What Is CAMP EPIC?

What Is CAMP EPIC?

Hi everyone! Nice to see that the sun comes out today. You may put on your glasses because it’s shining. Woohoo~~~

Hope you also always in a happy situation, people.

Well, today I want to share about CAMP EPIC. Maybe, some of you do not know what CAMP EPIC is and what EPIC stands for. I will share it here, so, please stay tune. 

CAMP EPIC is held by RELO (Regional English Language Office) U.S Embassy Jakarta. What is actually RELO here? Don’t worry, people. I will share the link about RELO and how to join CAMP EPIC in the next post.

  

Camp EPIC is camp for pre-service English teacher to train them how to teach English in creative and innovative way. Camp EPIC here are held for Indonesia and Timor Leste. Camp EPIC now has already 3 generations. The First camp EPIC are 22 pre-service teachers in 2015, the second one are 42 pre-service teachers in 2016 and the third one that held last January are 47 pre-service teachers. They come from all over Indonesia and Timor Leste. For the last camp EPIC, there are 42 pre-service teachers from Indonesia and 5 pre-service teachers from Timor Leste. 

EPIC, what does EPIC stand for?

EPIC here is abbreviation of Empowered, Prepared, Inspired and Connected. It is such a goal of RELO that all English teacher in Indonesia and Timor Leste can be empowered, prepared and inspired as well before being the real teacher in their region. It is also good to be connected by having good preparation and knowledge about teaching. Connected to all over Indonesia and Timor Leste may help English teachers to find as many as references for better learning English.

Well, here I want to share information dealing with CAMP EPIC 3. Fortunately, I was selected as one of the participants from Indonesia in CAMP EPIC 3, 2017 in Batu, Malang, East Java, Indonesia. 

If you are curious what will you got from CAMP EPIC, or you are curious what actually the pre-service teachers do in their two weeks, I will tell you gloriously. 

Well, in those two weeks camp, we, campers are perfectly accommodated by the RELO. It starts from the accommodation such as flight tickets, taxi amount, mansions, and meals. You just need to prepare your clothes to pack. Additionally, one best important thing to prepare is your body. Before going to the camp, eat healthy food and vitamins. 

Okay, here I go. 

So, the two weeks are spent for microteaching classes, outdoor activity, American moments, games, songs, and outing. This is like intensive course for pre-service teaching in developing teaching skills. Have I mentioned about facilitators and counselor? Well, facilitators are the fellows from America or other professional English teacher from University of Indonesia. As its named, they will facilitate you in developing your skill in English. You can ask questions, play game, or share experience with them. Besides facilitators, there are counselors that will help us as well.

Microteaching classes will give you much knowledge and new teaching ideas because you will work with other pre-service teachers from other region, even country to conduct a teaching process. It is happened to me that I gained much knowledge from microteaching classes. I worked with my special two campers form Jakarta and Lombok. They were really good in teaching and team work. I did not only from my team teaching but also from all campers that were very creative and innovative in teaching.

As you know that teaching English cannot be separated with the culture, in this camp, we also are introduced with many new American culture in outdoor activities or in American moments. It is actually not a secret to tell you, guys, but I will make it as confidential as possible to make you curious. (Kidding) Well, we are introduced some American games, song and other cultural things. 

Here, you also will be introduced to games and songs that you may use in your teaching process. You may use it as your ice breakers or just games for spend your time with your students in extracurricular. 

Who loves outing and shopping here? I believe, you all do. In weekend, usually we will have several hours to do outing in a certain place. The outing also can be in a school. Campers and I went to an Elementary School to practice what we had for the last two weeks. There was so much happiness and experiences that is hard to mention one by one. 

To sum up all my happiness and grateful, I have no regret joining this CAMP EPIC 3 in 2017. I learn a lot from this two weeks camp. It’s not only about teaching but also culture of Indonesia, Timor Leste and America. What I love most is that even after three months we had the camp, all campers are still connected by chatting in social media group, meeting up, sharing information and doing other things. This is like the goal of camp EPIC. We are all Empowered, Prepared, Inspired, and Connected. Miss you all CAMPERS 3 “Keep Earth Sexy”. 

Well, I don’t think one post blog will say much things. You may go to the Instagram account of Camp EPIC 3 and see the people there. Just click HERE and you will find out more. Or, just check this full viedo of CAMP EPIC 3 2017below.

Hopefully, your curiosity will not stop here, you will want to know more about camp EPIC by joining the program.

Do not hesitate to apply for the next, CAMP EPIC 4. Best of luck, fellas!

Read More »

CNK: Tricks to get students’ attention in fun and powerless way

“Tricks to get students’ attention in fun and powerless way”

Hi Everyone! I am very excited to know how you teach your students today. I hope everything goes well in your class.

Well, today I want to share about the trick to get your students’ attention in a fun and effective way. Most of teachers probably already experienced how difficult to get students’ attention or how to ask the students listen to your instruction. Sometimes, the students are just too busy with their own thought or their stuffs such as hand phone, books, or.. their friends. 

Teachers sometimes need to shout or call the students’ name one by one to get their eyes on you. Well, let’s do some other fun ways to get the students’ attention. In this case, teachers need to know the “fun” way to get their attention in simple and powerless way. 

There are several ways to get the students’ attention such as clap and shout/call (in fun way). Here are several ways that teachers can do in their class. 

• Call

Call here means you call your students. In my practice teaching, I used this to get their attention. I used “Class” to refer all of the students. You can make your own word or name to refer to your students. 

When they hear me, they need to answer me as the keyword of the day. I usually change the keyword each day/meeting. For example, for the first time, I may ask them to clap, or just say “yes, Miss”. In the next day, I may write the keyword as “A-Yee”, “A-Ha!”, “Whazzupp” or “Dude”. Additionally, if you can find the right words, you can also use it as ice breaker. 

For example, when I use “Dude” as key word, it may sound as the word “Dut” in “Dangdut”. I will call “Class” for the first time, and then play it for several times.

E.G

Cla~~ss? Dude

Class Class? Dude Dude

Class Class Class??? Dude Dude Dude. 

*You can also play it with the tone. Don't forget to inform the students to follow your tone as well.

Teachers, when your students cannot hear you for the first time, sometimes you need to call them twice or three times.

If you are difficult in finding the keywords, you can ask the students to make it for you. Of course, it may need several minutes to deal with. But, it may help sometimes. The keywords that I got from my experience were “Panazz Bozz”, “Ay Ay Captain” or “Oleng Kapten”. 

It will be better if you can find keywords that connect to the material of yours. For example, you can use “Wonderful Indonesia” to connect to the subject dealing with tourism places or describing places or “Yes, Chef” to connect it to procedure text about cooking. (Used in Microteaching class of Camp Epic 3)

Also, you can also call them by saying “Eyes on me!” and your students will answer “Eyes on you”.

You can have your own creative way to get their attention by modifying this trick.

• CLAP

Clap. Yupz, it is one of trick that many teachers already done. Maybe you also already know this. But, I will keep tell more about this. I got this from campers in Camp EPIC 3.

Clapping, you can ask your students to clap several times based on your instruction to get their attention. 

Way #1;

Teachers’ instruction;

Clap 1

Clap 2

Students will follow the instruction while the teacher repeat it several times till he/she thinks it’s already silent.

Way #2;

The teachers’ instruction;

Give me one! *Students will clap once

Give me two! *Students will clap twice

Give me three! *Students will say “SSsstttt!!!”

For the last instruction, the students themselves who ask their friends to keep silent. So, it help a lot.

Way #3;

The teachers’ instruction;

Clap 1 if you can hear me.

Clap 2 if you can hear me.

Clap 3 if you can hear me.

Clap 4 if you can hear me.

Yupz, students will follow what the instruction is. What you need to do is that you need to say it near to the students so they can here you. You don’t need to shout because the sound of clapping will help other students to follow.

You can stop give instruction if you think you already got the students’ attention.

Well, those are some tricks that you can use for your classroom. You can choose one of them or maybe collaborate call and clap in the same time. It is all up to the teacher. Be fun and creative for the students. 

Wohoo~~~.. the last one, keep doing your work passionately. Don't forget to stay healthy and be grateful. Sangkyu :D 

Read More »