“I was born, raised and spent my childhood in Baghdad until 2006. After the security situation worsened due to the war, I travelled with my family to Yemen. I lived in Sanaa and completed my intermediate education in a foreign environment and traditions. My father passed away after a year and we lost our only provider since my father worked as a university doctor. I stayed in Yemen until the Yemeni war broke out in 2011 and the security situation worsened, and moved to Jordan, to a new environment and new traditions. I am holder of a Baccalaureus in Accounting from Jerash University. I have chosen this field of studies because I am interested in economic issues and it will give me many job opportunities in economy-related fields. After I was admitted to university, I started practicing sports because I was passionate about it, and became a sports trainer. This is when I started learning English to be able to access training-related educational content Unfortunately, most university subjects were given in Arabic. I did not need to learn English at the time and when I needed it, I used to translate the course literally online. However, at the beginning of my journey as a sports trainer, I found it really hard to access the sports-related educational content, because there was no Arabic content online. This is when I decided to learn English and develop my language skills. At the beginning, I was weak because either the classes were crowded or teachers were incompetent. A while after, I was able to improve my skills but not as required. I knew about the HOPES project and the HEEAP course through the facebook page of the gathering of Syrian students and decided to join the course. Thanks to the interactive teaching methods, the HEEAP course helped me to develop my skills of transmitting information to others (my students and trainees), and to increase my self-confidence when speaking in English as I was practicing quasi-daily when I was taking the course. Through these courses, I was able to read what I wanted in sports training books, to access international content and to communicate with non-Arabic speakers. I plan to become an accredited sports trainer in international centers and to complete my higher studies to become a university doctor. I am a sociable person who loves communicating with others and sharing my experiences with whomever needs it. My message to other students facing the same difficulties: First, one must make mistakes and stumble on his journey, as a part of the journey towards the summit. Second, one must try with more than one audiovisual means and others and not stress over the results. Third, one must practice English as much as possible and include it in his daily life.”
By Omar Al Ali
2019
