After hearing about the annual Christmas party that was executed each year at George International English School, I was disappointed that activities were oversimplified and focused solely on presents and Santa Claus. This, I found reinforced the feelings that the people of Weifang, Shandong had about Western material values in a negative and one-sided way. The 'party' was really more of a short teacher's presentation about Christmas, followed by a vocabulary identification game, so it was also only geared toward the very young students at the school. This meant that half of the students (those at higher levels) were not involved in any way. So, instead of continuing the tradition, I decided to put together a maximally authentic holiday show by having each class learn and prepare a classic English holiday performance (a play, skit, song, story, poem or speech).
Picture from Superkids 4 performance of "A Christmas Carol":
Picture from Superkids 3 performance "Letters to Santa":
All performances were planned around a central question of the true meaning of Christmas. My most advanced class, which I called "show leaders" studied each piece of literature and came up with four themes: Giving From the Heart, Kindness, Love and Family, and gave speeches presenting each performance's significance accordingly. On the day of the show, students and parents watched each performance in an afternoon of cultural enrichment and fun! - A success which I could not have pulled off without the extraordinary help of my assistant teachers and coworkers and the unwavering support of Global Bridge's Managing Director, George Li.
Since many of the parents watching the show also did not have extremely high levels of English, I also prepared a bilingual powerpoint presentation to play simultaneously with performances and facilitate understanding.
A slide from the performance of the play "A Christmas Carol":
Furthermore, I designed and printed bilingual show programs in English and Simplified Chinese so that audience members could follow the show order as well as have a keepsake to take home:
See the whole bilingual show program here
Finally, having made stockings out of felt and string with each class in the week leading up to the show for set decoration, each student had a stocking full of goodies to collect and take home after a sing along which ended the show. The show leaders and students who contributed greatly in some way to the production received an appreciation certificate (designed by myself using the online program Canva) in their stockings as well:
The feedback on the event was largely positive due to its versatility and appeal to all ages and levels of English. George, the owner of the company, expressed his hopes that future teachers would continue this as a new annual tradition.