Teach English in Germany with The Excellence Center

I visited the Excellence Center with the aim of learning more about different cultures as well as some conversational Arabic. It was a truly unforgettable experience. I met amazing people, ate amazing food and came away feeling truly inspired. Rafat has a gift for bringing people together and the Excellence is a hub for a diverse range of lovely folks.
At the time of my visit, the other volunteers were mostly American and we had a lot of fun talking even talking about our own cultural differences (I was trying to teach them proper British pronunciation…).
I was incredibly lucky with my host family who were so friendly and of a similar age. They were very generous with sharing their traditions; including films, music and of course more food!
Teaching English was also very rewarding and my students were always keen to learn - even if they had just worked a night shift at the hospital...
My Arabic teacher was very informative and really tailored the lessons to my level. We had a book, provided by Rafat, which helped to structure the content too and has given me something to look back over. It was also good to be surrounded by German because you couldn’t help picking up little bits of that too.
I would highly recommend the Excellence Center to anyone looking to explore Arabic and German cultures simultaneously and connect with wonderful people.

Working at the Excellence Center in Halle last Summer was an experience that will remain with me for a long time to come. The work is meaningful, the management is kind, understanding and competent. The sense of community around the Excellence Center is unmatched: community events are commonplace, and people are so hospitable that making friends is truly a breeze. I would recommend this program to anyone looking to step outside of their comfort zone while doing meaningful and rewarding work, anyone looking to learn new languages, or anyone interested in seeing European history play out before their very eyes!

My experience at The Excellence Center in Europe was fun, enlightening and very worthwhile. When I first arrived in at the center in Halle, I was warmly welcomed and was able to start working the day I got there. As I was given a tour of the facility, I started to realize that I was about to be apart of a pleasantly tight-knit group of people who care about the wellbeing of the community and its inhabitants through means of intercultural-change and understanding.
While working there, I was very in control of my schedule, who I wanted to teach, and how I wanted to teach it. My boss, Rafat Shantir, was very understanding of people who wanted to take a little time of to do things like travel. He was also very accommodating of the things we would want to teach. My coworker, for example, started a class that taught people who were interested in learning how to do computer programming.
The relationships that I built were probably the most important takeaway from my experience at The Center. I mainly taught in a one-on-one setting, and I really got to know my students throughout the 3 months that I taught there. As most of my students were Syrian refugees, I was given an opportunity for an intercultural dialogue, the likes of which I had preciously been exposed to, especially coming from the US. Overall, my work at The Center was a great life experience and has opened my eyes to new cultures and the importance of all of us sharing and exchanging our cultures. Through these intercultural dialogues, we can build a world of tolerance, harmony and mutual understanding.

I had been awarded a fellowship from my university to come to Halle. The trip was extremely affordable and worth-while. Halle is a very economical city and living with a homestay is ideal in terms of learning. Even without the fellowship, the trip would not have been overwhelmingly expensive like trips to European cities can be.
I found the Excellence Center through a classmate of mine at the university. As I am interested in language learning, I took it upon myself to apply to the Center and check out the times that I could come. The Center was super flexible, as I was able to come during my Spring Break while abroad in Spain. I was here for about a week, and within this week I have had so many new experiences that I did not even expect to have.
On my first full day here, I came to the Center to have a Palestinian breakfast. This was very different for what I am used to eating in the US and in Spain, but it was delicious and healthy. On this day, I also had a chance to check out the Marktplatz in Halle, which is filled with beautiful architecture, local residents, and tons of authentic German street-food. During the evening, I got to have a Syrian dinner. Trying all of the different foods was something I had the opportunity to do many times over the course of this week. This is a very unique opportunity, and the mix between German culture and many different Arabic cultures makes Halle as well as the Excellence Center a multicultural hub for interesting cuisines, music, stores, and aesthetics.
While teaching English was certainly the most challenging part of my trip, it was also the most rewarding. My first-day teaching was the hardest, as I had never really led a class by myself before. By the third day, however, I could already see my teaching abilities improving and the students seemed to be getting a lot more out of my classes. Seeing this improvement and learning about teaching was extremely gratifying.