Recently, I was lucky enough to have the unique opportunity of doing one week of work experience with Hope English School. I was able to get involved with six classes that have varying levels of ability, circumstances and are at several different locations. This has given me a wide perspective of how the various students and teachers interact with each other and overcome language barriers to make social connections and establish a community.
Open Kitchen Social Club ESOL Class
The first class I visited was the Open Kitchen Social Club, where an English lesson is taught and then the students can have a free lunch in the venue, which is provided by the charity Open Kitchen. When I first arrived I was greeted by the teacher (Caroline), the volunteer (David) and the three regular students who were very eager to introduce themselves to me. Caroline started the lesson with a recap of how to use “I prefer” by doing an activity which involved the students comparing two photos and saying which one they preferred. She then moved onto a listening exercise at which point two larger groups of students arrived over the next ten minutes, with some being new to Hope English School, which brought the class size to between 15 and 18, with a range of speaking, reading, writing and listening abilities as well as cultures and backgrounds. This is quite common for the classes which means that the teacher has to be flexible with the lessons to provide the best learning experience for the students, which is why after finishing the listening task Caroline split the class into three groups and set them off on an activity where they had to label objects in the room using post-it notes. During this interactive task, I was able to help the students with new vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling which they were very grateful for and thoroughly enjoyed. This class was very welcoming and opened my eyes to how lessons with Hope are not only about learning English but also about having a place to socialise and enjoy time with people who you may never have met otherwise. I also quickly realised that this class had a large range of abilities with some students having low level reading and writing skills and others being more confident who were able to help their peers and explain things to each other in their native language for a better understanding.
The Open Kitchen Team!
UMIX women’s ESOL Class
The second class I went to was U-MIX English which was attended by 8-10 Muslim women from Pakistan, who kindly let me be there despite me being a male in this women-only class. They were all very friendly and straight away they seemed more confident at speaking than the first class I went to as they spoke to Caroline and Anita (the volunteer) about how they were. Caroline started the lesson by introducing two new phrases which were “I prefer” and “me too”, and provided many examples by talking to me and Anita about what we do and don’t prefer, which helped the students to get a better understanding of how to use the phrases. They then had to practise using the phrases by comparing two photos before moving onto a listening exercise. This took longer than expected due to some students in the class being a lower ability, however Caroline was happy to spend more time on this task to make sure everyone could understand the listening. Finally, to end the lesson the students were asked to fill out a feedback form like in every class when it comes to the end of the term. The aim of the form was to find out how much progress the students thought that they had made, if they enjoyed the lessons and how they could be improved further. Some students needed extra support with the reading so me, Caroline and Anita made sure to help them understand the questions in the best way possible.
All of the classes at Hope English School are extremely important when it comes to building people’s confidence, however the U-MIX English class is especially important as it gives women more independence by empowering them with literacy skills that give them more control in their own lives. It can also give those seeking asylum a purpose; while they are waiting for their asylum applications to be processed they cannot work, so by learning English this gives them something to focus on.
Women’s esol with childcare
The next class the following morning was ESOL with childcare, where parents could come to learn English and leave their children to be looked after by volunteers in the creche next door. The teacher, whose name was Kim, told me how this class was usually attended by seven women from Eritrea, however only two of them could go to the lesson and two new students came for the first time. A couple of the children also stayed in the class as they didn’t want to leave their mothers and Kim was very understanding of this. The first task was reading, where the students had to match some photos with sentences describing a girl’s family members and hobbies. Overall, the students understood the majority of the texts with only a few words that they didn’t know, which I was able to help them with, and matched the sentences to the photos successfully. Then using the information from the activity, they had to listen to an audio and decide which of the girl’s family members was talking. At first, the students struggled to understand what the task was, however Kim was able to explain it further until one woman understood and could then tell the other students in their native language. After that, they continued with the exercise and quickly got the hang of it and by the end they were much more confident with the listening and showed clear progress. At the beginning of the lesson the class seemed quite shy and quiet (with the noise mostly coming from the two toddlers in the room) but by the end it was clear to see that the women felt more confident in themselves and their ability. I could see that the level of reading and listening for the two students that had attended the class regularly was higher than some from other classes such as the Open Kitchen Social Club, which showed how Kim’s teaching has had a strong impact on their progress and highlights how these classes have an immense influence on the lives of the students.
Digital Skills class at U-mix
That afternoon I returned to the U-MIX class with Caroline and Anita, however this time it was for the digital skills lesson (which was the last of a 12 week course) where they were learning about online safety and how to identify scam emails and create secure passwords. Each student had their own laptop and the first task was to log on, which had varying levels of success, with some of the women being able to confidently remember how to type in the username and password as they had been taught in a previous lesson, and some struggling more and needing help with typing them out. Once everyone was logged on and had opened the website with the online digital skills course, Caroline introduced the class to some new vocabulary that would be frequently mentioned in the course such as “scam” and “virus” and spent time explaining what they mean to make sure the students had a clear understanding before starting the course. One issue which Caroline pointed out to me was how the course was designed for native English speakers which created an extra challenge for the students as there was more technical language which made the texts more difficult to read. This is why all of the students relied on the read aloud version of the course which helped them to understand the content better. At the end of the course there was an activity where they had to identify the three scam emails out of five options which Caroline and Anita went through on the board to explain the reasons why some emails were scams and some weren’t. The lesson ended with a discussion about what social media platforms people use and how to stay safe on them by blocking someone if they were sending hurtful messages to another person. Caroline and Anita also mentioned how in a previous lesson they had taught the class how to translate websites into their native language to be able to fully understand important information such as on the NHS website. This shows how the digital skills classes are incredibly beneficial to the students as they teach important life skills that otherwise may never be learnt and can change how they use the online world to be more safe and secure.
Hope Open Esol Class
The next day I went to the Open ESOL class where all 12 students arrived promptly for the start of the lesson and Michael (the teacher) was able to start on time. This class had a range of people with many different cultures and backgrounds with students from Hong Kong and Vietnam, to Iran, Afghanistan and Kurdistan, however this did not prevent them from having a strong sense of community, a good sense of humour and being very welcoming as they all introduced themselves to me individually. Michael started the lesson with a recap on body parts from the previous week, where the students had to match the word to the diagram. The majority of them completed the task quickly and successfully which made it clear to me that this class was a higher ability to the others that I had been to so far, however one woman needed a bit of extra support which I was able to give her and she began to get the hang of it. Michael then moved onto the main topic of the lesson which was emotions, and he used videos of the characters from the film “Inside Out” to describe each emotion to the class. I thought this was an excellent idea as it gave the students a better understanding of each word in a more visual and entertaining way, and I could tell he was also very pleased with the success his idea brought. The first emotion was happiness and after watching the video and acting out some examples, Michael told each student to ask their partner what makes them happy. After the conversations had ended, he asked each person to tell everyone what their partner had told them and there was a wide range of answers such as shopping, living in Sheffield, their family and their job. Then the task was repeated for lots more emotions like sadness, anger and fear which provided many different answers - some being funny, which made everyone laugh, and some being quite serious. However this didn’t seem to dampen the mood of the class. It was then the end of the lesson and it felt as though it went very fast. The students expressed their gratitude to both me and Michael as they left the classroom with big smiles on their faces and went to get their transport cost reimbursed by Hope as this is something that they kindly do for anyone who uses public transport to get to this class. I found this class very sociable, which was explained by the fact that the class that had been together for the longest amount of time, and also why the students had a higher ability. I think what also helped was that Michael was very enthusiastic and expressive in his teaching which allowed the students to understand what he was teaching better.
ESOL/BSL hybrid class for deaf refugees
The final class that I attended was the Deaf Learners Class, which, similar to my first day, I went into not really knowing what to expect and unsure how to help as I don’t know sign language. There were 6 students from many different countries such as Ukraine, Sudan and Bhutan as well as the teacher (Rhiannon) and the British Sign Language interpreter (Jules). One of the first students to arrive was a man from Sudan who was very happy to meet me and Jules showed me how to sign my name so I could introduce myself to him. Once everyone had arrived, Rhiannon and Jules started the lesson by teaching the students how to sign question words before doing a task where Rhiannon would hold up a drawing and the students would have to do the correct sign for the question word that relates to the picture. Some students found this slightly difficult to begin with as there are different variations of sign language in different countries, so some people who knew another version of sign language realised that some signs for question words are different in BSL. This combined with some of Rhiannon’s questionable drawings meant that it took a bit longer for the students to reach the right answer, however they made everyone laugh and the class quickly began to make strong progress. For the next part of the lesson, Rhiannon and Jules introduced the class to family vocabulary and signs using pictures and written words where the students had to match up the words and the pictures. The class seemed fairly confident naming the mother, father, son and daughter, however some students had more difficulty understanding what the grandparents and grandchildren were and after multiple explanations from Jules and Rhiannon with no success, they decided to draw out a family tree to give a visual representation to those who didn’t understand. This new idea was a success and the students quickly realised what Rhiannon and Jules meant. The next task was a worksheet where each student had to fill in the gaps in the sentences saying how many siblings, children and grandchildren they have. One student wanted my help to make sure he was doing the task right and I was pleased to be able to help him despite not being able to sign. However, there was one more complicated question that he had which I wasn’t sure how to answer, but luckily another student was very eager to help and successfully managed to explain it to him through sign language, which I was very grateful for. By this time it was the end of the lesson and also the end of the term, so the students enthusiastically expressed their gratitude to Rhiannon and Jules and hoped that they would be able to continue in September, as Rhiannon was unsure if it would due to the cuts in funding for Hope from the council and the higher cost of paying for a BSL interpreter. If it isn’t already difficult enough for refugees and those seeking asylum to be living in a country where they don’t know the language, to also be deaf and not know sign language creates problems that for most of us are unimaginable, as they’re not only excluded from the society of the country they’re living in but also from the deaf community as well. This is why it is essential for this class to continue, to provide support to those who need it and give them a safe space with others who are in the same position as them.
The team for involved in our BSL/ESOL class (L-R) Jane, Rhiannon (teacher), Sharon and Jules (interpreter)
Conversations with the Restore team
During my week at Hope English School I also had the opportunity to find out more about how Hope collaborates with the ReSTORE programme. ReSTORE stands for Refugee Support, Training, Orientation, Recruitment and Education and aims to help refugees with backgrounds in nursing and midwifery in their home countries become nurses working for the NHS. Hope English School provides support to refugees in the programme by teaching them both English and digital IT skills and from speaking to some NHS nurses who came through the programme, I found out how this has greatly improved their English to allow them to have effective communication, which means they can provide the best care for their patients. The programme has also given them a better understanding of British culture and how the NHS system works; without the education provided by Hope, it wouldn’t be possible as the students wouldn’t have the language and computing skills they need to pass the exams to become NHS nurses.
Final reflections on my week at Hope English School
Throughout my week I have experienced many new things such as helping to teach English to refugees and those seeking asylum, working with deaf people and doing many interviews. I have witnessed how the classes are not just a place to learn but also where people form social connections and a community. From speaking to different teachers and volunteers about why the work that Hope English School does is so important, one answer that I kept hearing was about how much confidence learning English can give refugees and those seeking asylum. The level of ability of the students can vary a lot when they first start coming to classes; some are more confident as they have lived in the UK for many years already and therefore have had more practice, whereas some are less confident as they are new to the country and find reading and writing in English more difficult as they aren’t literate in their native language. In my experience, the most confident and sociable class was the Open ESOL class where some of the students had been attending the lessons for 2 years which shows how impactful this education can be for the lives of refugees and those seeking asylum. Not only do the classes give the students more confidence and improve their English skills, they also provide other practical life skills like computing, which can make them more employable. The English classes that Hope provides are advertised online and through other organisations, and people can sign up on the Hope English School website, although I found that most people had heard about them from word of mouth through friends and family. However, it is becoming more difficult for Hope to continue all of the classes and create new ones as the council no longer pays for them. Instead they have to apply for grants in an attempt to generate the money needed to fund the classes. Hope wants to be able to provide more classes and remove more barriers for learning to help give the best education to as many refugees and people seeking asylum as possible, to continue and expand on the immensely important work that they have already done. I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Hope English School as it has opened my eyes to one of the main everyday struggles for refugees and those seeking asylum, which is the language barrier and what can be done to help them in the UK.