Abdollah Ahmed Hamood Al-Huseini Swinburne University of Technology Mechanical Engineering
During the time I spent in Kocaeli Province of Turkey, I had the pleasure of working on two different projects with seven other group members who were( just like me)‘ Exchange Participants’. We were a diverse team of eight from seven different countries. The first project was“ Speaking Café”. The aim of this project was simple, it was to teach English to the customers of a local café that belonged to the local municipality of Kocaeli. We would talk to customers helping them improve, but we also decided to take it a couple of steps further by organising private and group lessons. We also invited many local secondary schools to bring their students to the café in order for them gain some experience andlearn English in another more exciting and less formal way. The second project I worked on was called‘ Coach for Equality’. This project had three aspects to it namely: Women rights, career development and English education. During the first ten days of the project we researched all aforementioned aspects and we interviewed a number of professors and teachers in both Kocaeli University and Sakarya University. We were also presenting our culture to students in those universities. When we finished our research and presentations, we delivered them to the students Kocaeli and Sakarya universities. I had a full schedule when I was there and I barely had any free time. I would leave home at 8 in the morning to teach my classes at the university. When I was done with the last class at around 3 pm, I would immediately head towards the Speaking Café to continue teaching English until 8 at night. However, this busy schedule was not the hardest part of this experience. The hardest part for me was making decisions about the level of English I should use with Turkish students. This was mainly because many students had very limited English, but it was a great experience nonetheless. I also did learn quite a lot while I was there. Teaching there helped me improve my own English language as well as my communication skills. Furthermore, I also attended the local community conference for AISEC, where I was able to improve my leadership and team management skills. For those of you who are interested in having such experience, these opportunities are offered by many different organisations around the world and I got mine through AssociationInternationale des ÉtudiantsEn Sciences ÉconomiquesetCommerciales( AISEC). AISEC provides various opportunities around the world. If an opportunity presents itself to you, remember that you’ re heading somewhere with a different culture than yours, so keep an open mind.
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