Shakespeare Lives brings the famous writer to life for Chinese students

Globe Education's approaches make working in English much easier than Chinese students think it will be. According to Ellinas, in 90 percent of the workshops they spoke in English with Chinese students, and only in two cases used translators.

In one school where all the students had English as a second language, Ellinas said, "We worked with them over the course of a day to create a 15 minute performance where they all spoke Shakespeare's words. Their excitement and sense of achievement at delivering a performance to the rest of the school was a highlight for all of us."

"At the Globe we try to remember that Shakespeare's plays were made to be played not read," Olivia Mace, another practitioner, said. "We use physical games to connect the words to our bodies and explore the sounds and rhythms in the verse. This is exactly what we do with our UK students."

Chinese students' strong enthusiasm for Shakespeare and English also made the workshop fruitful and impressed practitioners.

Jack Murray, Globe Education practitioner, said, Chinese students' desire to "understand and engage with Shakespeare was really strong, with none of the preconceptions that English students can sometimes have about Shakespeare. We were very moved by the extremely positive responses the students had to the workshops and their hunger for this kind of work."

Tian Jianguo, dean of the language school at Northwestern Polytechnical University, said: "This event opens a new door to our students on Shakespeare. I hope my school can invite experts from the Globe every year to help students here learn and understand English from Shakespeare."

Dang echoed, "I hope this could be the start of cooperation between the university and UK professional institutions on theatre and literature."

"We would love to return to China to continue to build on the warm relationships we made with schools and students here. Everyone was so welcoming to us and appreciative of the workshops and storytelling sessions," Ellinas said.

Globe Education at Shakespeare's Globe was established in 1989 by Patrick Spottis woode with the aim of enabling everyone to encounter Shakespeare through play and in the spaces for which he wrote.

In China, Globe Education was facilitated by the Regional Cities and Outreach team within the British Embassy Beijing.