Summer Camp Ideas?

[koalajapan]

Help!

My school has put me in charge of a summer camp program- something I have no experience in! I am responsible to set it up AND advertise it. It is being touted as an ENGLISH summer camp.

The summer camp is for Japanese Junior High School students , all girls, ability is true beginner, most are sports-mad, The facilites are the school's own. At the moment we have ten students 'interested' but that number will go up IF I am successful in advertising.

Can anyone give me pointers on where to start looking on the net for ideas? I want to be safe and devise 'a theme' to 'team' with.

So much thanks!

[Sally Olsen]

What a great opportunity. A sports camp is an ideal way to learn English. You can get videos on sports in English and show those - tips on how to kick the ball in soccer and so on. They are usually short and to the point. Then you can go out and practice. You can have posters with things they might want to say during the game and if you know their langauge, listen to what they say and translate for them, adding it to the posters. There are constant sources for saying something. They can put post it notes on all the equipment for names in English - net, lines, home plate, etc. You can run drills on the sports as you learn them from the videos and the students waiting for turns can talk to you in English. You can organize Large Games (look in the Scouts or Guides web sites for description of Large Games). You can play Red Rover and hopscotch or any of the old games, all the while explaining in English and figuring out what students will have to say or will want to say and writing it down on large posters or in the sand or dirt. They can write English graffiti with chalk on the sidewalks. They can prepare English lunches and make English snacks from English recipes. You can end the day with picture stories - take lots of digetal pictures during the day and show them on a TV with a commentary. I personally like parachute games which encourage a lot of talking.