Excellent Excellence Center

The first thing I noticed about this center is how comfortable it is to be there. Really from the first day it was easy to feel at home. The staff, the students, and community that come by are all relaxed, joke around with eachother, and are welcoming in a genuine and calm way. We eat breakfast all together, people randomly make tea for eachother throughout the day, it really does feel comfortable and easy to be part of this learning family. This makes it easy to learn because it is a comfortable place and a supportive environment to make mistakes in Arabic.

Another wonderful thing about this center is how much it supports the education of people from Hebron. Most of the classes are for Palestinians who want to improve their English. I have a lot of respect for the way this center is truly focused on this mutual learning of both English and Arabic. It is inspiring to know that the infrastructure of the school is not just for the benefit of foreigners who want to learn Arabic, but is also, and maybe primarily, for Palestinians who want to learn English. By coming to this center that is located in Hebron, you participate in witnessing disparities, suffering and resiliency of the occupation in ways specific to Hebron and at the same time, you know that by supporting this center you are supporting an incredibly positive institution in society in Hebron and also in Palestine.

The quality of the teaching in the center is excellent. The teachers regularly get training and refresher training on teaching methods and the center has checked in with me a few different times to be sure the quality of the teaching is what I was looking for. They want to be sure there are no problems, and best of all, the did this in a discrete way so if I had anything to request, I felt I truly could have.

My amazing teacher Rashaa has gone above and beyond in a number of ways in the short time I have been here. She really listened to what topics were important to me and taught in creative and effective ways. For example, I am a nurse, so on the 2nd day I show up to a table full of medical type equipment she gathered from her family so we could learn and practice in 3D! Amazing! She also learned I plan to work in refugee camps in Jordan and she looked up videos about the camps in Arabic so we could practice the relevant vocabulary while looking at images and hearing from people living in the camps. Both of these were very effective ways to learn and I definitely feel like I have learned a lot of Arabic. Her dedication is contagious and motivates me to study more!

Overall, I would 100% recommend coming to this center.