Adult learning and teaching in Tulkarem

Here in Tulkarem, we run three English conversation groups a week: one with women in the refugee camp, a second with other women in the village of Shufa, and a third with students at the university. At the same time, we try to keep up our efforts to develop our Arabic from one day to the next, partly with the help of our contacts, and partly with lessons with our young tutor Rania. Like much of the EAPPI work - mixing listening with advocacy - it's a balance between learning and teaching. 

In the same spirit, a highlight of this week was an hour when two of us joined women in their adult literacy class at the Al-Ilmu Nur centre in the refugee camp on Tuesday afternoon. Among the six women aged between 29 and 60, we met Jamil, who has been attending the class with teacher Nourhan for some time. Jamil has a son in prison and is also a member of the Prisoners' Families Club with whom she had been that morning at their weekly meeting outside the ICRC. Asked what she felt she hoped to learn from coming to the class, she said straight away: "I want to write letters to my son in prison."

The session began with students taking turns to read from their copies of the Qu'ran. We then introduced ourselves and students went up one by one to write their names on the board for us. They then opened their books and Nourhan asked them to go round reading from it (a story about 'the Kalim family'). There was some friendly chat as they took turns again, this time to write on the board something about what they had been reading. One or two found it harder than others. As Nourhan explained to us, many of the students of these classes have forgotten what they learned; they come to improve and remember, rather than start from scratch. There was something lovely about the way this group were learning together, leaning across to give each other a hand, as well as welcoming us as visitors. Perhaps best of all was their smiling encouragement at our efforts to say our few Arabic phrases.