Adult Language Learner Intermediate Level

My name is Adam Hammouda, and I’m a 31 year old product manager. With a degree in Physics and a M.S in Computer Science from the University of Chicago, I take my education very seriously, and I have found my learning experience here in Hebron at the Excellence Center extremely valuable. I’ve been focused on conversational Arabic (Shami dialect) for 3 weeks. Without any formal education in Arabic I’ve had to rely on the value of the books, and authentic materials I’ve been able to unearth to bring myself to a roughly intermediate level. Approximately 3 months prior to my study I worked with a private tutor before coming to the excellence center, who prepared my conversational skills in the Shami dialect.

I came here expecting only a moderate amount of structure in which to practice my speaking skills, and to seat my current knowledge of Arabic in some real world experiences in navigating a predominantly Arabic speaking part of the world. Having only 3 weeks off from my full time work, I spent quite some time searching the internet for opportunities available to get the most out of a language learning experience, and the excellence center was far and above the most transparently advertised, and clearly well trodden destination for language learning.

What I found when I arrived was:
1.) There instructions to get to and from Tel Aviv were quite clear
2.) There was a very warm and welcoming staff - in spite of having visitors from far away come and go daily, maintained the hospitality the region is famous for. Unless my lesson was going way over time, I never once felt like I was ‘someones job’
3.) The language instructors are quite serious about imparting well spoken Arabic (in my case colloquial), and a love of the language itself.

I had 3 weeks of private speaking lessons for 3 hours, which helped me to acquire an innumerable amount of patterns for sentence structure, new vocabulary, and constant repetition (my instructor Shayma was extremely good at reminding me of my mistakes, and guiding me towards self sufficiency in my speaking and listening). We focused on vocabulary and topics of interest to me (family, work, daily life, and literary analysis), but she clearly could have directed a lesson for someone with less experience in the language, or without a preference for topics of interest. In fact after observing my weaknesses for our first 2 full days of class, she stopped our normal day to day to deliver a more structured lesson going over some of the weaknesses in my conjugation and grammar that she observed.

These lessons were re-enforced by the presence of an extremely warm community around the center for excellence, who were remarkably patient with my my broken Arabic (unless they were trying to sell me something ;). When dinner or lunch, people would often patiently ask me many questions about my life and experiences as an American in their Arabic, and help me in my replies which gave a great number of opportunities to re-enforce what I was learning in the classroom.

While I was quite worried that the presence of other English speakers with me at the center would harm my progress, I was quite happy that it usually enriched my experience - especially being lucky enough to be here with more accomplished linguists than I who could point to some excellent resources for learning Arabic, and about the Middle East in general.

Additionally, while I didn’t sign up for any volunteer work or tutoring, I was very happy to have an opportunity to help out with 2 or 3 English club sessions. I was immediately charmed by the classroom of 30 odd students, and enjoyed teaching them a little English using my broken Arabic, which they too seemed to find fun.

Finally, there is usually a great deal of preconceived notions about the safety and material wealth of Palestine and the Palestinian people. In this matter I can only speak as a tall white man with an American passport (as I would tell anyone for any place in the world). I found the journey extremely safe, as well as my stay here, and in some ways much safer than places I might frequent in my own neighborhoods in Minneapolis or Chicago. For example, I would never leave my backpack at a table at a coffee shop while using the restroom, but here, I rarely worried about this, and eventually stopped worrying completely.

I would highly recommend the excellence center to future travelers whether language learning or looking for experience in tutoring. Come with an open mind and heart, and you will find the same waiting here.