Nick Bilbrough teaches and trains in interesting and challenging contexts all over the world. For the last 2 years, Nick has been leading the Hands Up Project, where he teaches English via video conference to children in refugee camps. His aim is to give them more exposure to the English language in an interactive and motivating learning environment. Now, thanks to the help of volunteers trained by Nick, what started with a single group of children in a library in Gaza now includes camps in other parts of Palestine and Jordan.
The Hands Up Project now has charity status, so Gabrielle caught up with Nick between his teaching sessions to congratulate him and find out more…
“We’ve just received some really good news”, beams Nick. “We just heard from the charities commission that the Hands Up Project is now a registered charity! We thought it was going to happen, and we actually got confirmation the other day”. Nick continues, “the real reason I’m mentioning this, is because in our charitable objectives we had to write a statement about what our charity is about. We said one of the things we’re about is developing global citizens. It’s not just about learning a language, it’s about enabling people to communicate with other children in other countries. This helps them to become a global citizen.”
What makes his techniques of storytelling and sharing so impactful?
“I work mostly with refugee children who don’t have access to many resources or English”, says Nick. “There are many children who can’t leave the country in which they live. As a result, there are a lot of people and a huge demand for learning English and reaching out to the outside world”, he continues.
“I think that storytelling is a really good tool because it’s one of the most effective ways I know of exposing learners to natural spoken language. It’s much better than listening to a CD, or even a podcast or video because it allows you to modify what you are doing as you go along. You can see that people can’t understand what you’re saying, so you can paraphrase and make it simpler. They can also see pictures that are related to the story. Even if their English is really low (and often it is) they can still follow the narrative. It’s a really effective tool for teaching – particularly with low level learners.”
I think we’ll all agree that Nick’s teaching environment is very unique! How does it compare to other teaching settings that he’s found himself in?
“Well, it’s completely different”, he says. “Obviously, it’s very different working in an online environment because you feel that there is a distance between you and the student. You almost want to jump out of the screen” he laughs. “It’s very difficult to organise pair work and group work, because you really need to be in the room to do that sort of thing. Also, Gaza has power cuts and the internet cut outs very regularly. In a one hour session, you might have 2 to 3 power cuts. It’s fine though – everyone is used to it. If power goes off, everything goes black and 2 minutes later they’re back again… and we carry on as though nothing has happened!”
“What’s brilliant”, he explains, is that “there are also certain advantages of working in this way”. According to Nick, there are lots of opportunities for creative teaching, such as using puppets to dominate the screen, or zooming in on twigs so that they look like trees. Sometimes he’ll ask his class to guess what’s in his fridge at home… “usually a few manky carrots”, he jokes. So, whilst this method of teaching does have a few draw backs, the negative elements are far outweighed by the positively wonderful influence that the Hands Up Project is having on young language learners’ lives.
What’s one of Nick’s lesson highlights?
“A few weeks ago I took part in a really lovely lesson. It involved a local secondary school in the UK and another in Gaza. There was a group of about 20 students who were 16 year olds in the UK, and 30 kids of a similar age in Gaza”. Connected through the internet, the kids in Gaza performed a Dabka routine (a traditional Palestinian dance). “It was really lovely, because one of the girls in Gaza said that she really loves Elton John and his music. As a result, the girls in England got together and came up to the webcam and sang ‘Your Song’. It was so beautiful, it was a real sort of tear-jerking moment”, he reminisced. Nick then went on to disclose that “they sang different songs to each other, interviewed each other, and those sorts of experiences (when you are young) are very memorable – especially for people in Gaza. They said ‘you’re the first person I have ever spoken to who is not in Gaza’. So, it was a really big thing!”
Nick concluded on a really affirming note, saying that whilst “the students in refugee camps often don’t have the opportunity to use English naturally to communicate with people who don’t speak their own language, the Hands Up Project is an extraordinary way of connecting people who would otherwise never be exposed to each other.”
On that wonderfully positive note, it was time to end our chat. I am truly inspired by Nick and his team’s extraordinary work. If you too are feeling enthused, make sure you explore and donate to the Hands Up Project.