In this post I'd like to tell you a bit more about what it's like working at American Village and how things are organized. If you're thinking about accepting a job offer with Amvil, this post should hopefully help prepare you a bit for what to expect. If you've never worked at a summer camp before, it can be a bit disorienting and it takes a while to learn the routine. The schedules are different for school or vacation camps, but here is what the average day looks like.
7:30 Wake up
8:30 Breakfast
9:00 Kids brush teeth
9:15 ESL 1
10:15 Recess
10:30 ESL 2
11:30 Congress
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Chill time
2:00 Activity 1
3:30 Snack
3:45 Activity 2
5:00 Free time
6:00 Showers
7:00 Dinner
8:00 Kids brush teeth
8:15 Evening Program
9:15 Cool down
9:30 Lights out (staff clean up)
10:00 Staff Meeting
11:00 - 12:00 Finish work
For anyone considering working with American Village, please note that you will typically get between 1-2 hours of breaks throughout the day, but not more than that. Many counsellors get sick the first week due to exhaustion. Try to pace yourself, take as many breaks as possible and don't work past 11 despite the pressure to do so. I won't lie, it's a grueling schedule and in my opinion, the position is better-suited to younger individuals without other job options. That being said, no-one should have to work 14+ hour days. But if you think you can handle it, please read on!
The first day when the kids arrive, be sure to make them feel welcome and comfortable. Don't worry if they're shy, just be present and available to them if they want to talk and try to encourage them to socialize with one another. You can also ask some of the older kids to look out for the younger ones. Talk with the campers, initiate games and activities and be sure to try to include everyone without being too pushy. The most important thing about being a counsellor is making sure that the kids feel safe and comfortable so that they can have a good time, make new friends and great memories. This is the basis of the job. It's just as important to make sure that the kids are eating healthy, socializing positively, being respectful to one another and having fun as it is to teach them English.
The kids are generally very well-behaved, with only a few minor incidents occurring once in a while such as homesick kids, bullying, bad attitudes, upset tummies, or bad behaviour. Personally, I never saw any behaviour that couldn't be ameliorated with the right approach. The majority of problems had to do with kids adjusting to being away from their parents and in a new social environment. Of course, it's completely understandable that some 11 and 12-year-olds will often have a bit of separation anxiety and stress.
7:30 Wake up
8:30 Breakfast
9:00 Kids brush teeth
9:15 ESL 1
10:15 Recess
10:30 ESL 2
11:30 Congress
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Chill time
2:00 Activity 1
3:30 Snack
3:45 Activity 2
5:00 Free time
6:00 Showers
7:00 Dinner
8:00 Kids brush teeth
8:15 Evening Program
9:15 Cool down
9:30 Lights out (staff clean up)
10:00 Staff Meeting
11:00 - 12:00 Finish work
For anyone considering working with American Village, please note that you will typically get between 1-2 hours of breaks throughout the day, but not more than that. Many counsellors get sick the first week due to exhaustion. Try to pace yourself, take as many breaks as possible and don't work past 11 despite the pressure to do so. I won't lie, it's a grueling schedule and in my opinion, the position is better-suited to younger individuals without other job options. That being said, no-one should have to work 14+ hour days. But if you think you can handle it, please read on!
The first day when the kids arrive, be sure to make them feel welcome and comfortable. Don't worry if they're shy, just be present and available to them if they want to talk and try to encourage them to socialize with one another. You can also ask some of the older kids to look out for the younger ones. Talk with the campers, initiate games and activities and be sure to try to include everyone without being too pushy. The most important thing about being a counsellor is making sure that the kids feel safe and comfortable so that they can have a good time, make new friends and great memories. This is the basis of the job. It's just as important to make sure that the kids are eating healthy, socializing positively, being respectful to one another and having fun as it is to teach them English.
The kids are generally very well-behaved, with only a few minor incidents occurring once in a while such as homesick kids, bullying, bad attitudes, upset tummies, or bad behaviour. Personally, I never saw any behaviour that couldn't be ameliorated with the right approach. The majority of problems had to do with kids adjusting to being away from their parents and in a new social environment. Of course, it's completely understandable that some 11 and 12-year-olds will often have a bit of separation anxiety and stress.
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| Just some of the many costumes the counsellors wear throughout the week! |
For the most part the kids really enjoy the activities at the camp, especially the games, the baseball rotations, and the dance. It's really rewarding to see how happy they are to learn how to hit a baseball or when their family wins a competition (the camp is organized into 4-6 groups called families). They even seem to like the skits the counsellors put on! Since the campers are usually between 10-13ish, they're still at that age where the majority think funny costumes are great and the younger ones are pretty easily entertained. They love to play games, so make sure your ESL lesson is centered around games and activities.
On the first day of camp, called "Ellis Island Day," the kids go through immigration. The counsellors are stationed at different places, guiding the kids to different tables: names, passports, bank, and the food/electronics check. Each counsellor will choose or be assigned a role. One or two counsellors will stay with the group outside and choose a small number of kids, maybe 5-8 at a time to begin at the names station.
First, the kids choose a camp name from a selection provided by the counsellors. The person in charge of the name station will explain to the kids about choosing their camp names and remove the chosen names from the board. Usually the names follow the overall family theme. During the superhero/comic book theme week, we had campers with names like Captain Marvel, Batman, Rogue, Superman, Spiderman, etc. We also had some campers who insisted on specific names such as Shadow Lady, Foxfire, Tacos, Bad Girl, etc. And then we had the funny random names the counsellors threw in the mix such as Terminator, Hawkeye, Homeboy and Mom's Spaghetti. There were also a few questionable names that counsellors had put in the mix, so watch out for these and discretely remove them from the board. Some camps reuse names, others make new ones every week. The benefit of reusing the names is that you don't need to write and cut out new ones. The drawback is that it can get confusing if you're referring to different kids each week by the same names. The counsellors also have to choose camp names. Mine was my real-life nickname, Lolo.
At the passport station, a counsellor will take the piece of paper with the name on it, ask the kid their French name, find the "passport" with the name on it and write in the camp name. The passports are small pieces of thin cardboard that are placed inside a transparent plastic pocket on the end of a lanyard and are used as name tags. They must be worn by campers and staff at all times. They are prepared in advance with the available info: the French name and the camp "last name" or family (ex: Avengers, Carebears, etc.). So, for example, if they chose the name Terminator and they were assigned the family Carebears, their full camp name would be Terminator Carebears. Their chosen camp name and the name of their ESL teacher are added afterwards.
The bank collects the money from the kids or from the teachers if they've already done it, write the amount each kid has to spend on their bank sheet for the general store and put the money together in the cash box. These tally sheets will be used later by whoever runs the general store.
The food and electronics station collects and bags (separately!) all the food and electronics the campers may have brought. They are allowed to keep water with them in their rooms, but all other foods and beverages must be reclaimed at free time each day. Same for electronics; the kids can only use them during free time. Free time is not to be confused with chill time.
The first day of camp does not include ESL lessons, which start on day 2.
ESL class takes place between 9:15 to 10:15 (ESL 1) and after a brief fifteen minute recess, again between 10:30 to 11:30. Lesson-planning can be challenging due to the lack of prep time. In the handbook, it says that ESL counsellors are supposed to get 2-3 hours daily for lesson planning, but that it definitely not the situation on the ground. You will be expected to lesson plan after 11 or 11:30ish when the end of the day meeting finally concludes. Some counsellors stay up until midnight or 1 am lesson-planning, but I wouldn't recommend it. Just do your best with the limited time and resources. At least the kids are reasonably well-behaved in class!
It's a good idea to start each class by having the kids write in their camp journals (see the above photo on the top left). You can also use these as workbooks for other in-class exercises. There are decoders and word scrambles the kids can do on each page. Printing some hand-outs is also a good idea. There are some worksheets available on the company dropbox, but the quality and variety leave much to be desired. Technically, crafts are not allowed during ESL time, but since the classes are completely unsupervised *shrug*. Games and activities are of course central.
The first day of camp does not include ESL lessons, which start on day 2.
It's a good idea to start each class by having the kids write in their camp journals (see the above photo on the top left). You can also use these as workbooks for other in-class exercises. There are decoders and word scrambles the kids can do on each page. Printing some hand-outs is also a good idea. There are some worksheets available on the company dropbox, but the quality and variety leave much to be desired. Technically, crafts are not allowed during ESL time, but since the classes are completely unsupervised *shrug*. Games and activities are of course central.
Crafts take place during one of the two daily activity periods. Crafts can also be challenging because the group sizes are too large for the number of supervisors, especially since the crafts usually require some degree of manual dexterity that the majority of kids can manage, but which usually about a quarter to a third will struggle with. The usual crafts include spirit eyes, dream catchers, and friendship bracelets, but you can create whatever craft activity you like based on the daily theme.
The other activity period is normally designated for a more physical outdoors game or sport. This can include baseball rota (practice), a baseball game, capture the flag, dance rota, scavenger hunt, nature walk, balloon drop, etc.
Baseball rotation is one of the standard activities that takes place every week. In this rota the kids learn how to throw and catch, run the bases, bat and cheer. The throwing and catching station is hilarious. I saw more than one child pick up the baseball, put it inside the glove and try to throw it. Base running is taught through playing a game of kickball. French kids really know next to nothing about baseball, so in the batting station, for example, you need to show them how and where to stand in relation to the base. Most will try to stand on top of home plate. Cheerleading is another mandatory activity, as it is included in the brochure along with baseball and making a dream catcher. We have the kids make pompoms out of tissue paper and then show them a few cheers. They can also use this opportunity to rest and drink water.
The other activity period is normally designated for a more physical outdoors game or sport. This can include baseball rota (practice), a baseball game, capture the flag, dance rota, scavenger hunt, nature walk, balloon drop, etc.
Baseball rotation is one of the standard activities that takes place every week. In this rota the kids learn how to throw and catch, run the bases, bat and cheer. The throwing and catching station is hilarious. I saw more than one child pick up the baseball, put it inside the glove and try to throw it. Base running is taught through playing a game of kickball. French kids really know next to nothing about baseball, so in the batting station, for example, you need to show them how and where to stand in relation to the base. Most will try to stand on top of home plate. Cheerleading is another mandatory activity, as it is included in the brochure along with baseball and making a dream catcher. We have the kids make pompoms out of tissue paper and then show them a few cheers. They can also use this opportunity to rest and drink water.
As I mentioned, the camps are organized by family. Usually these families take their names from a theme and can change each week with each new group of kids. For example, at Azé, we had a superhero theme with an unusually small group of about 24 kids, so we had two families: the Avengers and the Justice League. The next week we changed the theme to classic cartoons: the Smurfs, the Carebears, the Jetsons, the Simpsons and the Flintstones.
The counsellor in charge of awarding points for clean rooms gives stars to the campers who did the best job tidying their rooms. The kids go nuts over this because the two winning rooms get to be VIPs for the Boom, which is what they call the dance. The VIPs get some extra soda and candy. The kids put a lot of effort into winning VIP. For part of the boom prep, the kids decorate coasters, like the hilarious one above made by a really sweet girl whose camp name was Hawkeye.
Kids can purchase candy and small items at the General Store. Each item purchased is catalogued on the list. At the end of each day everything is totalled. At the end of the week, everything is totalled again and the money remaining is given back to the campers. Baseballs that were purchased are handed out on the last day of camp so that the kids don't lose them. Items available at the General Store include nerds, laffy taff, kitkats, twix, soda, baseballs, water bottles, t-shirts, and pins.
I hope you found this article helpful! Good luck at American Village or at your next teaching venture! If you have any questions, please fell free to comment below and I'll answer to the best of my ability. Happy teaching!
Teaching ESL in France: American Village Summer Camp
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Tips for Professional Travellers
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