Renovated English Camp for Freshmen
 

By Lee Ji-woo, Student Editor

 

 2010 CNU Freshman Jump-in Program (English camp) must sound familiar to a lot of students but some are probably strange to this camp: Freshmen and sophomores made good relations and did various things through the camp, but juniors and seniors know few things about this camp even though they have heard of it many times. Then, what is English Camp and how does it progress? In addition, what do people say about this camp? Chonnam Tribune looks over it scrupulously.


 

▲ Opening ceremony of English Camp 2010
 English camp was first started last year, 2009, for pre-freshman to boost their learning ability and help them adapt themselves to campus life. It was co-hosted by the Office of Academic Affairs and the Language Education Center (LEC), CNU and the program was held twice so far and each camp lasted for three weeks. One foreign teacher and a Teaching Assistant (TA) selected from CNUians were assigned to each class and the lectures progressed in only English for eight hours a day. There were also a wide variety of special lectures spoken by public figures and activities such as sports and games.


 The camp was estimated as an epochal try to promote the learning ability of students by the people concerned with education. Though, there were also critical and negative comments. Last year, students had lodged together in BTL for 3 weeks with their TA. The purpose of staying together was to concentrate upon studying English but it degenerated into only merrymaking. One student participated in the camp said, “The camp was called 'Alcohol Camp' among us. Every night there were parties, so we hung out late everyday for 3 weeks." Besides, there was harsh criticism about spending too much for the English Camp. In the last public hearing of the General Student Council, the present student president denounced the spending of over two hundred million won for only building relationships as too much.
 

 Because of these responses, participating students did not stay in BTL this year. English camp tried to decrease the side effects and together with these reform measures, some contents of class were changed as well. For example, the individual learning became stronger than group study. Jung Geum-ran, the official who was in charge of the camp, said, "We intended to progress English Camp based on the responses from students and staffs. We try to provide much higher quality education." Even though there are still several problems left such as students’ poor attendance rate during the second term because of overlapping with each department' freshman welcoming programs and some futile classes which are just ostentation. However, there are also positive possibilities for a better English camp. Through the camp, pre-freshmen can adapt theirselves to a new university life and make a good use of their free time after the college entrance exam. Ahn Sun-wu (Freshman, Dept. of Faculty of Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences), 2010 English camp participant, said, “I think English camp was a good experience to learn English unlike in high school and to meet good people. It was a valuable time." Chonnam Tribune hopes English camp will position itself as representative program of CNU by improving itself step by step.

▲ Students who are participating in the English Camp

 

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