On Thursday, October 19, 2016, four of JESIE’s finest gathered to teach at two separate schools, Nanfeng Primary School and Chuncheng Experimental Primary School, in Wuxi where students were in for a real treat, or trick for the theme of Halloween. Our second year teacher, Julie Levesque was the first one out of the chutes to teach an eager grade 5 class at Nanfeng Primary School.

       Julie flew into class disguised as the wicked witch that cackled her way into the classroom riding her broom stick and shocking the students, getting right into the lesson, and introducing her first of many Halloween monsters, the witch. Next term introduced was “zombie” which then Julie displayed on her Powerpoint “Zombified” pictures of famous celebrities for the students to guess whom it was that Julie had turned into a zombie. After introducing all of the creatures, she reinforced the terms by playing a game of charades. Julie split the class into four teams naming each team after a monster. If the students guessed the right monster, they received a point for their team. After the very amusing interpretations of Halloween monsters from the students, Julie had a very real surprise for the students. Julie showed the students certain parts of each monster she had taught, such as a mummy’s toe, zombie brains, and Cyclops’ eye, to name a few. She introduced the items and walked around the class for the students to get a feel with their hands of the freaky substances and concluded her lesson by throwing all of them in the cauldron for brewing the witches’ potion.

       Immediately after Julie’s eerie lesson with mysterious substances, our JESIE Open Day first timer Adam George from England was up next. As Grade 3 poured into the classroom you could feel the energy and anxiousness from the students begin to pick up as Adam presented himself to the students. Adam jumped right into his lesson by teaching the Halloween monsters. After introducing the terms, Adam whipped out two toy guns that got the students extremely excited. If the students hit the correct vocabulary, they received a point for the game. This game was one of a kind, and allowed the students to shoot down the scary monsters that they had just learned about.

       After the morning classes at Nanfeng Primary School, we travelled just down the road to another JESIE location for our afternoon session at Chuncheng Experimental Primary School, where Dominique Preston and Georgina Teboul, were ready to introduce and create a much more festive and creative atmosphere for the students.

       Dominique, better known as Domi, was first to teach and after introducing the target vocabulary she had the students participate in a halloween classic, trick-or-treat. Domi, who was also dressed as a witch, went around the class holding a jack-o-lantern that contained pieces of paper which told students whether or not they get a treat or have to do a trick. After this activity, Domi had an arts and craft activity for the students. Having shown them a few examples of Halloween cards, students than began to create their own.

       Georgina was up next for JESIE’s fourth and final lesson of the day. She too took the crafty approach but only after playing a few vocabulary games which included a dizzying memory game where students were spun around several times then stopped to match each name of a monster with their appropriate picture. Georgina immediately went from the memory game to pictionary where students were shown a flashcard and then drew the monster that was shown for their teammates to guess. Finally, Georgina displayed personal Halloween masks that she had prepared at home for the students to see an example as to what they were about to create. Each monster introduced to the students were displayed as a mask and the students could choose one and make their own mask from a paper plate and markers that Georgina passed out to the students. The student’s masks were quite ingenious and were showcased for the camera once they were done.

       And with that our long, spooky yet innovative Halloween special came to an end. We’d like to thank Nanfeng Primary School and Chuncheng Experimental Primary School for allowing us the time to come and share our talents and helping the students become Halloween ready. We’d also like to thank our foreign teachers, Julie, Adam, Domi, and Georgie for an excellent job!