When my eldest son, Andre was a toddler (I can’t believe he’s 29 years old now!!) like lots of dads, I used to read him bedtime stories. I remember once asking him if he wanted a story from a book and him replying with these words.

I guess he felt like he’d be more interested in the story if he could follow it through my facial expressions and gestures. He probably also felt like it was a way of feeling closer to his dad.

Those words have always stuck in my head - especially when I’ve been doing storytelling, and especially when thinking about how we interact in our online link up sessions in the Hands up Project.

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Our children, our teachers

Your ultimate hour

You gave us your everything

Rest now in power.

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Word cards are a very simple device for building up a repertoire of spoken vocabulary. All that is needed is some slips of paper with the words in English to be learnt/reviewed on one side and the equivalent L1 translation written on the other side.

The basic idea is that students use them to learn words in English. They can do this receptively first by looking at the English word, trying to say what it means in Arabic, and then turning it over to check. Then they can do it in a more challenging way by looking at the L1 equivalents and trying to say the English version.

One of the great things about this activity is that, once the children know how it works they can more or less do it on their own without the teacher’s intervention. However at our school in Cairo, we have a box for the younger groups where new word cards are constantly being added, and we do like to use them in class for various games and activities.

In the video below we can see Mariam and Joudie playing a game where they take it in turns to try to retrieve the English versions of the words. They keep each one that they get right and whoever has the most cards at the end is the winner.

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At the Hands up Project we’ve been supporting Palestinian children to learn the lines of short plays in English for a long time, and we’ve written posts about the benefits of doing this on our blog several times already. But with the recent excellent production of ‘The Screen’  - by Alma, Leen and Salma at the Hands up school in Cairo (watch it below) - I’ve been thinking a lot about another useful thing that can happen when students learn the lines of a play in a second language.

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In our second week, I can sense the confidence of both students and teachers growing. I include teachers here because this is the first time we’ve worked together, blending the Palestinian curriculum with creative activities. This week, I’ve peppered the lessons with games and activities—TEFL classics like Two Truths and a Lie, charades, Pictionary, quizzes, role plays, and paired speaking exercises. The verdict? They love them! These activities are fun, interactive, and energising for everyone. 

 This is also my first time teaching classes using a Hands Up approach, incorporating theatre, poetry, and highly creative activities. I’m learning as I go, diving into the HUP archives and weaving in as many ideas as I can while balancing time for the curriculum. I’m happy to admit this because I believe the best classes are often spontaneous and student-led. I don’t come in with rigid expectations; instead, we’re all exploring together. My main goal is for students to speak as much English as possible—in a fun, engaging, and creative way.  Of course, I’m super lucky and grateful to have Raja’a so close by who’s always happy to lend a hand, give advice or have a natter about the world.

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The play ‘It will be over soon’ was originally created and performed by Hanaa Mansour's students in the "Better Together" drama club in Jabalia, Gaza in April 2024. (see the original version here) This blog post is by long term Hands up Project volunteer, Tere and it’s about how a group of children from around the world re-performed it as part of our intercultural remote theatre course in the summer. Over to you Tere!

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I can hardly believe we're only one week into our small Cairo project—it already feels like I've been here for ages! To keep you all updated, I'll be posting a brief blog each week. For those who don't know me, I'm Donna. Originally from Leicestershire, UK, I’ve most recently been living on a small regenerative market garden in Hempnall, South Norfolk. I wear a few different hats: I'm a co-director of the market garden project, a clinical support specialist in the operating theatre, and I volunteer with various refugee initiatives. In the past, I’ve also taught English as a foreign language to children and university students across Spain, among other diverse pursuits. All of this led me to Cairo, where I’m now embarking on this exciting new chapter as a volunteer.

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So please respond to either (or both) of the paintings with your poetry, and decorate your handwritten poem with drawings or designs of your own. Please be under 18. And please make sure your poem is a maximum of 50 words. And remember, the painting is meant to set free your imagination, not tie it down. You can make your connection to the painting in the most surprising ways. The deadline for submissions is Friday 6th December 2024. Please send us a photo of your handwriiten poem to info@handsupproject.org

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Manuela Kelly, a Hands Up volunteer and friend, recently contacted Antonietta D'Introno, the editor of Peperoncino Rosso magazine, to introduce the Hands Up Project.

In a serendipitous twist, a teacher from Antonietta's hometown assigned her students to write about current events. Among them, 16-year-old Sara Yamoul crafted a poignant rap poem about the Israel-Palestine war. Her powerful poem was published in Peperoncino Rosso, spreading her message of peace to a wider audience.

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In a ‘picture dictation’ activity the teacher describes a drawing that the students cannot see, and the students draw what they understand from the description. It’s a classic ELT activity and in the Hands up Project we’ve been playing around with different online versions of it since the very beginnings of our work in Gaza. See for example this early example in Jabalia camp that we came to call ‘Reverse picture dictation’

Even now, despite everything, in our Stories Alive clubs and drama clubs in Gaza that we’ve had operating since May and before , our brilliant and dedicated teachers are finding new ways to use picture dictation to provide motivating and learning rich activities for children who have been immersed in total hell on earth for the past 10 months.

Ashraf, the coordinator of the whole Stories Alive programme in Gaza, was working with the story ‘The farmer who followed his dream’. Before telling the story he asked everyone to draw a picture of a farmer following his dream. This is a very loose and creative activity; It’s beauty lies in the fact that it’s completely open to interpretation and provides an opportunity for some interesting conversations when students describe their drawings afterwards. Here are some examples from his class.

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Being a mother and a teacher is amazing as it is time-consuming.  How on earth do you manage housework, teaching,  your own children’s school work and have a social life at the same time?

And that’s just in normal circumstances.  Nowadays, we are living in exceptional times with both students and teachers displaced.

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The ‘better together’ drama club in Jabalia isn’t up and running right now as the situation in Jabalia has been so appallingly difficult. Hanaa is doing her best to reestablish it and I’m sure she will as soon as she can. In the mean time we’d like to share a great activity that Hanaa had running through the sessions, before most people in Jabalia were displaced.

‘Teach us!’ isn’t strictly speaking a drama activity, but there are lots of links with drama of course. Those of us who teach will know that drama skills can help us to be better teachers, and teaching can also help us to be better at acting.

In Hanna’s activity the students took it in turns to teach the other students something, using English. We think it’s a brilliant idea - so motivating and personalised for everyone. Next time I teach a class of children I’ll try it out. Would it work in your context?

Here are two examples from the amazing students of the better together drama club.

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There were 3 things that really struck me when I watched this video of the incredible work of teacher Hussam M Al-Dalou; learning, community and play. 

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Experienced language teachers will know that it’s sometimes necessary to pre-teach some key vocabulary items before telling a story, or indeed doing any kind of listening activity with learners.

They will also know that this stage of a lesson can sometimes be rather dull and demotivating. So congratulations to Wafaa, one of our ‘Stories Alive’ teachers, for implementing this motivating, learner centred and learning rich game for pre-teaching some of the key vocabulary from the story of ‘Juha and the Meat’. And to do this in a tent for displaced people in Gaza, with everything that is happening there right now, deserves extra special appreciation of course. Thank you Wafaa and all the Stories Alive teachers in Gaza. You’re literally keeping hope alive for a generation of children!

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When I wrote ‘Stories Alive’ for British Council Palestine, I wanted to create some materials that could make learning fun through the telling of simple and familiar stories, whilst at the same time providing a framework for some quite controlled and memorable language learning activities.

I think I achieved these goals quite well and I’m proud of the fact that these materials have probably been used more widely than anything else I’ve ever written, especially in large classes all over Palestine.

But I’m most proud of the fact that the materials are being used right now in Gaza, against all the odds, by dedicated, resilient teachers who simply will not be stopped in their mission to provide quality English language teaching to children in Gaza.

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Emily Bryson did a wonderful workshop at last year’s Hands up Project conference, and in it she demonstrated a language learning activity which involved students drawing around their hands. From there we discovered that there were actually lots of activities involving hands that people knew and these resulted in a benefit book for Hands up, curated by Emily, but with contributions from all over the world, called Hands Up for Peace - Infinite Classroom Activities in your Hands!

Here’s Ashraf demonstrating one of the activities from the book with his ‘Stories Alive’ club in Gaza city.

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