10 tips for TEFL teachers to run successful Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's and Easter parties even if you're not in the mood
The Bulletin (Issue 24)
If you’re a self-employed children’s English teacher, as Halloween approaches it can mean only one thing: Party season is coming so it’s time to dust off the decorations and get the plans in order.
Sure, your bread and butter should be the weekly lessons and you may be a card-carrying anti-capitalist atheist, but just hold your nose and put your principles to one side — Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter are coming in quick succession, and whatever your personal feelings about all this quasi-religious manufactured made-in-China plastic “culture”, your students’ parents expect you to do something fun about it with their kids. If you play it right, these parties can net you a little extra income and even better, some new students; a little cake to go with your bread and butter.
A few thoughts to help you get through all those kids’ parties:
If you’ve only got a small number of students enrolled in your school, consider holding a one-off extra-curricular multi-age single party at, say, a rented dance studio or public hall for each holiday party.
Invite the parents (so they can see what you do and help chaperone the younger ones) and friends of the attendees (who may not be enrolled in your school but might be interested in joining).
Charge something reasonable (not much if you want to attract more interest) but feel free to make a 25-50% profit, especially if you are paying to rent a place or are providing refreshments, Halloween candy, Christmas gifts, eggs for painting, or Valentine’s chocolates. It’s not unreasonable to charge for your materials, prep time and expertise.
If your numbers are increasing (congrats!) the all-ages-welcome party won’t cut it anymore, consider splitting the party into age groups — one for kindergarten, one for grades 1-3 and one for grades 4-6.
As numbers increase even more, holding three extra-curricular parities every time Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s and Easter roll round might become unbearable, if so, consider doing the parties within the lesson times.
If you do the parties during the scheduled lesson time, I’d feel a bit squeamish about charging much extra for the party — the parents are already paying for the party with their lesson fee, but a ¥500 one-off charge to pay for costs incurred (if offering food or other presents) feels acceptable to me.
Removable window stickers are the easiest, fastest, cheapest, re-usablest way to transform a classroom into a seasonally-appropriately themed party room with the added marketing bonus of being visible to passers-by.
While you can and should do the usual party games (adapted for the season you’re celebrating and age appropriate) such as musical chairs (consider using a folded newspaper page as the “chair”), pass-the-parcel, charades and pin the tail on the whiteboard donkey/ghost/reindeer/Easter rabbit, feel free to do different activities — do a pantomime play at Christmas, make cookies for Halloween, cook pancakes for Easter, go to the local Nepalese curry house and order food in English as a Valentine’s date1. It’s up to you.
Keep a list of games and activities that worked well and eventually collate party plans that you can alternate every year or two, saving you effort but keeping things fresh for the kids.
Parties are supposed to be fun — sure you are here to teach kids English, but the success or otherwise of a party is how fun it is. Just doing the party activities in English is enough educationally.
Good luck, have fun, and remember as with all things in life, it will all be over soon enough. What do you think? Do you enjoy doing parties or find them a pain? Any tips? Leave a comment.
All the best,
Patrick
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I’m not sure how I ended up following this chap, or know what he writes about, other than cultural stuff that is usually interesting. I think I followed him because of this post about the almost lost world of book fairs:
We did this one year! I think we are the only English school that got a Nepalese curry house to teach kids English, not to brag.