English is All Around

At school we just held the Sixth Annual English Festival (aka two weeks of english speeches, singing, dancing, plays and games). The festival started with the entire school singing their school song which is the song "Christmas is all around" but with the words changed to "English" ("I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my toes. English is all around me. And so the feeling grows...."). They then had games where the kids stood on stage with their parents and had to do charades, fill in the missing letters and translate from Chinese to English. If they got one wrong or they said "pass", the parents had to jump ten times (apparently no one can get out of jumping rope in China). They had the class song competitions where each class, from each grade, not only learned a song but also performed a dance to go along with it (which was just as adorable as it sounds). The older kids competed in word games and in a voice dubbing contest (there's this thing in China that people like to do and that is to take scenes from movies and mute the voices and then they do the lines over it and its typically something that people do as a performance but it is also a really good way for them to practice their English!)

There was a talent show where individual students prepared songs and speeches and gave them in front of everyone (which is pretty impressive for those 7 and 8 year olds...especially the ones that won't even raise their hand in class but managed to get up on stage and sing a song....which also means that, unfortunately for them, I will be calling on them a lot more often now)- and let me tell you, you have not heard MIster Sun until you have heard it sung by an 8 year old in a white and gold tux! My favorite part of English Festival, however, was the short play competition. The kids went all out. They wore full make-up and full costumes. They had sets and dance numbers (that had been choreographed by a dance instructor that they hired to come in and teach all of the grades their dances) and it was so adorable! It was also really nice to see all of the bits and pieces that I had seen them practicing over the past few weeks come together on stage. Unfortunately, in a it-shouldn't-have-been-surprising-but-it-still-was turn of events, the kids weren't the only ones who were asked to put on costumes and speak in English in front of the whole school. Nope, I had to, too. I was asked to put on a Santa costume and pass out apples ot my students (which the kids were loving until a teacher came in behind me with a cake, then the Christmas apples weren't quite as exciting anymore) (Also, in Chinese, the word for apple sounds like the word for peace so they pass out apples on Christmas as a punny way of passing out peace....my refrigerator has never had this many apples in it before (also theyre huge apples. like apples the size of my face with fancy words and pictures on them....still not totally sure how they got the pictures on the apples but it does make them look very fancy!)) Also, in the closing ceremony, the foreign teachers were asked, last minute, to do a musical number. So, we dressed up like Christmas trees and we sang our hearts out to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"- it was a different version than we are used to so we didn't really know all the words but it ended ok and alls well that ends well so, Merry Christmas, China!