English: A Way to Prepare for the Future

CRP holds beginner, intermediate, and advance level English courses all five days a week. Each class meets twice a week, for one hour. Our classes are capped at 20-25 students in favor of ensuring that we provide students with a group-oriented environment. Adnan, an Iraqi refugee and an English student, is a regular at CRP, attending classes every Monday and Wednesday.

Adnan explained, “Every week our professor, Nancy, teaches us something different. In the first month it was vocational learning, the next month was listening, and now we are working on grammar and reading comprehension. I am very grateful to CRP and our professors for their commitment to us, the students.”

A volunteer English teacher instructs students.

Nancy, an Egyptian-born volunteer has been at CRP since May. She has been involved with both English classes and the youth summer camp. In response to the question of how she has seen her students grow, Nancy said,

“I’ve seen a lot of growth in my students. It’s very uplifting and rewarding when I see my students grasp different words and concepts that they have learned in class and then continue to use them casually in our class conversations and in homework. It also really inspires me to see how much they like to be challenged and pushed. For instance, they always enjoy the hard texts and grammar exercises that i assign them because there is a lot more learning and growth when the work they produce extends beyond what i teach them in class.”
Students fill out worksheets during an English class.

English is our most popular activity at CRP. In total, we offer ten different sessions every week, serving more than 200 beneficiaries. Our English classes are are primarily aimed at adults who are seeking educational opportunities in their spare time. For that reason, the classes are held at a variety of times throughout the week in order to accommodate the different schedules of our students. Our students attend English courses at CRP for an assortment of reasons. Nevertheless, many of our students see English as a means to improve their position within society, as Adnan suggests,“Many of us want to learn English because we hope to travel to a country in the future, in which they speak and function in English.”