A busy busy week.

It started on Monday. I picked up Adam, Dan and Paul in Uozu and we headed to Minami High School for a 3 day English camp in the mountains. It's not as outdoorsy as it sounds. English camps are held by schools to give their students opportunities to interact with native English speakers outside of the classroom. Some of the camps are only a day long, but Minami High School hosts 2 one and a half day camps. The first day and a half is for the first grade students (grade 10). The second half of the first day and the 3rd day is for the 2nd grade students (grade 11).
ALTs from other schools (that'd be me) are invited to participate and plan fun, interesting, unique lessons and/or activities to present to small groups of students over the course of the camp. This year we had a range of activites from juggling to dancing to a Clue game using the ALTs as the characters. I taught the students how to play cards in English, there was a scavenger hunt, commercial making and improv story telling. A great variety for the students.
In the evening the students got together with the ALTs and had a BBQ, then it was off to bed -well at least for the teachers...the students, like any other group of teenagers stayed up all night. So you can imagine how successful the first class in the morning was...
This is my fourth Minami Engish High School Camp! This particular high school has been designated a SEL (Super Engish Language) School. That means that most of the students want to study English and international studies at a higher level than what is offered at regular high schools. The students at MHS are very enthusiastic about English and the lessons are always fun to teach. A lot of the students return for a second year at the camp and I love seeing their progress over the 2 years. I hope to do it again next year!



This is Shunsuke, a second year student whom I taught last year.


Immediately after finishing the camp and dropping the boys off in Uozu I went straight to Kurobe station to pick up Mike who came to visit for the remainder of the week! We had a great visit and managed to cram shopping, an Okinawan concert, an art exhibit, a beach BBQ, a trip to Takayama and lots of good good food into just 3 days. He brought me chocolate and shoes, needless to say I was willing to take him anywhere and do anything while he was here!!!

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