Here's another activity that will be going in 'The Remote Theatre Handbook' (again from the chapter on Physical Activities). We'd love to hear from you if you try it out with your own students. In the summer I ran a remote theatre taster course for English teachers from all over the world and the video below, demonstrating the activity, is from that course.

I'm reposting Diana's blog as I think it's good to be reminded that, although we can't see our audience's faces or hear their voices, there's a whole world out there sharing in what we do.

Here's another activity from our forthcoming, Remote Theatre Handbook, this time from the chapter on physical activities. As always we'd love it if you could try out the activity with your students, and give us some feedback. We'd especially like to have some video versions of students doing some of the 'body idiom' mimes, and, with permission of course, may be able to include these in the book.

We're all very excited at the Hands up Project about one of our new ventures. In collaboration with four language schools (in Croatia, Italy, Romania and Spain), we have been awarded an Erasmus plus KA2 grant from the European Union to create lots of free to access materials related to remote theatre.

Of course young people and teachers in Palestine have been creating and performing remote theatre pieces for quite a long time now and have become leaders in this emerging field. And while the rest of the world have been trying to catch up because of the corona pandemic, Palestinians involved in HUP have been busy creating a brand new genre of remote theatre which we're calling Lockdown Theatre.

Unlike Captain Lawrence Oates on the Antarctic expedition circa 1912, the word “outside” may not hold much significance for you. “Where’s the cat?” “She’s outside.” “Leave your shoes outside - they’re covered in mud”. Outside denotes a general space.

We're now approaching the end of The Hands Up Project certificate in Remote Theatre. It's been a great course. With teachers from Argentina, Canada, Czechia, Mexico, Palestine, Serbia, and Syria participating it's been really international and intercultural, and we've all learnt a lot about Remote Theatre - and indeed about its new variant with only one actor per webcam which we're calling Lockdown Theatre.

The idea for today was to talk about our world and the changes we’d like to be a part of. We started small - talking about things we really like about our communities and things we’d really like to see changed in them. We went into our breakout rooms with one rule only - speak English. Of course, the tech glitched so I had the opportunity to talk to Hala about her community.

Young learner literacy is an area which needs informed and skilled teachingand Wendy Arnold puts out a plea for a naturalistic approach in today's blog.

A post from teacher Sue Piper about how the mix of online and face-to-face classes, known as blended learning, can have surprisingly positive results.

This week we have a lovely post from Katy Colley about their first 'Family Matters' meeting with our very own Raja'a.

A few weeks ago Adrian Underhill gave a talk about the work of the Hands up Project at an online event in the UK. Anyone who's ever seen Adrian talk at a conference will know that he is a real innovator in our field and is always exploring new ways of working.

This weeks post is written by one of our most loyal participants and also presenters in our Facebook live sessions, Diana Abu Khaled. Over to you Diana...

I'm not sure who said this originally, but I remember seeing it years ago, on a postcard stuck to my parents' fridge. It's a joke of course (the whole thing about making mistakes is that we don't plan to make them!) but then, like all good jokes, I think there's also a universal truth behind it.

This week's post is by long term Hands up Project volunteer, Sara Wood. Over to you Sara....

This weeks post is by Hands up Project trustee, Scott Thornbury

Drama is not just a tool. It’s the perfect way to help the students dig deep inside themselves to identify their identities, set up their goals in life and have dreams . I was inspired by this and by the idea of remote theatre (performing plays through simple video-conferencing tools to other parts of the world).

This week, we have a post from long standing HUP volunteer in Gaza, Heba Hamouda. Heba completed her PhD research on digital storytelling last year, and recently took part in David Heathfield's online course - 'Creative and Engaging storytelling for Teachers'