So as I said before the main focus of the English Camp (apart from speaking English) was to polish and present an 8 minute presentation about Japan that they will present to students in Singapore. The presentations were judged by the English teachers (hard to not be biased when judging your own group) and were open to Q&A from students.
Though I believe that they were given the option to do anything, the presentations fit into 3 categories: Life at Nikka School, The Tohoku Disaster (earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear crisis), and Japanese food and culture. It was hard to judge them against each other since those topics have very different overtones. For example, the school one and food/culture ones had a lot of humor which the disaster ones didn't (obviously). But the disaster ones had a lot of "What we can do now..." while the other ones were purely informational.
The first three groups about school were fairly straightforward but interesting for the judges since we had met the kids but knew nothing about the school. Also, the school is a mix of Japanese and foreign curriculum so that was interesting in itself since I think a lot of us (non-Japanese teachers) feel torn between western and eastern ideas on schooling. One group did, A Day in the Life of Nikka, and did it like a classroom setting. The "teacher" asked kids to talk about each subject of the day and their was a lot of banter as there would be in a regular class. I think I liked this presentation because the kids acted the most natural and talked the most like regular teens from home.
Again, because the school presentations were straightforward, the Q&A was pretty tame, "What is your favorite part of school? Which teacher do you like? etc" The hardest question was, "I like P.E. Why didn't you discuss P.E. in your presentation?"
The second three groups were about the disaster and were obviously more sensitive and more open to criticism. I thought all were well done (I am literally not one to judge as I don't know about the disaster like the students do) and could only comment on the fact that one group had too much information and another had too much silence (they did some acting).
The first group had a detailed description of how a tsunami works, of how the Japan tsunami compared to other past tsunamis (as far as casualties, destruction, etc), what aid was given to Japan from what country, and what the students could do themselves to help rebuild Miyagi. First question was "Why did you not discuss the Fukushima nuclear crisis?" The judges were all a little shocked and a bit nervous about this because we had been avoiding the subject all week, but the team handled it well. They simply answered, "We didn't feel we had enough time to address all of the effects of the earthquake last year."
The second group had way too much detail and talked a mile-a-minute to finish under 8 minutes. They were hit right off the bat with, "What do you really think about the Fukushima disaster?" They answered, "It is scary but it is a man made problem and man needs to fix it." Again, these seem like average Q&A but considering all of this is being done in the students second language, it was quite good.
The third group ditched the fact route and went the drama route by showing us, "A Family on the Day of the Disaster." They showed where each person would have been and how the events of the day effected them. It started out great, but slowly lost focus and didn't have a clear point.
The final four groups were fun and probably interesting for more students as they dealt with Instant Ramen, Oshougatsu (New Year's similar to Christmas to westerners), Masamune (a historical figure from the area), and my group which did food from the area. Most of the questions were why they picked the topic, which food they liked, etc The Oshougatsu group did get asked why the title was in Japanese instead of English, and they answered brilliantly that they will be teaching Singapore students about Japanese culture so they should use a Japanese word.
My group's was pretty dry (they kind of just read a bunch of recipes) but they made it fun by starting out with a skit about aliens who attack a food festival and the "super food man" who saves the day by throwing food from the region. It didn't quite match with the main topic, but it was funny and earned them a second place for most original. The good thing about them was how well they worked together and how good they were at coming out of their shells to put on a good show. Like I said earlier, my nerd was the best actor as one of the aliens and my negative girl did all of her part with a big voice. Some of the other groups had their best speakers out front and center but my group had a fairly equal division of who said/did what. Event though they dissed each other during the day and at meals, when it came time to putting the presentation together they were really a team.
On that note, I was a little sad as it made me realize the lack of group work I see in my regular Japanese schools. I think that was something we did a lot more of in Iowa and something that really built character.
Again, all of the presentations were very good for Japanese ESL students and I know the people in Singapore will be impressed. It was only 3 days but the camp really touched all of the English teachers. Some were crying at the end (which I thought was a bit much, but then again I am used to Camp Adventure that lasts for 3 months) as were a lot of students. I hope that my company asks me to do a lot more of this kind of thing or, if given the chance, I can do this kind of thing in the area I live in.
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