COVID-19 vaccine: A local doctor answers our learners' questions

We hope that these videos will challenge misinformation and provide reassurance for people about the benefits of having the vaccine. We also hope that learners will share these positive messages with other people.

by Janet Culley-Tucker, BAES Teacher

Four ESOL teachers volunteered to be recorded asking Dr Akbar the kinds of questions that learners ask them in class. Although the vaccination topic is complicated, we wanted to make videos which would focus on the main points of the health messages using graded English which would be easier for learners to understand.

The videos are for using in class with the help of teachers and also for learners to discuss with their friends and families. As the project continued it became clear that people were receiving lots of misleading information from fake news messages and this was often frightening and confusing. In order to answer learners' specific questions we decided to produce 11 separate short videos and one 2 minute information video which summarises lots of points.

It's really great that all the videos are now available on our Community Hub along with other vaccine information in English and in other languages. We hope that these videos will challenge misinformation and provide reassurance for people about the benefits of having the vaccine. We also hope that learners will share these positive messages with other people."

The BAES Community Hub is available to everyone. You can access it here https://www.learnbaes.ac.uk/community-hub

(You will need to log on as a GUEST, the details are - Username: BAESGuest, Password: CommHub - then click the COVID-19 tile.)