Saturday, March 8, is International Women’s Day. For a majority of Asian countries, and that also included China, a day off is given as a celebratory day remembering women around the world.

Due to the official day being Saturday, the Laos government has announced we have Monday off. This includes government offices and all public schools.

Although we are a privately-run language center, the day off will include us as well. No classes on Monday nor staff working. Yeah!

Planning Our Special Event for Several Weeks

I’d been thinking about our students and what we could do to recognize the women of Laos. Last year, I was so new that the day just went by with our usual lessons. But this year, I wanted to do something special.

For 3 days, Shaloom, Santi and I prepared our students to do some kind of performance which would be recorded to post on Facebook and within our different class chat groups.

Parents, by the way, are always checking those group chats. They love seeing their children active, engaged and doing things in class. Other language schools only bother doing such postings at the end of the term. We teachers try our best to post several times a week. In fact, because of this ongoing habit last term, word among the parents spread and we gained several new students because of it.

As for our upcoming performances at the Center: For our lower level learners, each class sang “Happy Women’s Day to You” with the melody of “Happy Birthday to You”. They know this birthday song well as it seems to be a universal, both in English and in everyone’s native language.

The task I came up with was for us as teachers to let each class sing their performance however they’d like. We went class by class on the Hall stage, recorded each performance, and afterwards, came together for a final “Happy Women’s Day to You” sung again with waving, laughter, heart signing and blowing kisses.

Mine devised an active “stand up/sit down” on stools for different phrases. (See the practice photo below.)

Shaloom’s junior high students, being more mature, created their own sentence-speaking English write-up praising women with each choosing a strong adjective which describes women of today.

Practice in the Main Hall: Performances Amazing!

Yesterday evening, Thursday, was the big night to perform.

We practiced several times to make sure all was done well on the stage. Suher, our caretaker, was in charge of using my phone to make the video. We went one by one with a final “Happy Women’s Day to You!” which included both students and teachers. Great Success!

Adult Learner, Alat, Not to be Left Out

I wasn’t about to let Alat, my private adult learner, be left out of this special event. She and I worked together on a script for us to also include with others on the SLVC (Suntisouk Language and Vocational Center) Facebook page.

Performances Uploading Today

As I type this, my new executive office manager, Santi (also teaching the A,B,C class learners), is posting the videos and pictures.

Along with the visuals is this announcement from myself, the director:

“The teachers and students at Suntisouk Language and Vocational Center want to wish all the women of Laos and around the world a very happy International Women’s Day. Enjoy our performances and pictures. Want to join us? All are welcome to study here! Have a wonderful holiday, everyone.”

And on that last note, I wish you all the same: Happy International Women’s Day!