There will be a school play day soon at school I work. It is called 学習発表会・音楽発表会 in Japanese and I looked for a words to translate it. Some websites show it as “school play” or”presentation on learning,” but when I talked with an English friend of mine these translated terms do not work properly. He suggested “skits” was a good to describe it. Sometimes explaining Japan’s unique school culture is not so easy.
School Play
School play is a word to explain students “play” at school. So people could imagine students wearing costumes and playing roles in a show. Perhaps some students engage in school play but may not all of them.
Presentation on Learning
Presentation on learning is that students do presentations on what they learn at school. For higher grade students I guess they work on presentations on the day of school play. To include presentations, school play is not a good term to translate 学習発表会.
Skits
Skits can be as short as a minute or two or much longer and have only one person speaking or many speaking parts.
https://icebreakerideas.com/skit-ideas/
It can include both, school play and presentations, so it may be a better word. Still, it may be connected with little preparations or informal activities and I think there is not so convenient word to indicate 学習発表会 directly in English, considering cultural difference.
