It was the middle of the week, and one of the activities on the week’s social programme was to play some games by the pool, meet new people and have the opportunity to practise English. I was looking forward to this afternoon for another excuse to chill out with our students. Even though it was a blisteringly hot day, as always, students had the luxury of dipping their feet in the pool – or better yet, they could jump in if the heat was getting to them. Of course, the main aim of the activity was to play games in a relaxed setting – one that students have started to consider as their second home. I decided it was time to liven up the place so I was boosting the students’ energy level with my suggestions for different games.
To help energise them, I thought it was time to shake things up a bit with some good tunes, so I grabbed a CD player from one of the classrooms and plugged in my MP3 player that had a couple of playlists with some of the latest tracks. Immediately, students and myself started dancing and moving to the beats of the songs –whether inside or outside the pool.
We started with the famous game of Charades, and I must admit we did have a couple of laughs. We then continued with the word game known as ‘I Spy’, where the aim of the game was to mention the first letter of an object that was around us, or something that could be easily seen from a distance. This proved to be a rather challenging game at times, especially when students decided to choose certain inconspicuous objects!
We also kept ourselves amused with a collection of outdoor toys for quite a while. Andy decided his place was in the pool, sunbathing on a lilo, whilst participating in the game of ‘I Spy’. Other students like Theresa and Viktor preferred to have a casual conversation over some traditional Maltese biscuits, called ‘Ottini’. Wanja and Eva were on the side of the pool playing with a frisbee. Unfortunately, her aim was not great, and the frisbee ended up on the roof of the supermarket opposite our school, but good news, we got it back a week later! Next time, we just need to be more careful!
written by Michaela Griscti
