14 English Club Activities

Have I ever mentioned my English club to you? I'm not sure. But, I enjoy facilitating my English club because the students are enthusiastic about learning English. I've selected my students with the highest grades in my English class from this year and last year to participate. Here are some of the activities we've done this year and the previous year.

1.  Movie day- Sometimes we watch American films with English or Portuguese subtitles. I always write questions on the board for them to answer while watching the movie and afterwards, we have a discussion. Some of the movies we've watched have been  13 Going on 30, Mulan, and The Princess and the Frog.
2. Charades – First the students learned vocabulary words for different feelings such as excited, angry, and jealous. After the students passed around a ball naming their feelings, one student at a time picked a vocabulary word from a bag and acted it out. Meanwhile the students from his or her team tried to guess the word. Each team had two minutes to guess as many words as they could.
3. Bingo- I gave the students a list of 25 related vocabulary words (ie. professions) to learn and study. Later, I had them create their own bingo board, writing the words in any order they wish. Then, I drew a word from a bag and read the word aloud. The first student to get five words marked in a row, shouts BINGO! This game is good for the students to practice hearing and comprehending words in English.
4. Fitness- I wrote down a list of workout vocabulary words for the students to copy such as lift, bend, backward, and forward. I also gave them a review session on the parts of the body. After we studied the vocabulary list and stretched, I played a Zumba workout video for them. They loved this activity because they were able to move their bodies while listening to the fitness instructor giving commands in English.
5. Thriller- For Halloween, I brought in the lyrics for “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and helped them translate some of the words in the song such as "paralyzed", "killer", "slam", "alien", and "moonlight". Not only were they learning to understand the song, they were able to dance and sing along to it as well.
6. Singing with my ukulele- Learning new songs is a great way for the youth to learn a foreign language. Have you ever listened to a catchy song (good or bad) and had trouble getting it out of your head? Well, that's the benefit of teaching songs to ESL students because they'll be able to practice them anywhere and all the time. We like to sing along to songs with my ukulele. We've sang “Diamonds” by Rihanna, “Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz, and they are currently learning “Applause” by Lady Gaga.
7. The Blindfold Game- To learn how to give directions, I taught the group phrases like “turn left”, “go left”, “take a small step back” and “continue forward”. After we studied the words, I separated them into groups and one person from each group blindfolded them. Then another person from each team gave them directions from point A to point B in English. The first team to reach point B, obviously won.
8. Fortune Teller- I asked the students, “What's in your future?”  After a moment of blank stares, I gave them a review session on the future tense. Next, I taught them how to make a paper fortune teller and gave them  directions in English on how to make an origami fortune teller. Then they wrote four colors of their choice on the outside of the game , inside they wrote eight professions, and on the inside, they wrote 12 sentences using the future tense that "predicted" the player's future. It's a fun little game I remember playing with my friends as a child and I wanted to share it with them.
9. Form sentences with words- I split the group into two separate teams. Each team was given a bag with the same random words in it. Some of the words were “the”, “ball”, “green”, “quickly”. The objective of this activity was to get the members to practice forming sentences using adjectives, articles, nouns, adverbs, prepositions, demonstratives, and verbs in different tenses.
10. Mad Libs- I wrote down a Mad Lib composition on the board that I got off the internet and had the students copy and fill out the spaces with the different grammar words that were required. They had a lot of fun with this activities because the sentences came out goofy and ridiculous. “I gave my teacher a star and she fell.”
11. Two Truths and One Lie- Each student wrote two truths and one lie about themselves. One student at a time wrote his or her truths and lie on the board and read them to the class, while everyone had to guess which one was the lie. I provided example sentences at the beginning of the activity like “I have two sisters” and “I like to dance”.
12. Hangman- If there is extra time, we play hangman. A student gets to make up his or her own sentences and the participants guess the letters in the phrase. It's a good game for the students to practice writing phrases in English and learning new ones as well.
13. Drawing- We had a whole session on drawing. They learned new art vocabulary such as "markers", "color", "brush", and "pencil". Then I asked them to draw something that makes them happy and they came to the front and stated what they drew.  This not only helped them practice the past tense, but it also helped them practice speaking in front of a group. Next, I had them draw each other without looking at the paper. I then posted the drawings on the wall and the giggling group had to guess whose picture was whose. Finally, as a group, they drew a monster on a big piece of paper. Each person was assigned to draw different parts of the body and they were free to draw it however they liked. They enjoyed the drawing activities a lot!
14. King's Game- Each card has different rules and the group members randomly chose a card and had to do what the card ordered them to do. The participants often held their stomachs with laughter when the students had to act out some of the rules. Here were the rules:
    Ace- Say a sentence using the verb “to scream” in the present tense.
    2- Recite the alphabet in English.
    3- Stand on top of the chair until it's your turn again.
    4- Walk like a chicken.
    5- Say how many brothers and sisters you have and their names.
    6- Draw a picture of yourself in less than one minute.
    7- Everyone raises their hands. The last person to raise his or her hands loses.
    8- Say a sentence using the verb “to play” in the past tense.
    9- Dance alone for ten seconds.
    10- Bark like a dog.
    Jack- Sing a song in English.
    Queen- Ask a question to the person to the right.
    King- Read the following tongue twister: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?”
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    
    

    
    

Open Back Drum Circle

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One of the forms of public transportation in Mozambique is squeezing about 20 people in the back of a truck.  I happened to be going to Cabo Delgado when a music group started drumming, singing, and whistling.  You never know what you're going to get when you take public transportation here!

Shoot, I Couldn't Be Prouder!

Tania (right) showing a girl the correct way to shoot a basketball

This week, I experienced my happiest moment as a teacher and coach in Mozambique, so far!  On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday (today), there were basketball try-outs for the 8th grade girls and the now 9th graders  from last year assisted with the training by demonstrating the drills.  But what I didn't expect them to do was to gather groups of 8th graders and teach them to pass the ball and dribble without my having to tell them to do that.  They were ahead of the game.  My eyes are tearing up as I type because as a coach and teacher, sometimes I wonder if my student athletes understand what I'm teaching them or the purpose of doing a "three-man weave".  But when I witnessed the 9th graders coming together as a team and showing the younger cohort how to position the ball flat on their palms before shooting a free-throw shot and having them repeat chants like, "A bola e como oro" (the ball is like gold) when jumping for the rebound, I held my breath for at least a minute.

This is it! This is what my volunteering job is about.  It's about teaching the youth skills that they can pass on to the next group.  It's not about having them depend on me or future volunteers for constant guidance or new balls.  Sometimes being able to teach another person enhances the teacher's understanding of the subject because he/she is forced to concentrate on it.  By being mentors, the 9th graders were able to gather all of what they've learned from last year in their heads and articulate the drills in a way that the beginners could comprehend.  I'm ecstatic that the girls not only were paying attention to all of my lectures, but they're able to perform and teach the game of basketball to others.    I couldn't be prouder.

Here are some pictures:

Ofelia (wearing the yellow tank top) showing an 8th grader how to shoot a basketball

Ofelia  showing the girls how to stretch.

Lily (left) helping the girls shoot the ball

Official 8th  Grade Girls' basketball team

Some of the 9th grade girls

Lady Divas in Action

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Here's a glimpse of my girl's basketball group scoring a point in a game against another school last year.  More videos to come this year of the team.  Basketball season has officially begun!

Glitter, Masks, and Samba!

Unlike the countries that border Mozambique, Portugal and Brazil heavily influence my host country, culturally speaking.  The Latin influences here can be seen in some of the dances, music, food, language, and events such as carnival, or carnaval.  

This past weekend (February 28th-March 1st), about 25 other volunteers and I celebrated carnival in a city called Quelimane.  I've been to the carnaval in Uruguay and I've seen footage of the ones in Brazil where people make their costumes and practice their routines for an entire year for the special event that marks the beginning of Lent. However, carnaval isn't as big here as it is in Uruguay or Brazil and the dancers here don't typically wear the extravagant peacock feathers with drummers smacking their tambores whose beats seem to shoot rhythmic life into their legs and hips.  

But the parade here is nice as well.  There were about 20 different groups who danced, sang, and paraded in a large circle shaking their hips like a happy tail of a dog. In Mozambique, the dancers and the crowd tend to wear glittery masks and costumes and dance samba. For the record, a lot of the group members in the parade were amazing dancers!  After the parade, many people went to a club to continue the dance party until five in the morning.

Here are some pictures of the event:

My friend Tommy and I taking a picture with someone with an interesting costume.

 Amazing dancers

Here I am with other PCVs wearing our glittery masks.