Many of the group took advantage of the late start today and had a much needed lie-in, some getting up for breakfast at 8am only to return to bed till late morning. At 10:30 we left for a destination in the mountains where we had a picnic with university admin staff at a site near a beautiful waterfall. Firstly, we split off into groups with one English student and two members of Sri Lankan staff, we went for walks around waterfall, found picturesque places to sit and chatted for just over an hour, the staff asked us about English culture, tourist attractions and recipes and generally widened their knowledge of England and the English language. We had an amazing lunch including noodles and chicken and after second and third helpings we were well and truly full. The afternoon activities were thankfully not very physical, we were divided into groups of equal numbers of admin staff and English students and asked to prepare a 15 minute presentation involving singing, drama or the like, that would encourage and include the use of English by all participants. My group played a game based around story creation, conducted a mimed story and sang a song. The other group created a drama based presentation with a short game of charades at the end. It was very funny. We spent the final hour singing English songs, including Candle in the Wind, Country Roads and the Titanic theme tune. The group of Durham students even sang a solo performance of “I’m a Barbie Girl”.

Having returned to the university most of the group spent the evening relaxing, a few went to play squash, others went swimming and most ended the night simply reading.