ESOL gallery shares advice on winter wellbeing

Winter has truly arrived on our doorstep and we have found ourselves in another lockdown. This means looking after our well-being is more important than ever.

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students have healthy top tips at hand, promising to rejuvenate and breathe new life into you, even if you are feeling a little run down at this moment in time.

The #ESOLhealth project has successfully come together thanks to the determination of students who have continued to work hard, despite lockdown.

Seima Mahmood, ESOL Lecturer, said: “We are experiencing yet another difficult lockdown, which continues to have a major impact on everyone’s mental health and well-being.

“This project aims to set challenges and continue with our teaching and learning through online digital tools and motivate students to progress, so their learning targets are still achievable.

“The idea of this project to encourage students to work on an exciting departmental online project and simultaneously share their advice and top tips on health and fitness with everyone. We also want to persuade people to try some of the students’ top tips to help them think more about their own health and fitness, especially in lockdown.”

The Project

The #ESOLHealth project has been created by ESOL students, where adults and young people aged between 16 and 18 were set tasks to:

• Write articles
• Draw pictures
• Share healthy recipes and top tips for exercise
• Record videos
• Take photographs
• Share advice and thoughts

What the students did for #ESOLHealth:

ESOL lecturers supported a small group of Entry 1 and 2 students to make videos on recipes and talk about healthy eating:

• Seima Mahmood’s class have created Piktocharts to give advice on health and exercise, recipes, ESOL online blog and took pictures of what they do to maintain a good health
• Marie Pacchiarini has supported her students in designing special hand-made cards for all occasions which are currently on sale on the ESOL Arts and Crafts website.
• Students in Shamim Nizami’s class have created two brilliant Padlets to express their preferences in healthy food, healthy lifestyles and what they enjoy eating
• The level 1 students from Shaheena Skinner’s class have designed two informative newsletters which entails; advice on healthy lifestyle, recipes, exercise tips, surveys and much more
• Antony Grice’s class have posted their photos, videos, healthy recipes, exercise routines and top tips for staying healthy during lockdown on two Padlets

Collaborative team at work

The ESOL lecturers, alongside Senior Academic Liaison Librarian Lakshmi Banner and Media and Technology Manager Zaid Bashir worked collaboratively and tirelessly to launch the project on time. 

Seima said: “The project has yet again given us a great opportunity to work together and I would like to thank everyone who worked on #ESOLHealth. Their expertise was valuable in order to design an amazing online exhibition which can now be easily accessed from people all over the world.”

It follows their successful project Inspired By ESOL, an online gallery of work including pictures, photos, videos, recipes and writing showing their activities during the first lockdown in March 2020. This work, created with support from Bradford Library, was also displayed on virtual exhibitions and advertised on the Bradford College news and social media with the hashtags #ESOLStories and #InspiredByESOL.