A Camp to remember (based on a true story)
On the 10th of September, I arrived at school quite late, although I wasn’t as concerned about being punctual as usual. Why, you may ask? Well, simply put, the 10th of September wasn’t a normal school day. In fact, normal school sessions had come to an end a few days prior. Instead, I was here for the English Language camp, which was one of the many study camps that are held for the Grade 10 students every year, just before their O’ Levels. I didn’t expect much from the camp at the time, though I thought that we’d just do some exercises for a few hours before going home.
When I reached 10A, where the class was being held, I realized just how wrong I was. I came in to find that everyone else, including our English teacher Ms. Saroj, had started a listening comprehension without me! I sheepishly found a seat and joined the other students in working on the exercise, amidst comments about my missing of the first question. I soon caught up though, and even managed to get a decent mark from the other questions!
After marking each other’s comprehension answers in class, we all moved to the 3D Lab, where things started to get interesting. For the first activity, we were divided up into pairs, with each pair having to prepare an introductory paragraph for a letter, with the points in the letter differing for each group, to present to the other students. We all worked in our groups for about 5 minutes before Ms. Saroj started calling pairs to present their work. This soon proved its use: everyone had come up with different ideas for starting different letters, which were about events we could all relate to, such as leaving something at a friend’s place or telling a relative about a holiday you went on recently. As a result, we all got new ideas for various topics, all while improving our presenting skills.
We then worked on some synonyms for a list of words provided by Ms. Saroj for a few minutes, before moving on to the most memorable activity: preparing and presenting points for and against a topic in small groups. It was after a while of gathering points from our laptops and thoughts that the activity’s true secret was revealed: all the topics were relevant to our society. Indeed, the topics went from allowing teenagers to bring phones to school to questioning the value of studying science. One of the topics even featured the problems caused by the city’s new highlight- the Male’-Hulhumale bridge! Ms. Saroj also allowed the other students to share their thoughts on each topic, which soon sparked a lively debate with everyone taking sides. The last hour went by with a flash because of this, which made me realize that time really does fly when you’re having fun.
At the end of the day, as we all got ready to go home, I asked the other students how they felt about the camp. They all agreed with me that the activities were really helpful to their studies, while also being well organized. As such, we all felt that the English camp was really productive, and we eagerly hope for more such classes in the future.
