Online Literary Festival

This year, due to pandemic control measures, our campus was closed during the time frame that the Literary festival normally takes place in. As all lessons were being delivered online, the decision was made to run an online Literary Festival! The focus of the festival was on wellbeing and emotional development, public speaking, and literary appreciation. By the end of August, the online literary festival took shape, in the form of workshops delivered to Y10s and IG1s students.

The first half of the workshop incorporated a variety of activities. Books’  introduction,  individual students delivered short presentations, sharing study and emotional wellbeing advice in both English and Chinese.  Here are some of the edited highlights of our students’ presentations, that really provide a powerful showcase of their continually developing English language skills:

The second half of the online workshop focused on Literary appreciation, how to enjoy literature, and get more out of reading. Dulwich teachers, Tony Qureshi (Head of EAL), Brian Craig (Head of English), and a Y13 student, delivered compelling workshop presentations on reading, literature, and language acquisition. Here is some of the feedback from student surveys, which shows the encouraging results of the session. This is remarkable, considering they have only been studying English Literature online for a few weeks.

84% of the student audience answered the question on effective ways to make a person's character stand out and develop a plot correctly.

61% of students had a clear understanding of useful techniques to understand hard-to-read classic novels.

50% of students felt the session was useful to them and 50% of students felt the session was very useful to them.

Here is some feedback from our students about their experience of the online literary festival:

Rachel Z, Y11

……For me, this is an experience to practice my writing skills, speaking skills, and expressing skills. The most important thing is I am doing what I like to do. I start to think about how much value they got from my speech.

Tina Z, Y11

…… It was also an invaluable opportunity for the new Year 10 students to benefit from the experiences of senior students so that they can prepare for school life after the resumption of classes offline.

Charles G, Y12

I really enjoyed focusing on my public speaking skills! …… I especially thank the teacher Ms. Zhao and other members for letting me have such a rich experience.