Thailand. English Camp, Fun Games and Farang Food.

As most of my readers probably know I am teaching English here in far north east of Thailand in Ubon Ratchathani. I don’t usually blog a lot on this as I don’t want to bore my readers with just everyday happenings of school life but will post about things sometimes when they are interesting or a little controversial.

On the weekend I attended an “English Fun Camp” and it is targeted at small students in years 1-3 and it’s all about them playing games and having fun and maybe learning a tiny bit of English but this really isn’t important.

So the students arrive and get a free shirt for their money and then are put into their groups for the day.

The sign at a lot of the events are always interesting and I liked ours as it said
“English Fun Camp, At Northeastern Non-Formal Education Center” First of all what does Non-Formal Education Center mean? And Why the American spelling for Center? Aren’t we teaching the students the proper way to spell? “centre” just stirring you Americans.


There are always some funny kids who have a sense of humour and are great to work with as they have personalities and like playing around and being a little silly.
Miss Bai Toey.

There were some ice-breaking activities that the Thai teachers organize and do and the Thai teachers seemed to be having a lot of fun showing the students the games they were going to play.
Miis B loves to sing.

There were 4 activities by the foreign teachers. 1 was a game of twister and also some singing and dancing. 2 was a picture and work find race. 3 was a musical chair game.

And then finally there was my game. “Jason’s Amazing Race” was a spelling race where kids were put into equal groups and there were 2 flash card piles of the alphabet, one for each group and I would show the groups a picture flashcard and they had to spell the word in their teams. Each student was responsible for running 15 metres and finding the correct letter for the picture. Simply the fastest team to spell the word correctly won the flashcard. The team with the most flashcards at the end was the winner.
Where is that letter?

It was good fun watching the kids work as a team and the older students helping the younger by continually reminding them of the letter they had to find. It was played in good spirits and most students enjoyed, well I think they did.
Hurry up! Letter i

As always there was plenty of food on offer and morning break was cake and Milo or Ovaltine. Students happily sat down and scoffed down there food and then went off to run around for 10 minutes and play games together before the next activity was to start.

2 lovely girls Miss Pim and Mean collected some Frangipani flowers and were showing me. I really like these flowers as they do have a beautiful smell and if you pick a few and place them in you house or toilet it smells good.

For lunch the kids had fried chicken, omelet, a pork and potato soup and rice. The teachers had the same but also got some fruit and plenty of extra fried chicken and a noodle and fish sauce.

There was banana cake and red cordial for afternoon break just to keep them all hyped up for the rest of the afternoon.

Some of the students played up for the camera a little as the red cordial was already kicking in.


The students then played a game called body shapes and this is a lot of fun as they are in teams and you ask them to make a letter form the alphabet and they have to lay down on the floor and use everybody in the team to make the letter.
Body shapes.

It was then time for “Water Balloon Fun”. This game was very simple and you had 2 teams and they split in 2. Half facing each other and then all they had to do was throw water balloons to each other and try and catch them without them hitting the ground and breaking.

Of course students thought it was a lot more fun if they threw the balloons really hard and as high as they could to their teammates resulting in many wet kids and the balloons ran out very fast. They really enjoyed this game but I am not sure why..

Look at her face! Priceless.
Here it comes...

Then us foreign teachers had to cook some western style food for the kids to try.

I made hot chip (French Fries) sandwiches in fresh buttered bread with tomato sauce. Also there were potato chips (Crisps) available to make sandwiches as well and some students mixed the 2 together. These seemed to be very popular and I had trouble keeping up demand.

There were croissants with ham and cheese on offer and also went down well.

I think the winner of the day was the hot dogs and buns and also hamburgers with salad and the kids tucked into these very keenly.

The last thing on offer was potato salad with mayonnaise, onion and corn mixed together.

When the parents started to arrive to pick up their little darlings they also got stuck into the food and again I had nearly run out of everything but American Joe’s Burgers were still going strong.

So that was a fun and interesting day on Saturday and reminds you sometimes of the good things about teaching English in Thailand. Sometimes you can really lose motivation at times with older students and their lack of enthusiasm but when you have the littlies having a great day it really perks you up.

So as usual with any Thai event there are always lots of pictures to be taken and hands to shake at home time and then thankfully you can go home or to the park as I did and relax and enjoy the great lifestyle that comes with living in Isaan country Thailand.

Brunty