Summer camp at Gwangju foreign school

The school is an International school owned by Mr and Mrs Holley. The school runs a summer camp for students from 1st grade in elementry school up to any age in highschool. It's expensive for what the students get in the way of English instruction, and some classes tend to be overloaded. All good English camps limit their class sizes to 10 or 11 students, because ESL teachers can only effectively teach to a limited number of students in a camp setting. Camps which load more than 11-12 students into a class are giving them a poor return for what their parents pay. I have worked in many different camps, and they all refuse to overload classes. The Holleys don't employ this philosophy with their camp. They instead overload classes where they can, even though it's at the expense of the students learning English. Profit is their main concern. I taught at a summer camp at Gwangju foreign school, in a class with 16 students .

The material provided for the teachers and the students is quite poor. The school photocopies useless texts which is often too dificult for the students. All good camps provide good teachers manuals and text books and they allways research the material quite thoroughly. There are some good texts available with relevant teachers guides, and the better camps seem to generally use the same iff not similar texts. The camp at this place will use any material they can get their hands on. Their atittude is that it's effectiveness or inneffectiveness is completely irrelevant, just so long as they get the expensive fees that the many unsuspecting parents are willing to pay.

A good camp for parents from a christian background is the Pharohs camp run by Handong university in Pohang. It's a little more expensive than the Holley's camp, but the students stay in dormitories. The native speaker teachers have a Korean assistant who sometimes attend the classes, but whose role is mainly to assist students during meal times and in the evenings before they sleep. English learning is efficent, because classes don't exceed 11 students. Texts and stationary are provided, and there are a lot of meaningful activities for the students to be involved in. Drama productions are required of all teachers, and there are many other activities that both the teachers and students participate in to-gether. When I was there one teacher managed to train her class to do an excellent mini musical version of "Oliver". The audience of teachers parents and students were awe struck with the quality of the performance. (All a- cappella)

Another good camp for families in the Cholla region is the camp at Gyeongsang National University in Chinju. It runs for 4 weeks, and students stay on campus in the dormitories, but go home on the weekends. Again class size is limited to 11 students at most, and they are streamed i.e. students take tests to ascertain what class they should attend. Assistant Korean teachers are at the camp to help with the class work, and the the sleeping arrangements for the students. They are also a go between when there are language communication problems. The expat teachers at this camp are heavily involved in all the students activities. Drama productions are required by all classes, and they are performed on stage for the whole student and teacher audience. There are other activities such as sports competitions, sing along nights, and science projects. Telephone No 82-55-751-5141/ 6245- Fax : 82-55-751-6160

Changshin college in Masan runs a camp similar to the Kyungsan national university camp. Most of the students attending the camp live localy, but arrangements are made for others coming from out of town to slep in the college dormitories. This camp is modelled on the Gyeongsang national university in Chinju. A staff member at the college was a former teacher at the university in .Telephone Numbers 055 2503000, 2501277,2501280

YBM Sisa also runs an excellent camp two week camp in the summers and winters.

The teachers at these camps are come from all over the English speaking world. Some are already in Korea, and others come from their home countries on a vacation and to work while they travel. A special working visa is required by immigration, but it's easily obtained.

The Holley's camp isn't cheap, and is probably more expensive than the above camps.

All teachers working at camps are paid a considerable amount of money, and they earn it. Teachers at Holleys camp don't get a penny, and they work as hard if not harder than the teachers at any of the other camps. Holleys make enough money from their camps, and the fact that they aren't willing to give token payment to their teachers is because they would rather syphon off the profits for their own luxuries. It's also symptomatic of the fact that they haven't upgraded the facilities at the school since it's inception.

Teachers should be paid at least the equivalent of $2000 for their time and duties at the camp.