Visit any classroom in Palestine and you can’t help but be impressed by the enthusiastic sea of hands that greets any question on the part of the teacher – or visitor. This is why language teacher, teacher trainer and writer Nick Bilbrough – with considerable experience working in the region – opted to call his initiative The Hands Up Project.

Founded in 2015, the Hands Up Project teaches English remotely to children between the ages of eight and sixteen using simple video conferencing tools. (A fuller description of how it all started can be found here.)

At present, it works principally with Palestinian children living in refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, and with Syrian children in refugee camps in Jordan. There are also plans to extend its reach to children in other countries who – because of social, political or economic reasons – have severely limited access to educational resources and opportunities.

The Hands Up Project has two principle objectives: firstly, to provide an interactive and motivating learning experience to children in contexts where exposure to English is limited; and, secondly, to build up a freely accessible bank of resources for training and development of teachers who work in such contexts.

How does it work? The Hands Up Project uses a teaching methodology centred around the telling and performing of stories. There are a number of reasons for this approach. For a start, stories that are told well are inherently engaging to listen to and offer a motivating learning experience for children who may have experienced dislocation, war, trauma and loss. Secondly, stories provide exposure to English being used extensively and naturally, often with repetitive elements, in contexts where this kind of exposure may be difficult to achieve otherwise. Thirdly, the stories provide a framework for dramatization – the stories can be rehearsed and performed, integrating drama and chants. And, finally, they are a springboard for creativity, providing a model and an incentive for children to perform their own stories, which they script and rehearse collaboratively, before performing them online – to their peers in sister schools or to classrooms as far afield as Russia, the UK and Finland.

Not all of these interactions are drama-based: sometimes they involve “show-and-tell”-type activities, where children talk about their favourite possessions, for example; and sometimes they involve making videos about topics of local interest and sharing these with each other. All of these activities are mediated by the simplest and cheapest of digital technologies, the only serious impediment being the frequent power cuts that the region suffers from.

Until mid-2016, Nick Bilbrough had been doing all of the teaching and storytelling himself, mainly from his home in the southwest of England. But, in order to meet an increasing demand by schools to participate in the project, he has been training a pool of volunteers to deliver the teaching and storytelling sessions themselves. There is now a team of volunteers spread across a dozen countries, including Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Japan, and the UK, who regularly meet their classes online. In any one week, there may be as many as 30 volunteers and 500 schoolchildren participating in the Hands Up network. There can be few projects that – on relatively limited means – have made such a huge impact on so many children in such deprived contexts.

The main beneficiaries of the Hands Up Project are, of course, the children themselves, many of whom are scarred both emotionally and physically by the experience of war and exile. They benefit in two main ways. Firstly, in the development of their English language skills: this takes the form of improved vocabulary and grammatical awareness as well as development in listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. The sessions are designed in such a way as to improve their general communicative competence as well as help them to succeed in their national English exams. Secondly, it provides social and psychological benefits by enabling children to interact with supportive others, outside their home communities. The experience of preparing and performing their stories to this extended audience is ultimately an extremely empowering one. And a memorable one: last year, for example, a group of children in Gaza performed live for a large group of participants at the annual IATEFL Conference in Glasgow. And, in a visit to Gaza the same year, I was able to witness first-hand the boundless enthusiasm that the project generates among children and teachers alike.

The benefits for the teachers cannot be underestimated. For a start, teaching through video conferencing tools is a form of teamwork and requires effective collaboration between the remote teacher and the teacher on the ground. Teachers can acquire new ideas for ways of working, and a renewed enthusiasm for teaching, simply by being a part of this shared experience. The blog and YouTube channel have become spaces where teachers can download free language teaching materials and access new ideas for their classes. While the main focus is on providing this service to teachers in the beneficiary country, the reciprocal nature of the relationship means that those who are conducting the sessions remotely also benefit.

Testimony to the success of the project are the statements of participating teachers and administrators:

“Meeting with Nick through Zoom has not been an easy task because the electricity is not available all the time. However, the English sessions were like a dream for the children. Most students have never had a live listening experience with someone from outside Gaza before and now they are enthusiastically showing their peers the drawn scenes of a story that Nick told them.” (Haneen Besseiso, facilitator, The Tamer Institute for Community Education, Gaza).

“The Hands Up Project affects me and my class in many ways. As a teacher, it gives me the chance to practice English and talk to colleagues in other countries. More importantly, it has a charming and interesting effect on my students’ minds and behaviour. I think this project opens a space for students in my class to practise their skills and hobbies of acting & singing and it affects them socially and psychologically as they are always happy to see and talk to people from outside Gaza.” (Sahar Salha, teacher at Beit Hanoun Elementary co-ed “A” UNRWA school, Gaza).

“The most amazing thing about the Hands up Project is that it is not just another online resource for English language teachers, but a resource point through which the team behind it can actually show you how to do online story telling. Syrian refugee children in refugee camps in Jordan are thrilled to be able to benefit from the Hands up Project for learning English. I can see the difference it makes to our young learners by employing this innovative method that is very appealing to them.” (Danijel Cuturic, Education Programme Manager, Relief International, Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan.)

The Hands Up Project is a registered charity in the UK and welcomes support, both from donors and volunteers. (If you’re interested in donating, click here.)

Finally, the Hands Up Project recently sponsored a playwriting and performing competition for schoolchildren in Palestine. There were over 80 entries and plans are afoot to bring the winning team to the UK this spring. You can watch videos of all the entries, including the winning three, on YouTube here.

The talent and enthusiasm of the children is testimony both to their resilience in the face of appalling hardships, and to the inspiration and hope that the Hands Up Project instills in them.

Scott Thornbury is a teacher educator based in Spain, and the author of a number of award-winning books on language and methodology. He teaches online for the MA TESOL at The New School, New York. He is also a trustee of The Hands Up Project.