Had my first meeting of an English Club today, part of me feels like I should have tried to do it earlier, but wanted to be fully available before I started anything that would have serial meetings. And that couldn’t happen until August, since I had been coming and going almost the entire month of July and June I was still adjusting to the site.
Working with my coordinator, we decided to focus on having classes 9-11. Hypothetically this means they have all had at least several years of English studies, how much they could speak, was to be determined. It was supposed to start at four, so at about two minutes till we had a grand total of three people. I was starting to worry a little bit and wondering if I was going to have to wing the whole meeting, since all of the plans I had required more than three people. But as it rolled to four the total number of people pushed up to about 10, and I sighed an inward sigh of relief. Now in all of their defense I will say it is summer, people come and go quite a bit, I know of at least three who would be here if they were in town. Plus, I printed up several announcements and posted them around town, it then commenced to rain and destroy every single announcement I had printed, which meant I had to print them up again and lost several days of eye-exposure in the process.
As we sat down, everyone looked like they were not sure what they had gotten themselves into and I knew I needed to move fast to keep their attention. To give you all a quick run-down what happened, I had everyone re-introduce themselves, played the game where they have to line up by birthdays without speaking to show them they can communicate without needing to always speak. Had them tell me things they talk about regularly and also with friends. I noticed students were trying hard to speak, but it was evident it was the first meeting and they (I’ll give a disclaimer: maybe some had) had not thought, especially spoken English all summer.
The last game got a thumbs up from my coordinator, however, I remember playing it at my college orientation for the first time, but the basic idea of the game is you say one thing you do, have, etc. and whoever is the same must change places. Whoever is stuck in the middle starts the game over. It became popular with the students as well, and I could see them stretching to remember words and be somewhat creative, or just plain calling out other people there to make them be in the center. Overall, I was very pleased with the results, hopefully the students thought the same. Although, as we were trying to decide when to meet next, I was reminded again it was summer, as we are not meeting next we due to the fact a lot of them will be out of town. But overall, I guess it was worth writing home about, since you have my account right here on your computer screen to read.