The First Week at the UDC Camp

The first day of classes went really well. We had two good hours of teaching and interaction with the students. First, we were given the attendance sheets and the names of all students in our class. Since there were two sections, the students came one by one and checked if their names were on our list. The fact that they could read and identify their names so quickly gave us a good idea of what level they were at. In a few minutes, all students had arrived and we had reached the capacity size of 15 students in the class.

Our first task was to give them name tags and have them write their names on it. The students quickly took the pens and wrote their names in big, bold letters. We were impressed with their writing and could see that they did not struggle too much with their names. We had them place their name tags on the desks in front of them.

The first activity that we did was the introduction. Prince and I introduced ourselves first and asked them to follow. They started introducing themselves one by one, giving their names and nationality and job positions. We did not want it to be a very formal and intimidating experience and so we asked them to continue sitting while introducing themselves. We thought that asking them to stand up would put them under some pressure. After we completed one round of introduction, I wrote the correct format of an introduction on the board. It was simple, yet effective. We taught them how to introduce properly and after we wrote it up, the students wanted to practice it with a new format. They were really learning it quick and soon enough, everyone could introduce themselves in good, simple and proper English sentences. This was a good achievement for the first class. After the introduction, we also gave them a quick lesson on greetings (eg. Good Morning, Good Evening etc.)

The next activity was with the printed pictures. We split the group into two’s and gave each pair a picture. Their task was to describe the picture in three-four sentences. After a while, one person from each group spoke about what they had written. After they were done, we talked a little more about the pictures and added a few more important points about them.

  

We took a 15 minute break after this activity. The students and we were recharged after the little tea break and we were back to work. We played hangman with the group and they were pretty good at guessing the words. Perhaps, the words we gave them were a bit too simple (eg. Table, light etc). However, they really enjoyed it since it just proved the fact that they did know some English and they were really excited to know more. After the game, we assigned the pre-tests. They were given 20 minutes to complete it. We noticed that writing was an issue for the students and that they could speak and read pretty well in comparison to writing. We collected the pre-tests for grading. We also assigned a one-page homework sheet which they will complete by next class. The students were very co-operative and were really excited to be there. They really respected us and I think their quest to learn is something that will motivate me to keep teaching and helping them out.