My unforgettable experience at the Excellence Center

Coming to volunteer in Palestine this summer turned out to be an obvious choice for me. I was wishing to truly rediscover this country through its culture and everyday life by staying in a Palestinian host family. But more than anything, I wanted to give my time and energy to the Palestinian community which had been so welcoming and generous with me during my previous journeys in the country. And obviously, when you are aware of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and its consequences on the Palestinian daily life, you can’t remain inactive. To me, education, and more precisely English teaching, was the best thing I could offer to the Palestinian youth because it is giving them the tools to succeed in the future. It is why I chose to volunteer, as an English teacher, at the Excellence Center in Hebron for one month and a half during my summer holidays. I will never regret this choice, it was a unique and unforgettable experience in which I learned much more than I could ever have expected. My stay here was extraordinary in all its aspects.

First of all, working in Excellence Center was professionally excessively interesting. I learned about interactive teaching methods through short trainings but mainly by observing Palestinian teachers and practicing right after my arrival at the Center. My teaching experiences were very varied. I taught students of different levels (starters, beginners and intermediates), I was either a teacher assistant or, most of the time, the main teacher with one or two other volunteers. I had recurrent classes with allowed me to get to know the students well but I also took part in CV and job interview day-trainings with university students. During the regular classes we followed lessons of the class materials but the meetings were mainly based on experience and interactive activities such as games, conversations, food days, presentations, debates or tours in the Old City of Hebron. All the activities were thought in order to improve the students ‘confidence and create a family atmosphere in which both children and young adults would feel confident to exercise their English orally. The more they felt self-assured, the more they spoke and the more they improved their conversational English, accent and vocabulary. It was a pleasure for me to teach using these methods as I totally agree with the Center ‘values and conception of education. In addition, it was a privilege to work in these conditions: the classes were small (not more than 15 students) and the students very motivated by the fact that the Center is an independent structure from their school, in which they all get importance and recognition.

Secondly, my stay in Palestine was humanly extremely rich. The Excellence Center is very professional and at the same time a big family. It is a small structure in which everybody knows each other. The staff knew how to build this cohesion between all the members and foreign volunteers by organizing unforgettable trips, as a night in the village of Susya, where we experienced the Bedouin life-style. This good atmosphere in the Center allowed us to get along well with each other in teaching the students. The communication and goodwill between us was a necessary basis for teaching together and improving our skills. And obviously, sharing good and fun moments with all the staff was part of the amazing experiences of my stay in Hebron. Furthermore, I had the feeling that Excellence Center trusted me. Rafat gave me the necessary tools to teach and then let me act with my ideas and creativity as long as I would follow the Center‘s way of teaching. I felt very useful and free in the teaching. My experiences with the students were unforgettable. They all showed me intense motivation to learn English and nothing was more grateful to me than seeing them interested, implicated and improving their language. Teaching conversational English gave me the opportunity to converse a lot with them, to learn about their daily lives, relation to religion, feelings towards occupation and hopes for an independent Palestinian state. They were also very curious about international volunteers and wanted to know more about us, it was an incredible cultural and human exchange. The Excellence Center, through many trips, was willing to show us the hard living conditions Palestinians face every day due to occupation. I was profoundly touched to see these difficulties from the inside, for instance, in Al-Fawar Refugee Camp, the village of Susya or the Old City of Hebron. But faced with these situations, I was very contented to be with the Excellence Center. Indeed, as volunteers, we were not in the position of passive tourists passively observing these conditions but actually taking part in the efforts to help the community of Hebron.

Finally, staying in a Palestinian host family was one of the richest experiences of my life. I could not be more immersed in the Palestinian culture and everyday life. The parents and children really considered me as a member of their family and were very protective which made me feel always safe. I was cooking ‘khobez’ and Palestinian sweets with my host mother, playing football with the boys and other kids of the village, I celebrated Eid Al-Iftar in a big family gathering and visited the Old City of Bethlehem with them. I learned to communicate despite the language barrier, even though the Arabic classes I was attending at the Center helped a lot. All my life I will remember these long hours spent on the rooftop with the family at night time when the weather was cooler, sharing tea, great discussions and guitar songs.

Volunteering in Palestine and more precisely working at the Excellence Center was an extraordinary give and take experience. I learned about formal and conversational English teaching and that improving the student’s confidence in English was the best way to make them get better. Obviously I improved my own English level. But the confidence of the Excellence Center ‘staff and the recognition & thanks of the students were the best immaterial gifts I could receive as a teacher. All the generous and welcoming people I met, especially in the Center and my host family, considered me as a part of their group and at the end of my stay in Hebron, I did not feel like a stranger anymore. I truly hope that the teaching and motivation that I brought to the Center were up to all the things I received here. I had the profound willingness to help the Palestinian youth community which represents the future hopes of Palestine. I will surely come back to visit all the new friends I made here and to discover even more about this fascinating country and its people.