One of the events I dread the most at my public school is the English speech competition. Kids reading memorized speeches most of them didn’t even write, about boring topics, with robotic hand gestures? No thank you. I’ve always hated judging those, because it just feels so disingenuous and unproductive. But this year, the administration at my school had the good sense to change things up! Instead of an English speech competition, they decided to host an English Festival! Sounds fun, right?

Song Performances

Students in the 3rd and 4th grade learned short, easy English songs and practiced them throughout the semester. Eventually their homeroom teachers choreographed the songs, and some classes made props or costumes for their performances. Instead of it being a competition (which there are too much of anyway), all classes got an award. We had an award for Best Overall Performance, Most Spirited, Best Choreography, Best English, and Best Singing. This really encouraged the kids, took the pressure off of them that usually comes with competition, and allowed them to have a lot more fun.

Golden Bell Competition

The 5th and 6th grade students participated in a Golden Bell competition. Golden Bell is a popular quiz show in Korea, where students write the answers to various questions on whiteboards until there is one student remaining. If the student can answer the final golden bell question, he or she wins the competition and receives a scholarship for University! Here is five minutes of an episode of Golden Bell just to give you more of an idea of what it’s like. Since the show premiered on TV, many teachers have adapted the game to use in classrooms and for camps around the country. Everyone knows the TV show so it excites them to be a part of the competition in their school.

At some point in the competition, when many of the students had been eliminated, we had a “Second Chance” challenge. Each teacher in the grade did the Korean traditional “Rock, Scissors, Paper”, and the students of the winning teacher got to re-enter the competition. This was everyone’s favorite part of the Golden Bell for sure, and one of the students who got a second chance ended up winning the competition!

I had lots of fun this year at our English Festival and I thought it was a great alternative to the usual English competitions I had been a part of in the past. Have you done something like this at your school? Every school is different, so I’d love to hear what kind of festivals and competitions you have at your school in Korea or elsewhere!

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