English Club Rocks my Socks

Ninuk, Ika and Putri: 3 of the All-Stars

The English Club Introducing Themselves

Learning Introductions

Some of the Kids

English Club!!

Last Sunday’s English activity for the children in the village was a huge success!! My English Club (EC) students from MAN totally stepped up and were absolutely, 100%, incredibly amazing!
But to rewind momentarily, a bit of background info about this first, official, secondary project. It started as a small idea, a quick question to Bu S., my RT, about possibly starting an English camp for the kids in my village. I got the idea after some of the women in my local Ibu-Ibu PKK (a neighborhood women’s group) suggested that I leave my current school and teach at their kids’ elementary schools instead. Since that wasn’t really an option, I thought about what other ways I could help out with English education for the younger kids. I read some of the PC books and came across an idea of pairing older students in the community with younger, orphaned kids as a kind of Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Which led to the idea of having my EC students lead an English camp for the kids in my village (since, as far as I know, there isn’t a large orphan population). Bu S. was immediately on board and she spoke with the village head who was equally enthusiastic, so we decided to outline some of the details. In my head, I was imagining a day-long English camp, with maybe 30 kids who would show up, and where each English Club student would be in charge of a different station, i.e. animal station, counting station, etc. In Bu S.’s mind, we would meet every week for a shorter amount of time. So we settled on meeting for an hour-and-a-half one Sunday each month, and if it was successful, maybe we could do it more frequently. Some of the Islamic schools have class on Sunday during the day (Friday is their holy day off), so we decided to have the English camp in the evening,
It took a bit of convincing with my counterpart to involve EC as much as I wanted. I know there’s still a long way to go to having the students have more control of the planning and running the activities, but my kids in English Club are amazing. They brainstormed ideas about what types of activities to do with children, what material would be appropriate, and helped cut out over 300 nametags. They were hesitant to accept a lead teaching role at first (I was terrified my first day in front of a classroom, so I totally understand) but when I stressed how important it is for the younger kids to have positive role models, how teaching something you’re studying is a great way to solidify the knowledge you already know, and how this is great practice for those of them who aspire to become teachers in the future (probably about 80% of them want to go into teaching), they all jumped on board and were eager to participate.
After Bu S. and I combined our efforts to write an official proposal which we submitted to the village head, we made registration forms and flyers, went around to the elementary schools in my village, and door to door to some of our neighbors to share the information. We limited registration to ages 7-12 or grades 1-6, and it was only for the children in our immediate village. There was instantaneously a lot of enthusiasm surrounding the idea, and by the night before English Day (IF ANYONE HAS A MORE CREATIVE NAME FOR THESE ENGLISH DAY ACTIVITIES, PLEASE SHARE) close to 100 kids had registered. We divided the kids into 3 groups based on grade, each of which would be led by an adult (Bu S., my counterpart Bu E. or myself- all English teachers) and the English Club students would walk around and help. I wouldn’t really consider myself a “kid person” but I thought I could handle 30 of them for less than 2 hours.
DAY OF: Close to 170 kids showed up, over 60 of which were in my age group, and I started to have a minor anxiety. So many children in what turned into a small space, with all of their parents standing around to watch. But my English Club kids totally stepped up. I encouraged them to help with the registration and attendance process. We divided the 3 large groups into smaller clusters on the spot, and had EC lead the kids in pairs or alone. The younger kids were thrilled! The EC students could communicate better in the local language AND were way more active and enthusiastic than any of the adults. After the youngsters left, during our debrief and candy session, the EC students expressed a lot of eagerness to do this again, and have more responsibility. They were such rock stars, and I know that they they’ll be the ones who make this program into something really great and sustainable. I’m so proud of them!
A few of the troubles we faced:
• There were a lot of upset people who thought that younger/older kids should be included
• A ton of people wanted us to include other villages in our town, but due to limited space and resources, we couldn’t accommodate those requests
But overall it was a huge success, everyone had a blast, and I'm sure the next meeting will be even better!