#41 Kids Camp

I've started teaching English at a teens camp in Umbria, Italy. It's been a wild couple of days…

The teens themselves are adorable, but working with them under summer holiday conditions is hard to say the least. I corrected a student today in front of his friends and he told me, "I don't want to do fucking English on my holiday, I want to be with my friends."

I've never been spoken to like that in my life. I was taken aback to say the least. But instead of getting mad, I told him, "listen, fair enough. I understand. Let's work together on this and try and make it fun for everyone." I think I calmed him down, but he was upset that he was missing out on his football game to come to English and "learn".

They come into the class in a rush, high on music and time at the pool. They don't want to listen, they don't want to learn anything new, they don't want to play games… but they do want to be on their cell phones. Which is cool, I mean, they aren't adults, but they aren't in school in either. Their parents work for a big company which helps fund the cost of this camp… a camp which includes English lessons. They know they have to come, but they are finding it difficult to figure out why.

If you play too many games with them, they think that being there is pointless. If you explain an activity to them they find the quickest way to do it so they can be on their phones. I try to choose the leaders and explain the instructions to them so they can help and coach others. I love the leaders, they are my favourite.

Today instead of getting upset that they didn't want to play a game that I planned, I told them I needed to work on my Italian and asked them to help me pronounce some words. They liked that. They want to be the boss. They told me that this year the camp is understaffed and they aren't able to go off the campus and they feel like they are being treated like kids…

So, games aren't a good idea.

But that being said, one of the games that has worked really well has been to teach instructions, blindfold one of them and ask them to direct the others around. One group literally walked around and took the words off the wall… but the other ones had fun at it.

We'll see how it goes. It's not a learning journey with them, but a "let's make the hour that you can't do something you love and you're forced to do English instead" fun lesson. It's challenging, but I'm happy I get the opportunity.

I think, in the end, people want value for what they get. They are interested in objectives. If students see what they are supposed to learn and understand why, they will climb onboard. If not… good luck.