minutes each with a 10 minute break. The first session we were to write our names on our camp t-shirts. That didn't take long so I read them the story of the cloud and the sun. In the second session we were to read them the lion and mouse story. Again, that didn't take long so I read the story again and asked them to growl when I said 'lion' and squeek when I said 'mouse'. But only one child did. So I asked them to circle the word 'lion' where ever it appeared in their packet. This they did easily, so I figure they had more English than I had been led to believe.
Then we had an hour and a half for lunch. It was like a cafeteria line in the front hallway. Ladies in plastic gloves put food on our plates: rice, pieces of fruit in cream, sweet and sour chicken, kimchi, jobchai, thick Korean noodles, and finally we went outside for pork from the roasting pig. It was all good but I couldn't finish it. The kids had no problem. Then helpers passed out sodas and canned coffee and ice cream products on a stick. Just what these kids needed: sugar. Then in session three we had flash cards and a worksheet. I was able to stretch that out to fill the time. In session four, we had a wordsearch, and a list of questions. We had each bought a bag of lollipops to give to each child as they answered a quesion correctly, amking sure each child got one. I had enough in my bag to give each one two suckers. In session five all children got a piece of paper to draw on while each child had their picture taken with me. Then the helpers took a group photo. There wasn't much to do after that so I showed them how to paper fold a cube. But only one child did it. Soon they were all running around the room. Each room had two groups in it. The groups ranged in size from 5 to 8 kids. I was kinda glad when it was over. Then we all went downstairs for the closing ceremony. I didn't understand the words, but there was more picture-taking.
When we got back to post I had Chris bring me home. He had a cabbage stew on the stove and it was good! We watched a little TV and each retired to his own computer.