Tourist Day

The last thing we did before the Father's Day holiday was the M5 Tourist Day project. I was so impressed with the hard work that the students put into this presentation. This kind of backfired though, because they missed some of their other classes to work on their boards and presentations. We didn't encourage that. We spent the whole first quarter preparing for Tourist Day, officially "Intercultural Appreciation Presentation," and by the time of the presentation day, the students had put days and days of work into these projects.

There were fourteen groups in total. They all did an amazing job and each one had something unique and special about their presentation. I just want to highlight a few of the groups.

One of the first group presentations that I saw was the Bahamas, which had prepared an all-inclusive luxury tour. This group had cups of coconut water. I thought that they did an excellent job on their board, which you can't really see well in the photo.

One of the girls in this group returned from studying abroad in Peru last year and was super informed and excited about the presentation. They had made ceviche and wore Peruvian skirts that my student had brought back from Peru with her. Their table was appropriately decorated with llamas.

Italy earned major points by bringing mini-pizzas as part of their presentation! I don't know how they did it, but the pizzas were still hot by the time we came to their booth. They also had a really great travel brochure which was designed to look like an Italian passport.

Dubai - the most expensive tour package. This trip came with a private butler, limousine service, and accommodation at the Burj Dubai, the world's most expensive hotel. This group was very well-prepared, and the girls had choreographed a dance routine to Arabic music as part of their presentation. It was very high-energy and fun.

South Korea chose to focus on the cultural aspects of their country. They had several different types of Korean food to try, as well as sample beauty products. I thought that they did an especially good job with their costumes.

Japan was another really fun group presentation. They put mats on the floor for us to sit on Japanese-style and served us sushi and octopus balls during the presentation.

Each of the four M5 teachers, Kate, the head of our department, and some of the other high-level English teachers got to cast a ballot for the winning group. The Australian students and teachers got to vote as well. The winning team was presented with movie vouchers for Siam Paragon Cineplex (the nicest cinema in Bangkok). The voting was extremely close between a few groups, but in the end Peru took home first prize. I'm very proud, because both Peru and the second-place group were made of students from my class!

I think that Peru won because the passion of my student who studied there was really evident. Each group did awesomely though. As always, it wouldn't be complete without taking hundreds of photos before going home. Besides the numerous group photos, all of the students wanted to take photos with their teachers dressed up in Thai costumes. We didn't get home until pretty late that evening, but this event turned out to be definitely one of the most fun projects we've done. I think it was a major success, and it's always good for us and for the students to do something other than boring bookwork.

with my crazy M5 guys