An Intensive English/Culture Camp: its Implications for an Ideal Design

An Intensive English/Culture Camp: its Implications for an Ideal Design

This paper is an empirical report of an English/Culture camp in U. S. designed exclusively for Korean college students. We did preform two surveys, one before and the other after the camp, and the questions range from their personal experience, expectations and evaluations. The students were exposed to a variety of classroom activities as well as a set of well-designed extracurricular activities outside class. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to gather data. Results indicate that the intensive program was beneficial to the students’ English language development, particularly in the two “active” skills of language faculty: writing and speaking. This is somewhat different from their expectation that speaking and listening would improve more than writing and reading. We hope to present a guideline for the ideal design of a short-term English camp for nonnative speakers of English. It is suggested that the curriculum involve as many cultural activities as possible both in and out of classrooms, and that the focus be on writing and speaking, though students are more interested in speaking and listening.