Every year our school invites native English speakers from around the world to spend a whole week with students from the fifth grades. This year was not any different. The project took place from March 4th to 8th, 2024. This year, ‘Adventures in English’ was the company which should offer us an immersive English experience. The fifth-graders were separated into five groups. Each group included 15-17 students. One of our ‘all-male teachers’ staff – Dave, Mark, Richard, Jeff, and Will - was assigned to the respective group they had chosen themselves. My group consisted of my own classmates. The week started with Mark coming into our classroom and telling us about how he had managed to arrive on time. He then proceeded to tell us some jokes, which eased the tension between him and my class.

The first impression we had of him was very positive. He was humorous, and an easy-going person. What shocked us the most was the knowledge he had about various cultures and languages from around the world. He even spoke to some of us in another language. Not only did he talk about himself, but he also encouraged us to tell him about ourselves, so he gets to know us much better. As a result, we played games, where we had to tell him information about ourselves, and Mark had to guess if it was true or false. The Native Speaker Week was fun in many ways possible. We also interacted with the other groups to play games. He let us choose a movie to watch at the end of every lesson. Additionally to that, Mark also took us to the school gym to have a boost of energy. We also did not have any homework or exams during the week, which made us enjoy the week much more than it already was.

Overall, we could talk to Mark and ask him about everything, and he would wholeheartedly listen to all of us and our requests. Along with playing, having fun he also sometimes explained to us the meaning of words we did not understand in the English language. Mark also gave us several small tasks to do. One of them was, that every single one of us had to present a city we want to travel to in groups, in front of the whole class on the last day. The week ended with a celebration and lots of pizzas we had ordered. The last task we did was taking a picture with Mark and some of my classmates gave him a present as a way of gratitude for the amazing job he had done. It was an incredible and extraordinary time we had with him; moreover, it was a new experience for all of us to spend a whole week with an English native speaker and it also made it easier for a lot of students to speak English more comfortably.