Update on the kids' visit from Palestine

Update on the kids' visit from Palestine

Following the Israelis’ holding the head teacher from Abu Dis Boys' School at the border to Jordan, our 16 Palestinian visitors including 12 children did not manage to get to their flight on Sunday. They had been planning to join us for five days in Devon followed by a week in London.

It’s hard to describe how disappointing this is. The very best we cando now is to bring the whole group to Britain NEXT SUNDAY. This means that the days in Devon cannot happen, this time, and the programme will need to be reorganised completely.

We are taking up the case of Mazen Salahaldin, the Headteacher who has not been allowed to travel. We would be grateful if you would help by asking your MP about it and by getting press attention for this if you can.

Amer

Hampstead School

information about Palestine 

Hampstead tree

Working with Abu Dis Boys

Teaching both 8^th and 9^th grade classes we realized there was not much difference in their level of English and so we decided to do the same activities with both grades. In our first week we attempted to develop the concept of twinning by brainstorming their knowledge of London, England and the meaning of twinning. Although this was rather difficult the boys do understand that they are twinning with Hampstead School in London and understand the importance of this twinning relationship.

In many of our lessons we tried activities that would enhance the boy’s English vocabulary and teach them grammar in a fun and productive way. The 1^st activity consisted of making an English Facebook page on a worksheets that encouraged the boys to talk about themselves and their own lives (things they like etc). This would be a great development if they boys were to ever be in contact with their fellow English pupils, especially if the buddy idea, which we have recently thought of, goes ahead.

Some of the grammar activities involved the revision and use of verbs. This consisted mainly of board work, but in one lesson we asked the boys if they could draw a picture of a person they admire and then write 5 sentences of why they respect this person, e.g ‘He fights for freedom.’ As you can see this includes the use of verbs.

Grammar lessons can become quite boring and difficult for the boys so we tried to make them as fun and practical as possible. One idea we came up with was to ask the boys to write their names vertically in graffiti writing and to think of an adjective beginning with each letter of their name. Combining both and grammar and art together proved successful and with a little help the boys managed to accomplish the task.

 

Some of the students from grade 8. 

Introducing Twinning

To introduce twinning with the young boys at Abu Dis Boys we decided to spent the first half of the lesson playing some warm up games to get comfortable with speaking English. The second half the lesson we focused on a twinning activity which included big sheets of paper and pens. We asked the boys to get into pairs and draw about what they knew about twinning, England and Cadfa. Most of the boys drew big ben and had some knowledge of twinning already. It was definitely a wild and energetic lesson! We think it's going be quite a challenge with Abu Dis boys but we are ready for it!!