‘Come Online with Me’ Food, Connection and ESOL during COVID19 lockdown in the UK - the highs and the lows, and recommendations for others

By Clare CourtneyHeart & Parcel was founded in 2015 by myself and Karolina. Two friends with an interest in English language teaching, community work and food. For four years Heart & Parcel has provided informal cooking and English classes for women from migrant communities around Manchester to develop ESOL skills in a relaxed and meaningful way, meeting friends and others within and among the communities in our local area. Thriving on human connections and networking, we also ran fundraising events, workshops, markets and catering to generate funds to keep our English classes free for those who were not directly eligible for sustained ESOL provision.In March this year, it was hard for us to imagine life without a space where learners and volunteers could continue this way of working. It was the learners who came to our rescue in demonstrating an innovative solution, and guiding us towards one very important, but often feared in teaching, resource: social media.Our long term learners initially suggested starting a small WhatsApp group, where every day we would share recipes and food ideas about how to use up things in your cupboards. It was great, and temporarily relieved the absence of connection and English practice we had been worried about. It was a significant learning experience too, learners had to implement informal conversational dialogue between themselves and us to communicate their written ideas clearly. Of course, we had many obvious visual aids, significantly helping understanding:

Screenshot from the initial Heart & Parcel learners' WhatsApp group

Despite enjoying the regular contact, our learners felt that many other learners would be in the same position as them, losing their ESOL classes and having no opportunity to practise English and make friends. It was these observations that pushed us to attempt online cooking & English classes using a traditional structure with the teacher live streaming the classes and homework at the end. This platform would enable us to reach as many learners as possible and to cater for a wider range of needs.We then applied for a grant from WeloveMcr Charity to hire livestream equipment and video editing resources. To give the lessons some structure, we aimed to cook our learners’ recipes from our existing cookbook; a fundraising resource created in collaboration with our learners, a collection of their recipes and stories they developed as part of an English writing course back in 2018. We hired an ELT material writer to develop eight of the recipes into a suite of standalone materials developing learners’ ESOL listening, speaking, writing and reading skills based on the emerging language from the recipes and the stories:

An ESOL worksheet developed from the Heart & Parcel Cookbook

With other video conferencing like Zoom or Teams, learners are usually visible and feel like they have to interact. Our chosen platform of live streaming was flexible as it offered 3 levels of interaction:

• Direct and present (chatting live in the chat box with moderator teachers)
• Indirect and present (watching live viewing comments and following the video)
• Indirect and delayed (watching back the video at a later date)

Each week, we cook a different dish from the Heart & Parcel cookbook, teaching English language through the cooking process. We have 10 teacher moderators (previous volunteers of Heart & Parcel also keen to do their bit during lockdown!) in the live stream live chat on hand to answer any questions the learners have about the lesson. After each lesson, learners receive homework and get it marked by the Heart & Parcel team.Outside of the formal lessons, we have continued a WhatsApp group with all learners who want to practise their English language and cooking beyond the lesson in a less structured way. This usually utilises the language learnt during the lessons, and most importantly, involves interacting and communication with each other, rather than just with the teachers.

Screenshots from the post-class WhatsApp discussion group

The online option for us has been ultimately a beneficial development in our progression as a project.  Before lockdown, many of Heart & Parcel’s learners could not physically get to the class spaces because of certain barriers: transport, childcare and mobility issues. But now Heart & Parcel takes its classes directly to the learners, straight into their living rooms.To date, we have had over 380 learners sign up to learn English through cooking, many coming not just from Manchester but different parts of the UK and the world. We even have learners tuning in from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and China. The inclusive approach and nature to our platform allows us to easily widen our reach, whilst still remaining local in our practices and our content. It’s so lovely to see everyone coming together to practise their English together around these dishes that are cooked by women from different communities in Manchester.

Teaching & Learning resources on Heart & Parcel’s YouTube channel

We also record the session each time so learners can watch back later if they have work or other duties. Other English teachers have also been using the videos in their lessons as ways to engage their learners.However, with everything, there are still limitations to what we do.There are still many of our learners who have not yet developed the digital literacy to engage fully with our live stream set up and our homework. We feel disappointed we haven’t managed to reach everyone but we plan to explore further solutions to this with more accessible platforms and ways to access homework.The stark reality of a lot of our learners is that many do not have stable internet connections in their homes and would not be able to access the live stream lessons continuously. The WhatsApp group provides some relief, but does not fully support our learners in what we previously provided.Despite the challenges, this has opened many doors for Heart & Parcel and its learners. Our English language materials and lesson plans that we developed for this online class have greater reach and further scope to continue developing English language learning in a communicative and accessible way. We plan to make these resources including lesson plans available for individuals, organisations and English language providers.For more information:Register for our online Cooking and English classes (Resuming in July) https://bit.ly/OnlineCookingEnglishRegistrationBrowse our Teaching & Learning resources on our YouTube channelBuy our Heart & Parcel Cookbook https://bit.ly/BuyHeartParcelCookbookOur social media:Twitter / Facebook / Instagram: @heartandparcelWebsite: www.heartandparcel.org