Midterms have just ended, meaning, that half
of the term is finished. With it, the first batch of club activities has almost
ended while the second batch is going to start soon. Being a new TA to the GEO
Program, I don’t have any clue how to assist the professors of the clubs I was
assigned to. I was assigned to Professor Tom in the Idioms and Slang Club, and
Professor Peter in the Olympics Club. Before club sign-ups started, I was not
able to meet both professors, so I was really nervous in meeting them. So,
before the clubs were supposed to start, I contacted them and asked how I was
going to assist them, and their only response was for me to just do the
assigned task (checking the student’s attendance) and enjoy the club together
with the students.
In the first meeting of the Idioms and
Slang Club, after checking the attendance, Professor Tom asked the class to go
in pairs. He also requested me to pair up with one of the students and join in
because the number of students is not even. Our activity was to guess the
meaning of the idiom or the slang term that he showed. Then every time, we
guessed the correct meaning, a corresponding point is given us. The class ended
with the students having an assignment, search for an idiom or a slang, search
the meaning and use it in a sentence. In the next meeting, Professor Tom let
his students take the floor in giving their own slang assignments, and let the
class guess the meaning. In the third meeting, the students were asked again to
guess the meaning of the given slang terms (most of which were terms describing
some good and bad characteristics of people), and were asked if their partners
had characteristics given. Some of them jokingly answered yes when the term was
a little bad, and the class was laughing almost all throughout the rest of the
period.
On the other hand, before the meeting of
the Olympics Club, I panicked because I don’t know what Professor Peter
expected me to do. Thankfully, Professor Peter has already thought of activities
that he would include during the four meetings that we have. On the first
meeting, the students were divided into groups that each would contain one
male, (to even the odds of the competition) and named their groups countries
that were part of the Olympics that just occurred earlier this year. One of the
sports was archery and since it was dangerous to use an actual bow and arrow
for the game, we improvised and came up with flying paper airplanes to hit the
target. The team whose paper airplane was chosen was given an extra point. Then
each student was each given a chance to represent his/her team country by
shooting twice, and the team whose paper airplanes hit the areas nearest to the
target won. In the second meeting, the proposed sports were the javelin throw
and the shot put. The events were to be performed in the football field, but because
it rained earlier in the day and the improvised javelin stick was still
dangerous, the javelin throw competition was removed. Only the shot put was
played, and again, improvisation of the game was seen because instead of the heavy
shot put, a tennis ball was used and was thrown by the students. The winner was
determined by how far the ball landed before it bounced on the ground. In the
third meeting, the students went to the second floor of the gymnasium and the
performed sprint for men and women and relay. Because of the limited space,
they each had to go in twos and were timed using their classmates’ stopwatch on
their cellphones. After that, the best two runners were chosen to represent
their team to run the relay. With that, the Olympics club activities ended and
the fourth session would be the Awarding of the Champions, and a combined
activity with the Health and Diet Club.
After this week, because of the schedule, I
would not be able to handle the Idiom and Slang Club, instead, I will handle
the Board Games Club. Hopefully, I would also enjoy handling it. I would still
be handling the Olympics Club, and hopefully apply some pointers and changes to
make the club more enjoyable than ever.
-by Pia Jatulan
