End of Term 2: Designing Courses, English Day, and English Camp

So I'm coming up on the last 2 weeks of my second term here in Samoa. We just finished 2 weeks of testing. That means that I haven't been teaching for the last 2 weeks. Not teaching has allowed me to focus a lot of energy on designing my course (especially for my second year), and English Day I'm organizing for my school for the last week, and a 3-day English Camp a fellow volunteer and I are organizing for the up-coming break. While I haven't actually been teaching lessons I have still felt very productive.

Course Design:
I'm using one of my textbooks from MA TESOL at Gonzaga University to go over the context of my course, my beliefs around the course, the content, and the organization and assessment of the content. I'm hoping to have a document that I can leave behind for my co-teachers to use as a resource when planning their own courses in the future. It will also be a convenient tool for tracking, evaluating, and documenting my time here so I can bring that back to my program.

English Day:
I'm actually quite excited about organizing this. I asked my principal what theme she would like and she suggested, "Protecting Our Environment". So for grades 1-3 we're doing environment-related songs, for grades 4-6 we're doing skits (which I'm writing--think "Glee meets Lost"), and for grades 7-8 we're doing craft projects from rubbish. The crafts will be a great way to clean up some of the rubbish lying around everywhere in Samoa in my village. So far I have chip bag coin purses, aluminum can boxes, and plastic bag "se"s (the flowers one puts behind one's ear). I also have lofty goals of starting a project where the students make these and other crafts and sell them in the market or at resorts to raise money for the school.

English Camp:
The volunteer in a village nearby an I have organized a camp that will bring our students together. The theme is kind of safari/mystery/animals. One of the goals is to bring students in other villages together. There is a strong feeling of national pride here in Samoa but this is juxtaposed with an equally strong village pride which translates to strong, often irrational, competition between villages. Hopefully we can ease some of that tension and bring the youth closer together. The students will be doing an exchange. They will have a partner whom they will stay with at night and eat meals with. They will stay with this partner's family the first night in my village. The next day we will move to the other village and the other partner's family will house the students. This helps build community as well as taking the burden of supplying lodging, meals, and supervision off of the two of us. Day 3 will be an award-giving/closing activity with the parents. I think it will be a lot of fun as well as a huge success. Wish us luck!