Many organizations are now holding English camps for university students and professionals wanting to improve their spoken English. Most students enrolling in these camps are highly motivated. Spoken English Learned Quickly is ideal for these camps. Because the course emphasizes spoken English, it will satisfy the students who have been limited by unproductive grammar and written English instruction. In addition, because Spoken English Learned Quickly was designed to be a self-taught course, it is ideally suited to programs which are dependent on a limited number of volunteer English instructors.
As preparation for all camp teachers and assistants, we recommend that each carefully read the book Learning Spoken English. The success of your camp will be directly based on its use of the Proprioceptive Language Learning Method (also known as the Feedback Training Method). Properly applied, the Proprioceptive Method will allow your camp students to learn spoken English very quickly. On the other hand, attempting to adapt ESL methodology (either grammar or written lessons) will significantly reduce your camp's effectiveness in teaching spoken English.
Setting the course objective.
Before the first student arrives, the camp staff will choose a course which will essentially determine whether the students leave the camp with a sense of satisfaction in their spoken English fluency, or merely leave having enjoyed social interaction with English-speaking teachers. Many camps are organized around social activities, watching and discussing videos, word games, and the like. These activities might be enjoyable for the moment, but they do not produce effective language instruction. (See Socialization versus language instruction.)
In the long run, the student who leaves your camp with a sense of significant gain in spoken English fluency will be the most satisfied. This will be true even when he or she leaves tired because of the intensity of the study.
The reputation of your English camp will be greatly enhanced by students who leave satisfied that the course was of significant benefit to them.
How is that done?
You won't believe how much of the work for an effective English camp has already been done for you. Nor will you believe how many students your camp could accommodate with a small number of teachers. The camp we will describe below as an example has 40 registered students. Yet, it has a staff of only two English teachers and three English teaching assistants. At least one of these individuals is bilingual and will serve as the spokesperson. (Of course, there are also cooks and servers for the noon meal and additional personnel as needed to staff the facility.)
The camp is held at a church camp facility which has convenient public transportation into a large city. The students who live in the city can register as day-only students. Though they may attend the evening activities at the camp, they return to their own homes at night. Resident students come on Sunday afternoon and sleep in the dormitory. Evening meals and occasional evening activities are provided through Thursday night. (The camp does not always provide evening meals. Sometimes the students go into the city to eat on their own.) Because the volunteer teachers and teaching assistants often stay at the camp, there are frequent opportunities for informal English conversations.
The students come expecting an intensive spoken English language course. The week long session is open to students with any level of English ability. The facility has a large dining area and kitchen which will easily accommodate the 40 students. Tables and chairs are set at the kitchen end of the dining hall. They are used for both the group meetings and lunch. The center of the hall is left open except for two tables. At the far end of the hall, two tables are set in each corner. Each table has 11 chairs circling it.
Look at the amount of English instruction the staff is giving. In this example the camp has 40 students. They are doing intense spoken English study for approximately five hours each day. That means there are 200 hours of spoken English instruction each day, or almost 1,000 hours of English instruction in five days. Yet, there are only two teachers and three assistants. Therefore, the presence of each teacher or assistant produces 40 hours of English instruction in each five-hour day.
This English camp staff has excelled in two areas. The first is the number of hours of intense spoken English study the student will receive. (Compare the number of hours each student is actively speaking English in this course with the number of hours in most courses when much of their time is spent passively listening to teachers and other students talk or watching video presentations and participating in games. See A technical comparison of Spoken English Learned Quickly and ESL courses.)
The second area in which this English camp staff has excelled is in the low number of teacher-hours required of the teachers and assistants for this concentration of instruction. This is possible because the Spoken English Learned Quickly CDs are used for much of the spoken English practice. (We are not minimizing the teachers' and assistants' effort. They work hard. But this camp can give much more spoken English instruction than similar English camps because the students are not dependent on the teachers or teaching assistants for all of their spoken English practice.)
Rather than giving a lengthy description, let's annotate the time schedule which was sent to each student during pre-registration. We will assume that the students all speak a common language. The English camp is well publicized in advance and requires advance registration. Registration includes a personal copy of the Spoken English Learned Quickly CD for each student and a printed text for the three lessons covered during the camp. (The students will keep both the CD and the printed lessons. Since the CD has the entire 450-page Student Workbook and 15 hours of MP3 audio files, the students will be able to continue studying the course after leaving. The CD which is included in registration puts this English camp in extremely high demand.) Finally, each student supplies his or her own MP3 player.* This English camp is very popular and enrollment is limited to 40 students. The camp runs for one week and meets from 8:00 to 14:00 on Monday through Friday.
We would also suggest that you give a two-language copy of the book Learning Spoken English to each registrant before camp begins. The book should be translated into the language of your students with a side page in English. (For more information regarding translation and publication of the book, see We are looking for international book publishers.) If you are regularly conducting English camps, Learning Spoken English could become an excellent advertising medium as well as a source of independent income. It could be sold with an attached copy of the CD.
| *MP3 players are becoming less expensive every month. (See www.olympusamerica.com, froogle.google.com, or www.ebay.com.) You may be able to purchase MP3 voice recorders directly from a company at OEM prices as one of their dealers, load the MP3 files on the MP3 player, and sell the MP3 player and the CD (which contains the Student Workbook) as a complete Spoken English Learned Quickly learning kit. (See the link Earn Money for more information regarding the CD.) |
| Monday | |
| 8:00 – 8:30 | Registration. Coffee and tea will be
available. The students will complete registration and informally mingle with the teachers and teaching assistants. Students will be given their personal copy of the Spoken English Learned Quickly CD which includes all of the MP3 audio exercises, a copy of the printed lesson sheets for Lessons 1 through 3, and an MP3 time chart. During pre-registration, a copy of Information for the Student in their own language was mailed to each student. They were asked to read the Information for the Student and study the time schedule before arriving at camp. A copy of the book Learning Spoken English was also included in the mailing encouraging them to read it. Each student was also encouraged to bring their own copy of an English-Their Language dictionary to camp. Registration personnel will verify that each student has access to either their own portable MP3 player or made prior arrangements to use a player loaned by the English camp. A portable, battery operated MP3 player is required for participation in the course. The player must be equipped with ear phones. (Pre-registration arrangements can be made between the student and the English camp to borrow a portable player during the English camp. The camp will also have a supply of batteries available for purchase. Experience proves that batteries will be needed frequently during the week.) |
| 8:30 – 9:20 | Course orientation. The students will be seated around the lunch tables for an introduction to the week's study program. With the exception of a demonstration of the lesson exercises, the students common language will be used for the entire orientation session. The spokesperson will welcome the students and introduce the teachers and assistants. The intensity of the course will be emphasized, though the students will be told that they can expect to gain a great deal of English fluency by the end of the week. The three rules of Spoken English Learned Quickly will be explained: 1. To learn to speak English correctly, you must speak it aloud. 2. To learn to speak English fluently, you must think in English. 3. The more you speak correct English aloud, the more quickly you will learn to speak fluently. The students will be told to practice exercises at full voice for ear training and not to read an exercise from their printed lesson sheets after initial familiarization with each audio exercise. (See the rational for this in A technical comparison of Spoken English Learned Quickly and ESL courses.) The students will be told that they will have two individual study periods using their portable MP3 player each morning. During the first exercise period when they begin studying a new lesson, they may read from the printed lesson sheet as necessary. During the second and following exercise periods on the same lesson, they may not refer to the printed lesson sheet. However, they may consult their vocabulary list at any time. The camp will provide printed lessons from the Student Workbook for all of the lessons studied during the week of camp. Fluency will be stressed as the objective of the course. The spokesperson will explain that even though an advanced student may know all of the vocabulary and grammar for a lesson, he or she is not ready to move to the next lesson until pronunciation is smooth. The students will be told that everyone can profitably begin on Lesson 1 because of everyone's need for fluency practice. (The English camp staff planned this explanation in advance so that students with several years of English grammar instruction will not feel insulted by using Lesson 1. The staff knows that very few of these "advanced" students will have much English fluency.) After initial orientation, a Vocabulary Briefing session will be conducted for Lesson 1 by a bilingual spokesperson. Each English vocabulary word in the Vocabulary at the end of the lesson will be read in order. Students will quickly call out the meaning of each word. After each definition is given, there is a short pause so the students can write the meaning next to the word. Simple one-word definitions are all that will be given. (The vocabulary for Lesson 1 is long. Therefore, the spokesperson will keep this session moving quickly. Because all the words in Exercise 1.1 Vocabulary and Exercise 1.2 and 1.3 Vocabulary are included in Lesson 1 Vocabulary, the spokesperson will use only the Lesson 1 Vocabulary section. The camp could also supply a small pocket notebook for vocabulary as a complimentary part of the registration cost. The students will profit a great deal by always carrying a small notebook for English vocabulary study. During the camp, they can be encouraged to make entries which they then study in free moments during the day. The spokesperson will explain the use of both the MP3 player and the MP3 time chart. Then a student will be asked to volunteer for a demonstration of the exercise lessons. The student will be given a copy of the Lesson 1 printed lesson sheet. Then the audio exercises will be played on an MP3 player so that all of the students can hear. The remainder of the students will be instructed to follow the exercises on their own printed lesson sheets. The student doing the demonstration will listen to the Listen to the example exercise while remaining silent. Exercise 1.1 will then play and the student will repeat the exercise while reading from the printed lesson sheet. The spokesperson will play Exercise 1.1 a second time and have the student attempt to do the same exercise without reading from the printed lesson sheet. The spokesperson will explain how the lesson sessions will be conducted. The students will be divided into four groups for each session. Two groups of ten students will meet at the two tables at the far end of the room for their teaching session. There will be a teacher at each table. At the same time, the other two groups will carry their portable MP3 player and will spread out throughout the dining hall area for their audio exercise session. Each student will practice the exercises individually. They are encouraged to walk as they study, though they may also sit at one of the dining tables. However, they are told to work separately and attempt to keep out of hearing range of others. The three teaching assistants will move among the students and help them as necessary. The students are encouraged to work diligently on the audio exercises when it is their time to do so. The spokesperson will emphasize an underlying philosophy of this instruction method. Speaking is the best way to learn to speak English. (Simple as it sounds, many language programs ignore that basic principle!) And, it is necessary to use correct grammar and pronunciation while speaking or the wrong kind of learning is taking place. (Again, many language programs allow students to misuse English as an on-going part of the instruction process.) The best way to encourage the students to speak aloud with correct grammar is to use the recorded audio exercises as an integral part of the instruction process. The spokesperson will also explain that during initial study, the students will make greater gains in English fluency by using correct grammar and pronunciation from the audio exercises than by engaging in "free" conversation with a teacher. Free conversation will come later while using the existing grammar and vocabulary of the Lesson Text in Lesson 2 and following. If there are significant differences in English fluency among the students, they will be grouped so that those who have less spoken English experience will be together with a teacher at one of the two tables, and those with more experience will be with a teacher at the second table. (However, the grouping is not based on years of study but on actual fluency.) Since — in this example — there are four sessions each morning with the teachers, there can be any number from no specialized groups to four specialized groups in either fluency level. The spokesperson will explain this grouping and ask for a show of hands for those who wish to be in either group. One of the two tables (for either one or both sessions) will be designated as the table for those with less spoken English experience. (This camp does not "assign" fluency level or even determine whether a given student is in the teaching session or audio exercise section during the first or second period. These are professional and university students and their maturity is respected. Furthermore, many have come with a friend and would not want to be separated. With a maximum of 10 students at a teacher's table, the final grouping occurs naturally. The only exception is when there is a general understanding that a certain table at either or both sessions is for a designated fluency level. Even then, the choice to participate in that group is left with each student. However, the staff has taken a simple precaution against having too many students at one table. The two tables and 11 chairs for the teaching session are at far sides of the room. All other chairs have been removed. A student would need to carry a chair all the way across the room to add a 12th chair. Because the spokesperson has emphasized the 10-student limit at the tables, a student would seldom attempt to move a chair. If it does happen, however, the teachers and teaching assistants have been instructed to unobtrusively move the chair back to its original location as quickly as possible after the session.) The lessons will be intense in this English camp. Therefore, the students will have a great deal of vocabulary to learn. The spokesperson will encourage the students to memorize all of the new vocabulary for that lesson, and if necessary, to study unknown vocabulary after the class is over for the day. In closing, the spokesperson will explain that when the sessions break (four times each day), the students at the tables will change places with the students working individually with their MP3 players. With the exception of a table(s) for those with less spoken English experience, tables will not be assigned and the students can sit at whichever table they please. However, the limit of 10 students per table will again be emphasized. |
| 9:20 – 9:50 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. Audio exercise session. The three teaching assistants will help 20 students begin the audio exercises on their MP3 portable players. The camp staff devised a strategy to quickly orient students to the audio exercise session. Two of the three assistants will concentrate on helping several who appear to be familiar with the MP3 players. While the larger group is moving toward the center of the room, each of the two assistants will walk with two students and use his or her own MP3 player and printed lesson sheet to demonstrate the use of the exercise. Very quickly, each teaching assistant will encourage the two students to begin using their own players while they are still walking. Then, by leading one and not the other, the assistants will get their two students to continue doing the exercises as they begin walking alone. All the while, the assistants have kept the student walking. Getting a few students successfully using the exercise lesson is the best way to get every student successfully involved because others will follow their example. The objective is to get these first students pacing the floor alone while listening to the audio and properly responding aloud while looking (when necessary) at the printed lesson text. The third assistant, however, makes a special attempt to work with someone apparently having difficulty. This will prevent the impression that only the most capable students get attention. Then, as soon as possible, the first two assistants will help others who are having difficulty. After all of the students are involved in the audio exercises, the three teaching assistants will move between the group of students, listening to their progress. The assistant may do nothing more than walk with a student for a minute or two, indicating approval of the students effort, and then moving to another student. Occasionally, the assistant will help with pronunciation or give encouragement if a student is having difficulty. Difficulty selecting the correct exercise on the portable MP3 players will be a frequent area in which the teaching assistants will need to aid the students. (Prior to the start of the camp, the staff gave the teaching assistants training with MP3 player operation and use of the time chart.) The camp staff carefully planned the teaching assistants' work. They knew that a great deal of time could be wasted if the students were uncertain as to what was expected of them during the audio exercise session. They also knew that it would be more effective to demonstrate the exercise session than merely explain it. The camp staff correctly realized that keeping the assistants intensely involved in the audio exercise process would promote the same intensity from the students. They were correct when they foresaw that the assistants' greatest contribution would be to keep the students productively involved in the audio exercise session. Whatever help the teaching assistants might give the students with actual pronunciation was only secondary. The camp staff also knew that encouraging the students to walk during the audio exercises was better than allowing them to sit at a table. The intent of this camp is to give as much time as possible to spoken English. But constant drill is tiring. Walking rather than sitting helps keep the students alert and breaks the monotony of the necessary table sitting during the group sessions with the teacher. Teaching session. English is the only language used during the teaching sessions. Further, the teaching sessions are only used for spoken English instruction. English grammar or writing is never taught in this English camp. (See the discussion of grammar and writing in spoken English instruction.) No more than 10 students will go to each of the two tables at the far end of the room. One teacher will be at each table. The teachers will conduct their class much like the plan outlined in the Instructor's Guide for Lesson 1. Because this will be the first class session of the camp, the teachers must perform some of the introduction to the audio exercises that the group simultaneously working with the teaching assistants will be receiving. Therefore, the teachers will use an MP3 player which all the students at their table will be able to hear through a speaker. The teacher will begin the lesson as suggested in the Instructor's Guide. After 10 minutes with the MP3 player, the teacher may have the students read the sentences in chorus or individually. The teacher will not attempt to engage the students in individual "free" conversation during any of the sessions on the first day. (Note: If you are a teacher in a similar program, read all of the pertinent material in the Instructor's Guide.) For more information regarding drill exercises, see Chapter 5: Selecting a Text from the book Learning Spoken English. Proper pronunciation will be the primary focus in the session with the teacher. The teacher will select sentences from the lesson which have difficult sounds for the students. The teacher will then drill both the entire group and individuals to help them pronounce correctly. After the teacher has helped them with specific sounds, he or she can then take longer sentences and have the students repeat them until the entire sentence is said smoothly with good intonation. |
| 9:50 – 10:35 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. Both the individual audio exercises and the teaching sessions at the tables will be conducted much like they were in the first session. However, because all the students will be familiar with the material from the audio exercise session, the teachers will spend the majority of the time with pronunciation. |
| 10:20 – 11:00 | Break and refreshments. |
| 11:00 – 11:40 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. The teachers at the tables will emphasize pronunciation and fluency. The teachers will drill the students until they can speak entire sentences (without reading) with proper speed, pronunciation, and smoothness. At the end of the session, groups of two students should be able to ask and answer a group of questions and answers from Lesson 1 at full conversation speed using good pronunciation and intonation. (They are permitted to read when multiple sentences are used.) |
| 11:40 – 12:20 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. The same description of the teaching session applies as given above. |
| 12:20 – 13:00 | Lunch. |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Pronunciation reading. All students are divided
equally between teachers and assistants. Each group is seated
at a table. This session will be a continuation of the pronunciation drills in the teaching sessions from the morning. However, during this session, all pronunciation drills will be done while reading as the sentence groups are longer. A student may read five to ten sentences without break. The intent is to produce smooth, well pronounced conversational English with paragraph length conversation. The students will also count and repeat the alphabet. The alphabet and numbers are important to English learners because they will be frequently asked to give verbal responses in which names are spelled and addresses or identification numbers are given. Good pronunciation is required. Too often, good pronunciation of the alphabet and English numbers is a major obstacle for an English language student. |
| Tuesday - Thursday | |
| 8:00 – 8:20 | Vocabulary Briefing. Coffee and tea will be
available. Students will assemble for the Vocabulary Briefing
of that day's exercise lessons: Tuesday and Wednesday –
Lesson 2; Thursday –
Lesson 3. When a single lesson
is used for two days' study and the students have become
familiar with the verb tense exercises in Lesson 2, extra time in the Vocabulary
Briefing session can be used to drill the combined group (or
single volunteers) on verb tenses. (For an example of this
type of drill, look at the first page of the Instructor's Guide section
entitled Lesson 5: Review Lesson.) |
| 8:20 – 9:10 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. See the previous descriptions for the first day. In addition, the Lesson Text will become an important part of the reading and response time. For a more complete description of the Lesson Text drills, see the comments under the 13:00 – 14:00 hour session Pronunciation reading and conversation for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 9:10 – 10:00 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. See the previous descriptions for the first day. In addition, the Lesson Text will become an important part of the reading and response time. For a more complete description of the Lesson Text drills, see the comments under the 13:00 – 14:00 hour session Pronunciation reading and conversation for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | Break and refreshments. |
| 10:30 – 11:20 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players See the previous descriptions for the first day. In addition, the Lesson Text will become an important part of the reading and response time. For a more complete description of the Lesson Text drills, see the comments under the 13:00 – 14:00 hour session Pronunciation reading and conversation for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 11:20 – 12:10 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. See the previous descriptions for the first day. In addition, the Lesson Text will become an important part of the reading and response time. For a more complete description of the Lesson Text drills, see the comments under the 13:00 – 14:00 hour session Pronunciation reading and conversation for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 12:10 – 13:00 | Lunch. |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Pronunciation reading and conversation. All
students will be divided equally between teachers and
assistants. Each group will be seated at a table. The Lesson Text from Lesson 2 and Lesson 3 will be used as a reading text. Pronunciation and fluency will be emphasized. The purpose is to accustom the students to expressing themselves in English in paragraph length conversations which use correct sentence structure (grammar), appropriate vocabulary, and clear pronunciation, while avoiding distracting pauses. The English camp staff has invested a great deal of time preparing for this session. They have avoided "free" conversation because it promotes faulty English grammar and difficulty with vocabulary when the students encounter random topics. At the same time, they know that the students need to practice conversational English. The camp staff's solution is to use the Lesson Text from the lessons as a highly structured aid to conversation. As a first step, the students are asked to read the Lesson Text with careful attention to pronunciation and fluency. The teacher then uses the sentences of the Lesson Text to ask questions. The students can depend on the structure and vocabulary of the Lesson Text, but they can still practice English conversation. (For an example of this type of drill, see the Instructor's Guide section entitled English Conversation Using the Lesson Text or a Newspaper.) Also see Chapter 5: Selecting a Text from the book Learning Spoken English. |
| Friday | |
| 8:00 – 8:20 | Vocabulary Briefing. Coffee and tea will be
available. Students will assemble for the Vocabulary Briefing
of the morning's exercise lessons: Friday – Lesson 3. See the description of this session for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 8:20 – 9:10 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. See the description of this session for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 9:10 – 10:00 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. See the description of this session for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | Break and refreshments. |
| 10:30 – 11:20 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. See the description of this session for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 11:20 – 12:10 | Audio exercise and Teaching sessions. This session
will consist of 20 students with teachers in two groups of 10
each, and another 20 students working individually on audio
exercises with portable MP3 players. See the description of this session for Tuesday through Thursday. |
| 12:10 – 13:00 | Lunch and closing remarks. The students will be encouraged to continue studying up to two hours a day with their Spoken English Learned Quickly CD. They will also be referred to the More English Study instructions on their CD for continued English study. |
Objectives and other comments:
For further comments on paragraphs 1. and 2. above, see Can beginning and advanced students use the same lessons?
However, we can tell you one certain way that you can destroy its effectiveness. Try to include some grammar and writing sessions. It doesn't work! (See The place for grammar and writing in spoken language study.) Your students are coming to your English camp because their years of written English study in schools haven't given them the ability to speak. Why give them more of the same?