The rain has found us again. We have a new tropical storm that has come up from the Philippines. It hit yesterday as I drove to Korat city with a friend to buy some kitty litter, bleach and tortilla chips (ah the things you'll drive 1.5 hours for!) Today I did have time to defrost my freezer outside and clean out my fridge (spring cleaning before Katarina visits next week) before the downpour started. Then I donned my raincoat and umbrella and rode my bike to the office to use the internet since my home connection has decided that it no longer works. Ah well, the office is dry and has airconditioning.

Now...about the English camp.

Thai people LOVE English camps. Generally students spend two to three days at the host school - sleeping, eating and breathing English. Well, some English. Songs are plentiful. Microphones are used way too much. And as many foreigners as possible are recruited to help with the festivities.

I've done countless English camps during my time in Thailand, but had managed to pass several months without so much as an invitation for one. Until last weekend.....

Actually, this one was not bad. It was a day camp, so the students AND I went home around 4pm. It was only two days and I was only responsible for one rotation.

We started out in a big group. We had some songs

Line B dances to the banana song.

students and teachers sing La La La (because that's English!)

And the students had to interview all the teachers in English. As I was the only foreigner, the Thai teachers pretended they were from various countries. This group of teachers is really fun and silly, so they had a great time with it.

AJ Peturi, aka Miss Universe
AJ Kannika loves to talk to the boys!

And we broke into color groups - where the students would stay for their five rotations.

AJ Wasana and the students introduce themselves.

After the big group, we had the rotations. I decided on an activity that I thought would be really fun and challenging for the students. The activity was called Sentence Story. It was an attempt at creative writing with the students. I divided them into pairs and gave each pair a picture.

(I am having trouble uploading more pictures....to come later)

There task was to write a story about the picture for three minutes. When the timer went off, they were to pass their picture/story to the next group who would add to the story for three minutes, then pass....and so on.

Dictionaries were used, but only very minimally helpful because this school (as most here) had only English to Thai. So, they had to know the English word before it was helpful.

I tried to pick entertaining pictures that would give them a good starting point for a story. We talked about how to go about writing the story. I reminded them to think about things that they could not actually see in the picture. What happened before? What happened after? The whos, whats, whens, wheres and WHYs of the people, thoughts and feelings involved.

I guess it had just never crossed my mind that Thai students do not, in the course of their education, learn to write from their imagination. They regurgitate. They don't create. The idea of a story simply stumped them. Granted, having the assignment in english certainly makes it more difficult, but I don't think it was the root of the difficulty. Here are some examples:

• Where is it? He come from Thailand. He is swimming in bathroom. He is brushing his teeth. He has dark hair and black eyes. He is strong His Dreaming His swimming in Dream He is don’t wear clothes. He is close eyes. He enjoy very much.

• He is on a bridge. He is running. He want freedom. There are 100 people. Then people running. He is Tony, he is very tall and he is angry. The cold season. He is hanson nad long hair. The skyis beautiful. He carry big banner’s Argument. He is 29 years old. He shout

• It is office. There are 100 peoples. They are official. They are doing the work. She is presenting the project work. There are 4 mans and one woman. They are talking. There is 1 woman. She has the big project. She is beautiful. They are help. There are 6 books. The books are on the table. She is slim. The men is old. And woman is yunger. In the room is the big. In the room there are 2 men wearing eye-glasses.

• He comes from Japan. He is handsome so much. He stand in the sea. He want to play sea. But, he don’t have friend. Because, his friends is work in foreign country. But, He don’t work. So, he want to travel. He want going along. He love nature. He want to go camping at Island. He is wearing cream shirt. He don’t have hair. He doesn’t have got shooes. He is an old man.

• Today she want go to the birthday her friend. She have a gift for her friends. She stand by serprice for her friend by close your eyes. She is surprise and wait. In party she is a beautiful. She want her friend be happy in birthday. Because she very love her friend. And her friend is lovely. She from U.S.A. on yesterday. Because she wil go to the party. She want boyfriend and new friend. She is very sexy in party. Everybody is to be infatuate her. She have tan. After she go to back home and sleeping in my bed in bedroom at night. Today she is very happy in party of birthday girl friends