Forty-three English Education students from the Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FAS) organised two English Language camps on 27 July and 13 August 2016 at SMK Methodist (ACS) and SMK Tasek in Ipoh.
Seeing the success of past English camps organised for primary and lower secondary school students, FAS’s Department of Languages and Linguistics (DLL) continued its efforts to contribute to society by once again organising English camps, this time focusing on upper secondary school students. The camps were also organised to create awareness among the secondary school students and to instil in them the realisation that learning English can be fun as well.
Proving that English is a fun language, the camp conducted a series of games through the projects of “Down the English World” and “Clash of Clans: English Challenge” to engage with the participants. Some of the games played at the camps involved memory, problem solving, strategy and listening skills, and they featured fancy names such as “Opaque Fortress and Clash of Clues”, “Elephant Memory and Mismatch”, “Clan War”, “Superheroes” and finally “Write it Out”.
Despite the fancy names, the Form Four participants thoroughly enjoyed the games and never thought of the games as childish. Instead, the games presented opportunities for participants to discover English as a fun language useful for communication.
Participants also had the chance to polish their command of English through the “Down the English World” project, which guided participants on how to effectively apply English in real life situations. Together with the application of Psychology theories, station games and riddles, participants remained confident, engaged and competitive throughout the camps, while continuously being motivated to immerse in speaking English.
The “Clash of Clans: English Challenge” project however, was a strategic-thinking game which required participants to not only learn and use the language in various scenarios, but also to apply the language in several problem-solving activities. The project was based on the mobile game “Clash of Clans”, which encouraged participants to feel comfortable due to familiarity of the game. They were able to interact confidently with their school teachers and the tertiary volunteers.
The participants were not the only ones who benefitted from the English Camps as the student organisers likewise learnt much from the camps. DLL Lecturer Dr Joanna Tan Tjin Ai, who guided the 43 students in organising the camps, said, “The students planned the camps on their own and came up with all the exciting activities for the participants. Organising the camps has definitely taught them much on conflict management, handling of logistics, and quick thinking when faced with problems. All these are vital survival skills in life.”
The camps enabled participants to take a break from their normal everyday classroom environment, a reprieve from textbooks and worksheets. It allowed students to enjoy English learning and garnered positive responses from participants and school teachers. Some participants even expressed their hopes to have more camps like this organised in the future. The likeminded DLL hopes to be able to spread greater awareness of English learning to people of all ages.
From left: Participants from SMK Tasek and SMK Methodist (ACS) with student organisers at the end of the camps
Participants brainstorming and discussing strategies to complete the game
Participants working together to get their teammate through the narrow string-webs
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