Education
International schools ready for big festival
By Wang Chao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-19 10:16
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With the Spring Festival drawing near, international schools are busy planning celebrations for their students and teachers.
Janet Yao, deputy principal of the Beanstalk International Bilingual School, said Spring Festival Day was one of the year's biggest events at the school.
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"Our celebration is like a temple fair," Yao said.
"We will invite parents, teachers and students from the school to participate."
Activities will include paper-cutting, lantern-making, tying Chinese knots and making dumplings.
Chinese students will be encouraged to help their classmates from overseas in the making of the traditional Chinese items.
"This echoes our theme this year: 'Chinese and foreigners celebrate Chinese New Year together'," Yao said.
At Beanstalk, there are between 300 and 400 students, of which 55 to 65 percent are international students from the United States, Canada, Australia, Republic of Korea and Japan.
Almost all instructors are foreign, except those who teach Chinese.
A teaching assistant surnamed Chang from the Western Academy of Beijing told METRO that the school is planning a similar celebration on Jan 22.
"We have students from 3-year-olds to 18-year-olds, so it is very interesting to watch them make a flour man together."
Yao at Beanstalk International Bilingual School said they are planning to open the door to their community this year.
Since the school is located in Yangguang Shangdong community, Yao wants to invite residents to join in and improve the interaction between the school and the community.
Some international schools are not planning to have a special day for the Spring Festival at this time but will hold celebrations at the end of the fall semester.
Beijing World Youth Academy, located in Wangjing, Chaoyang district, is giving students the choice of how to celebrate the Chinese holiday.
At the end of the semester, students will present a self-organized show. Some will sing, some dance and others will do cross-talk.
"Well, I love dancing, at least my team enjoys it when we are preparing for the show," Amy Wan, a Grade 10 student, told METRO.
"We started practicing months before the show. We can use the dancing room to practice, or any empty classroom."
In addition to the end-of-the-year show, students who take the Chinese classes are preparing a play, named Thunderstorm, based on a play with the same name written by Cao Yu, one of the most famous playwrights in contemporary China.
According to Xia Juan, assistant head of the school, there are 400 students, with two-thirds from foreign countries, mostly in Europe, Africa and South Korea.
Spring Festival Day is becoming more than a bonding time between Chinese and foreign students, it is also giving them a chance to learn.
"Sometimes, it requires good skills to make sugarcoated haws on a stick, or to do a paper-cut, so we invited some people with disabilities who have the craftsmanship skills to teach us." Yao said.
"Students can also communicate with them and learn more about their lives."
