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Response-Stimulating English Camp Activities
Sangvatanachai, Woralap, Khon Kaen University, Thailand
Abstract: The main aim of an English camp is to get students to react to a stimulator. Prompt
reactions are often a camp problem. This action research wanted to find highly motivating,
response-stimulating speaking activities. Eight different activities were organized for students
in groups of 9-10. Two evaluators rated the activities by observing, using a rating scale to rate
speaking, the promptness of reactions, and language levels. The scale used was a linear 0-10
scale where 0 stands for totally negative answer and 10 for totally positive answer. The
activity that received the highest overall score was story-telling. In this activity students
studied certain words and phrases, drew an object from a bag, listened to the beginning of a
story by the teacher, and created their own stories using the words and phrases. It has been
concluded that fun activities, time frames, and the personalities of the teachers can get
students to give very quick responses. Success also depends upon the students’ language
outputs that demonstrate the level of their English usage.
Keywords: Response-stimulating English camp activities, promptness of reactions.
Introduction
The problem of low English proficiency of the average Thai university students has become
one of the most important national educational issues. The Ministry of Education and English
language teaching institutions all over the country are well aware of the problem. Attempts
have always been made on the part of English language program administrators and teachers
at school and universities to improve the English language skills of Thai students. Along with
these attempts, which emphasize innovations in curricular design and teaching methods, extra
activities are also being taken into consideration. It has been seen that lessons and practices in
class are not enough for students to be able to master the language skills we want them to.
Practice, on one’s own and with others in both real and virtual situations, is always beneficial
for them. However, since the country of Thailand still uses Thai as the official and everyday
language, real situational opportunities to practice English are not likely for many students.
With this in mind, many universities organize virtual English practices such as camp
activities for their students, with an aim to at least provide opportunities for students to be
exposed to English use. The skills that are most appropriate for camp activities are speaking,
which is productive, and listening, which serves as an input. Since the main aim of an English
camp is to get students to speak or use English that is based upon fun activities, an input is
very important. By this we mean any stimulators (the activity itself, the instruction, the rules,
the language, etc.) that will elicit reactions or answers in English. There is also a problem of
prompt reaction since it may be necessary for students to take time to think before they can
give any answers. This research, therefore, wanted to find efficient response-stimulating
speaking activities for an English camp for university students.
Preferred activities for English camps mostly and generally involve speaking and listening.
At some camps, reading and writing skills may be incorporated. However, there is usually a
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tight time frame for each station, which makes most camp organizers choose speaking
activities more often than others. Designing situations where students will speak a foreign
language should be based on the notion of the act of communication through speaking, which
is achieved by face-to-face interaction in dialogues or exchanges of conversation
(Widdowson, 1978). Speaking means oral participation of the individuals involved that is
both receptive and productive. The receptive part of oral communication can be the asking of
questions, instructions, directions, and/or any input that elicits a reaction. Therefore, it is
important that there is a requirement or a task for students to do, and it should be one that
they want to do. The designed task should be motivating enough so that students will do their
best to complete it. Many language teachers use games as a means to achieve targeted
language. In fact, both researchers and theorists have been interested in the areas of language
humor and language play for some time now (Cook, 2000). The idea of language play,
language learning has been proposed by Guy Cook, who states that play involves adaptation
to a foreign language environment and that play and language are closely connected (Cook,
2000). Games can be used to attain behavioral objectives, and there is no need to fear making
errors from language use. Play is highly suitable in all L2 classrooms; if students are
performing communicative tasks that are meaningful, then the language will be learned
(Harmer, 2007).
There are difficulties affecting the promptness of responses from students. The first of these
is the knowledge itself. The second is the skill – in order to get fluent answers the knowledge
should be there in order to automate reaction. When these two are missing, students will lack
confidence as a result and so fluency cannot be achieved (Thornbury, 2008). Klippel (2008)
suggests two communicative activities: information gap and opinion gap. However, activities
should be concerned with the learners themselves. Learning is effective if learners are
actively involved in the process, and effectiveness depends on the type of materials used
(Klippel, 2008). It can be seen that motivation is a very important element that language
teachers have to bear in mind when they design classroom or camp activities. Students are not
always inspired by learning per se. If they are, they are said to be internally or intrinsically
motivated and if they are not, then they are only extrinsically motivated. The latter is the case
when students have a need to master the second language (Wilson, 2008). Strategies that will
bring motivation among learners (p.98) are: 1) the use of questions, 2) differentiated tasks, 3)
jigsaws, 4) buzz groups, 5) gapped handouts and worksheets, and 6) quizzes and games. In
teaching speaking to beginning learners, something should be provided for learners to talk
about and teachers should also accept the learners’ preferred topics (Bailey, 2005). Bailey
suggests provision of “manipulables” which is a fancy word for things that can be handled,
moved, or manipulated in some way. Dornyei (2008) also provides a number of techniques
for designing communicative activities; namely, challenge, interesting content, novelty
element, intriguing element, exotic element, personal element, competition, tangible
outcomes, and humor. After we have decided on the activities and how to motivate the
students, we might have to consider acceptance of lexical phrases as the students may not be
able to produce complete sentences as being normal in camp activities where there are always
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time constraints. Nattinger and DeCarrico (2009) state that social conversation is interactional
and many times it only requires lexical phrases or language “chunks” of varying length.
Montha Songsiri (2007) conducted an action research study on promoting students’
confidence in speaking English, with an aim to improve Thai students’ motivation to speak
English through a range of materials and activities. The study was conducted on a group of
engineering students during one semester to use new student-centered techniques: self
introduction, an English movie, a popular song, my favorite story, foreigner interview, and a
coffee break discussion. The results were recorded to develop materials, activities, techniques
and roles of teachers. Then the study was carried on for another semester with another group
of students. She found that students perform better because of the teaching and learning
strategies used. Students are able to speak when there is a positive atmosphere; they have
positive attitudes and the activities are not threatening. Nurisnaini (2000) found out that
games and songs are effective strategies in improving students’ participation in activities.
Huyen and Nga (2003) also agreed with this by saying that games bring relaxation and fun
and help students to earn, and games involve friendly competition and interest among
students.
Objectives
This study aimed at finding what stimuli effectively prompt language reactions of students.
By reactions, we mean verbal reactions, and by prompt we mean the reactions were given
after the stimuli were given with no delay or like they should have naturally been given. This
action research study investigated different camp activities that were arranged for 85
students. The reason for choosing English camp activities for this study is because an English
camp is the best venue for English speaking practices. While other skills are also practiced in
English camps, speaking is mostly emphasized on the grounds that it is the best, and it
effectively creates fun, liveliness, and vitality.
Methodology
The students were divided into eight groups of 10 or 11 students. There were eight activities
arranged in a rotation, each of which took 20-25 minutes. The eight activities were arranged
around the scheme, “Western Festivals”, the details of which are given in the following
section. Two teachers rated the students’ performance as a group. The tool used was 10 linear
measurement 0-10 scales for ten questions. The 0 score of the scale means not at all or totally
negative, whereas the 10 scores means totally positive. The eight groups of students were
randomly observed. Two teachers, who were not involved in the activities of any station,
traveled around the camp to observe and rate the stations one by one. At least two of the eight
groups were rated at each station.
The eight stations’ activities
The eight stations were based upon “Western Festivals”, namely, Valentine’s Day, St.
Patrick’s Day, April Fools’ Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Carnival.
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At each station, two to three teachers were responsible for encouraging students to participate
in the activities. Details for each of the eight station’s activities are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Details of the 20-minute activities at each station
Station
Number and
Name
Kits Activities (in steps) Skills
Practiced
Average
Total Score
by
Evaluators
1 Valentine’s
Day
Idiom cards
Meaning
cards
Note pads
Tape
recorder
A song
1 Ss listen to two teachers speaking
about Valentine’s Day and take notes.
2 T asks questions, Ss answer.
3 Ss match idioms with the right
meaning.
4 Ss listen to a song and fill in gaps on
Worksheet.
5 Ss sing songs together.
Speaking
Writing
Listening
81
2
St. Patrick’s
Day
Info board
Info cards
Green hats
Crossword
Puzzles
Paper
Colored pens
Leprechaun
masks
prizes
1 Ss are divided into 2 groups.
2 Ss wear the green hats.
3 Ss read the cards and study info on
the board.
4 Ss do crossword puzzles.
5 T gives correct answers, relate story
about St. Patrick’s and teaches Ss to
sing a song.
6 Ss make a commercial in their group
to invite people to come to St. Patrick’s
festival.
7 Ts judge the best commercial and
give the prize
Writing
Listening
Speaking
75
3
April Fools’
Day
Info board
Real objects
in a black
bag
Expression
cards hung
around the
place
1 Ss study the information on the board.
2 Ss are divided into pairs.
3 Ss answer questions about April
Fools’ Day.
4 Each pair draws an object from the
bag.
5 Each pair prepares a story about the
object using the expression on the
cards.
6 T starts a sentence for a story.
7 Each pair take turns completing the
story.
8 Ts give points and award prizes to the
best storytellers.
Reading
Speaking
86
4
Easter
False Easter
eggs with a
word inside
Baskets
Note pads
Worksheets
Prize
Tape
recorder
A song
1 Ts hide Easter eggs around the place.
2 Ss are divided into 2 groups.
3 Ss pick as many eggs as they can
(each word in an egg counts 5 points).
4 Each group takes a turn to come in
front and draw an egg at a time.
5 One S from a group looks at the word
and gives hint until the group can guess
the word. The group that gets the most
“correct” words wins.
Speaking (at
a word
level)
82
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6 The two groups sing a song together.
5
Halloween
Vocabulary
board
Cards
indicating
characters
1 Ts explain about what people do on
Halloween Day and go over words on
the board.
2 Each S is attached with a card on the
back.
3 All Ss move around asking “Am I..?”
and “Do I …” to the others.
4 Other Ss answer their friends’
questions until everyone gets the
answer.
Pronouncing
Speaking
(very simple
structures)
78
6
Thanksgiving
Word cards
Pictures
Note pads
Hats
songs
1 Ts explain about Thanksgiving.
2 Ss write down what each of them is
thankful for and their reasons why.
3 Ts give out pictures.
4 Ss match pictures and words.
5 Ss make a story from a selected card.
6 Songs are played and hats are put on
all throughout the session.
Pronouncing
Speaking
Writing
81
7
Christmas
Info posters
Christmas
decorations
Mock
hammer
Word cards
Santa hats
Picture board
1 Ss are divided into 2 groups.
2 Ts collect word cards from the board
and put them on the floor.
3 One S in a group sits in the hot seat.
The rest lines up and takes turn giving
the clue related to the word shown by T.
4 S has to use a relative clause in giving
the clue. If not, s/he will be punished by
the mock hammer.
5 Each group has 5 min to guess the
word.
6 The group getting the most words
correct wins and is rewarded.
7 The losers’ noses are painted red like
Rudolf’s.
Speaking
82
8
Carnival
Idiom cards
Meaning
cards
Note pads
Worksheet
1Ts explain about Carnival.
2 Ss are divided into 2 groups.
3 Cards are laid face down on the floor.
4 Ss find two cards that match each
other and read the words.
5 The team that gets the most words
correct wins.
Pronouncing
Reading
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The activities for all of these stations lasted for a total of 4 hours (roughly 30 minutes for
each station) because between stations it was necessary for students to walk from one station
to another.
Results and Discussion
Two evaluators rated the activities by observing each station once. Therefore, two groups of
students were randomly observed by two evaluators. Guided questions in the rating scale
included the level of practices, especially in speaking and promptness of reactions or answers
given to each of the stimuli. The in-house constructed scale used was a linear 0-10 score
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where 0 stands for totally negative answer and 10 for totally positive answer. The ten items
for rating are as follows:
1. Overall success of the station.
2. Students are speaking English.
3. Students use their listening skills.
4. Students use their reading skill.
5. Students use their writing skill.
6. All students are participating.
7. All students give prompt reply/reaction.
8. Students learned and/or use some new words.
9. Students learned and/or use some expressions.
10. Students learned and/or use some sentence structures.
Besides these questions, the observation form also includes evaluator’s preference of the
station and the suggestions for improvement.
The results showed the station activities that encouraged and prompted students to
react quickly to stimuli in the order from highest to lowest as follows:
1. April Fools’ Day 8.6
2. Christmas 8.2
3. Easter 8.2
4. Thanksgiving 8.1
5. Valentine’s Day 8.1
6. Halloween 7.8
7. St. Patrick’s Day 7.5
8. Carnival 7.0
These scores showed that five out of the eight activities were rated at over 8.0, which could
be considered successful in encouraging students to speak or give reactions to stimuli. Only
three of the activities were rated below 8.0, yet they all received a score higher than 7.0. We
then studied the details designed by the top-score station, i.e., April Fools’ Day, to see why
the station was rated at 8.6. The details are as follows:
The evaluators rated this station as the most successful in prompting students to speak
because 1) the activities were fun, 2) the students were excited when they made stories, 3) the
students created their own ideas, 4) the students composed sentences themselves and spoke
them out, 5) the teachers were very active, and 6) overall, the station was lively. However, it
should be noted that camp activities should not only be fun, but they should also encourage
students to speak and use other language skills.
Conclusion
We have concluded that in order to encourage students to speak, the following should be
taken into account:
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1. Students should be provided enough chances to speak.
2. Students should be divided into and work in very small groups.
3. Students should be able to create their own ideas, without having to incorporate
knowledge from any sources.
4. The teacher should be active.
5. Students should be provided with vocabulary and expressions that they can see
easily and use.
6. The atmosphere should be lively and fun (not very formal).
Provided things are planned, designed, and prepared effectively, this could also be applied in
English classrooms. In addition, we found that students who participated in the activities
shared approximately the same level of English proficiency. In fact, they were not good at
English. The English camp that was held this year did not enlist students majoring in English.
When students are at the same level, it is more likely that they will try to participate in
activities. It could be argued that these students had applied for the English camp, so at a
certain level they were ready to participate. We believe this to be true. Therefore, we are left
with a future research question to be answered, “How can students be motivated to use
English more?”
In organizing an English camp one important factor has been observed in the planning
process - station teachers are asked to design fun activities. This can lead to unwanted results
because teachers focus upon activities that are fun at the expense of good English practice
which is appropriate for the level of students. Students at university level should not be
practicing pronouncing words or guessing a character (a single word answer). They should be
enabled or allowed an opportunity to use English at a suitable proficiency level. We can see
that the April Fools’ Day activities were very successful in this respect.
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