Why you choose Palestine?
My fourth time visiting the holiest land on Earth led me to decide to conduct English lessons for Palestinian primary school students through the Palestinian Center (Go Palestine) in Hebron, as my previous visits didn’t provide me with enough time to stay in one place for a long period. Back home in Australia, I study a Master of International Relations at the University of Melbourne. Although my university studies had more of a Humanities focus, for six years I had a part-time job as a swimming teacher to young children. I was more than eager to work with kids again as I had not had this opportunity in a while due to spending one year in Kuwait studying Modern Standard Arabic.
What did you do as a volunteer at the Palestinian center in Hebron?
As part of my job description with the Palestinian Center, I conduct two kinds of classes with Palestinian children. Firstly, I would travel to different schools in Hebron and guest-teach English in a classroom. The teaching staff and Principals have been wonderful to me throughout my visits, and I have been welcomed greatly by the students. Something I have found with the children here is that even with a good reading and writing ability, due to their lack of experience with a native English speaker they are relatively shy and are unwilling to talk. It takes a while to help them warm up, but once they gain your trust they are beaming with confidence.
Secondly, the Palestinian Center (Go Palestine) began an “English Club” throughout my time here in which I am the first teacher. The “English Club” involves English lessons for approximate twenty-five of the best Palestinian students from Grades 5 and 6 within a school. These classes occur twice a week for the duration of one and a half months. I think that it is wonderful for the Palestinian Center to provide English classes for girls as it encourages future women of Palestinian society to invest in their education and to recognize their worth as equal contributors. English is such an important language to learn, and for the Palestinian Center to begin offering such classes for girls is a major step towards a well-rounded education.
What did you like the most about your experience with the Palestinian children?
One thing that I have found delightful during my teaching in Hebron is how enthusiastic children are when in class. Palestinian children have such an eagerness to learn, they are bursting with energy and they really perform to the best of their ability. Although the Levantine dialect is somewhat different in comparison to Modern Standard Arabic, I was still able to incorporate Arabic into my teaching. This meant that I could explain concepts or words in Arabic that the children hadn’t quite grasped when I had explained it in English. It worked really well on days that involved a lot of information and translations, such as when I needed to give children many verbs in one lesson when teaching about daily routine.
How the Palestinian center helped you during your volunteer period?
The Palestinian Center has provided me with the flexibility to conduct my own lessons and construct my own lesson plans. I have enjoyed being able to open a new Microsoft Word document and make lessons for the children “from scratch”. What’s even better, is I am making an array of lesson plans about many different topics for future teachers of the English Club, as well as others who may want to work at schools as I did. Topics that I have covered have included basic introductions of oneself; family; hobbies, daily routine, free time and sport; the weather and the four seasons; and Middle East geography.
As I am typing this, I am in my last week of teaching children before I return to Australia. I usually return once a year, so I am especially eager to see the progress that has been made with the English Club for the girls when I return for the fifth time, Insh’Allah.
If you want to have your own experience as Amber did, then apply now to the “Volunteer with Palestinian Children Program”. Click here to get more information about the program!
