Team project “English is fun” :)
We organized an English event, in November, at KBTU. The event’s name was “English is fun”. The main purpose was to improve the language and communication skills of students.
We began our team project with writing a proposal. It was an important step to divide the work between all members, to decide who would be responsible for what. Eventually, after this task we had to think about how to attract a minimum of 70 people. It was really hard for us because many students prefer not to spend their leisure time at the university. Another problem was that sometimes relationships in the group were strained. We argued about posters, about the introductory speech and about monetary contributions. If we had not carefully prepared for the performance then team would receive a low score. We practiced about three hours with a power point presentation in front of our classmates two days before the performance. The most positive member in our group was Daulet. He could always defuse the situation by telling funny jokes. I think all group’s members should have been positive like him.
We analyzed the first group which organized the event on Halloween and we decided that one of the main factors for participation was free entry and food. If you want to attract a lot of people you have to motivate them. The room 461 was selected on the fourth of November, at 6 p.m. by our team for “English is Fun”. We had about two hours to prepare the room before students arrived. I bought disposable cups, plates and napkins, Nurbol was responsible for pizza, Ersultan for drinks and sweets, Daulet bought chips and sweet corn and small presents in the form of chewing gum were prepared by Aliya. Finally, the long-awaited moment had come. We started our celebration from “Movie-quiz”. I prepared the power point presentation with 30 slides and 10 interesting questions from different movies. I was responsible for this introductory game, and to tell you the truth, I was a little bit nervous. There were six teams: the gentlemen, the power, monkeys, hot peppers, Abzal and girls and the last team was called black dogs. After this game started it was difficult for me to control the screaming and clapping of students. The main disadvantage was that because of the noise and fast changing slides, I did not have time to see which team answered first. I should have asked for other members’ help. Nevertheless, the game was fun and students were satisfied. After an active game we had a little break with pizza and other nibles.
Later, we separated the room into three groups and started to play in three games: “Who am I”, “Describe the thing”, “I have never”.
All that we needed for the first game were stickers, pens, a table with chairs and players. Students wrote different words on the stickers and glued them on the forehead of another player in the circle. This game caused great interest among the students and they even continued to play it after the event ended. Our teacher Nickolas helped them to solve the words.
In the game “Describe the thing” we used many unusual objects like hand cream, jackknife, toys, pencil sharpeners, simulators for hands etc. Some students found it difficult to describe the things while they were blindfolded. Also Nurbol and Daulet helped them with dictionaries.
The last game which was called “I have never” took a long time. All rules were presented to students by Ersultan, who was responsible for this task. In my opinion this game was more effective for communication between students; they talked to each other and shared their impressions. Moreover, Mr. Alan also played this game and talked about his adventures and it was interesting listening to him.
After the first round of games, participants moved into another group.
We also had one additional game which was called “Say and hit”. The game was lively, noisy and funny.
The only thing that disappointed me was the number of people who came to the event. I consider that the big advantage of our English event was that students tried to speak only in English and it was our main aim! I was very happy about reviews that were left by students; none of them regretted spending their time with us!
The organization of this event was really important for me and for my team!!! It wasn’t so easy, but we DID it, because we were able to organize ourselves.
