The Excellence Center Reviews

I love this program and would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in learning Arabic! Although all of my lessons take place online via facetime, I still benefit as though I am learning in person. My tutor Saja is very helpful and accommodating to my schedule. She makes learning Arabic fun, and I have really enjoyed my experience online. I have seen my confidence and skills in Arabic improve so much in just a few months. I am excited to keep learning and can’t wait to use everything I have learned!

I can’t emphasise enough how glad I am that I decided to come to the Excellence Center. It was a step out of my comfort zone, but definitely worth the experience. I stayed in Halle for 4 weeks, teaching English and studying Arabic, and I can honestly say it has been one of the most interesting, fulfilling, and educational experiences of my life.

The atmosphere at the Center is really relaxed and friendly, with the lovely staff making an effort to ensure that your entire experience in Halle is enjoyable, as well as looking out for your well being and helping out if you have problems. They don’t feel like your employees, teachers or colleagues, but like your friends. We all made and ate breakfast together every morning. In my last week at the Center it was the beginning of Ramadan, and I was invited to eat Iftar with the other volunteers and staff.

Halle probably isn’t the first city you’d think of visiting if you came to Germany, but there’s lots of friendly people here and it’s easy to visit bigger cities like Leipzig and Berlin on the train for a day trip. I found that the lack of tourists and English speakers made it a great place to practise speaking German, which is something you don’t get in most major German cities. It also has a large Arabic speaking community, so I ended up hearing lots of Arabic being spoken: at the Center, around the city, and when spending time with people I met at the Center, who often had Arabic as a first language. This was super useful for immersion and for practising what I’d learnt in classes.

This immersion continued where I was living, as I stayed with a Syrian host family, who spoke the same dialect of Arabic which I was studying. They were also really lovely and I enjoyed talking to them. I don’t know if this is the case with all the host families, but I wasn’t offered food every evening, and often organised my own, which was fine, but is something that future volunteers might want to make sure they’re aware of.

I taught 7 students English, mostly in one-to-one classes, and they ranged a lot in age and English ability. There’s no set course, so I decided with the students what to teach them and for how many hours per week. The students were all from countries other than Germany, and many were refugees, so it was really interesting talking to them about their experiences, and differences between their home countries, Germany and the UK. I think I probably learnt as much from them as they learnt from me. I also had one-to-one Arabic lessons with Muaz, who is both a brilliant teacher and a really friendly guy. We had traditional classroom-style lessons, but would also go into town to visit Arabic shops and restaurants, which was a good way of practising spoken Arabic in a real-life context.

I spent lots of my free time with the other volunteers at the Center, as well as with other local young people from Halle, who I met through Center staff and students. We went out in Halle in the evenings, and also visited other cities in the area on the weekends. I met so many different people, from different countries and with different life stories to me, and formed friendships which I’m sure will continue into the future.

Coming to the Excellence Center is not just studying at a language school, but a cultural and social experience, which you don’t come across often in your life. I really enjoyed my time here and would definitely recommend the program for anyone who wants to do something useful with their English skills, learn about new languages and cultures, meet some great people, or just do something a bit different for a few weeks. I can’t thank the Excellence Center enough for the great experiences I’ve had over the last month!

I stayed at the Excellence Center in Palestine for 3 month and did three different programs. The first month I did intensive arabic and the month after i did non intensive arabic. I had private lesson with my arabic teacher for the two first month. This was really good for my learning, especially since I find it very difficult to learn languages. The last month I did volunteering program.

This is the third time I am staying at the Excellence Center and I am planning to come back later this year. Hebron is a good city to come to, if you would like to improve your conversational skills in arabic.

I stayed in a hostfamily which I really enjoyed. This was really good for improving my conversational arabic skills.

I am Bartek from Poland, I came here for 10 days for volunteering in human rights and with children. During my time, we went to a refugee camp, a school for blind children, an elementary school and I taught them basic Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and self-defense system. I've been doing martial arts for about nine years and so I wanted to come here to share my skills and knowledge with the people in the community in Hebron. My Arabic lessons were amazing, Saja and Duha are amazing teachers. I even taught Saja some Polish! There is a family atmosphere at the center and it is very welcoming. In my free time, I went with some of the others to Jericho on a day trip. I feel very safe here, people in Hebron are very kind and friendly. The people are what I love the most about Palestine - they are amazing and I'm gonna miss them. I recommend you to come here and experience it for yourself! As a Polish person, I feel very connected with Palestinians because of our history, so I wanted to come here to support people, especially the kids and to put a smile on their faces!

I had amazing time in Hebron, I learned so many new things here about human rights,Learning wasnt only in class I was learning outside class from pepole,I recommend that place to everyone,I come back here,I meet here so many fantastic pepole.I feel very safe here pepole on the street are very kind.I was learning arabic with Doha ans Saga the are so good teachers after one week I improve my Arabic.Food is definitely what everone has to try specially makluba.The centrum has a family atmosphere. Bartek

The Arabic classes I have been getting could possibly be the best thing that happened to me this year(and last year).I found the classes extremely helpful and fun and now I am actually speaking Arabic with the rest of my family. I still need to learn much more though, but these classes are really a treasure for me. Although sometimes my classes get laggy because of me living in another country and having to do online class, it still doesn’t bother me and I am glad that I get to do these lessons.

I have nothing but great things to say about the people at the Excellence Center! They were extremely friendly and welcoming. I have met amazing people and learned amazing things that I will always hold near and dear to my heart. My only regret is not staying longer. I think this is an excellent program and I would highly recommend this experience for others. I would like to come back to this program as soon as I can. You will create memories that will last a lifetime. If you’re looking for an adventure, this is your place.

I took multiple sessions of online Arabic language classes with the Excellence Center in Palestine, so far completing 30 hours of classes, and I really enjoyed my experience. In fact I am currently continuing my studies with them because I love how much I am learning! My teacher is really supportive and friendly, and does a combination of teaching me the planned lessons and also encouraging me to choose topics and ask questions based on my interests and curiosity. I appreciate the flexibility of online learning, and I also hope to one day get to visit the center for an in-person program.

I spent six weeks with the Excellence Centre learning about the situation here in Palestine, occasionally helping with English teaching, and also studying intensive Arabic. There was a wide range of visits, both in Hebron (which has a unique situation because there are settlements in the middle of the old city) and around it to the refugee camps and Masafer Yatta. It was a unique opportunity to visit many of these places and hear from local people about their lives and their opinions. Teaching English was also a rewarding experience. I was here during the winter and the number of international volunteers was quite small but there was a good group and there were lots of opportunities for people to travel together on the weekends. I was really happy with my Arabic class with Doha, who put a huge amount of effort into designing our classes to suit my interests and my level. I would recommend to anyone who comes here to try and take more than the minimum level of Arabic because spending time here is a great opportunity to improve.

I know many people may be worried about coming to spend time in Hebron because of security but I had no problems at all in that regard.

I was only here for a week, but through several visits, I got to know Hebron. I feel that being able to see the Israeli occupation by myself and hear stories from loclas was very valuable experience. Palestinans are supposed to be in difficult situation, but i felt that they didnt make us feel that. they are cheerful and friendly. Through this stay, i learned not only about the difficult situation but also about how cheerful the people are.
I also took arabic lesson and it was good to me. I have learned standard Arabic, but never learned dialects. BUt to communincate, the dialects is most important, so the class is very valuable and my teacher taught me very well.