A Discussion with Jumana Ayoub, English Teacher, Jesuit Refugee Service Higher Education Center, Amman, Jordan

June 7, 2016

Background: As a part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in June 2016 undergraduate student Jonathan Thrall interviewed Jumana Ayoub, an English instructor teaching various levels of English classes following a curriculum designed and implemented through the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Jordan in partnership with Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins (JC:HEM). In this interview, conducted at the JRS Higher Education Center in Amman, Ayoub discusses the particular challenges involved in teaching students who are refugees, JRS’ commitment to creating an inclusive community among a diverse student body, and her personal teaching strategies given this singular context.
Could you please introduce yourself?

My name is Jumana Ayoub; I’m 25 years old. I’m Jordanian, but actually I’m originally from Palestine. I have a master’s degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages [TESOL]. I got it in 2014 from the American University of Sharjah, [in] the United Arab Emirates. I’ve been teaching for two years now. The first year I spent teaching at a private school here in Amman. I was teaching primary school. Then I got interested in refugees and education and everything related to refugees, so I applied for JRS/JC:HEM. I got accepted in August, so it’s been a year now.

What did you study for your bachelor’s degree?

I studied Spanish and English, language and literature. Then, I thought about the workplace here in Jordan, so I thought that Spanish would not really benefit me that much. So, I decided to specialize in English.

How does teaching at JRS compare to previous teaching experience you’ve had?

It’s really different. Because I told you I was teaching primary school, and it was students 9 to 11 years, and now I’m teaching adults, so some of them are going to be 17 and some of them are going to be 60 years old. So there’s going to be, of course, some differences because, when you’re teaching kids, you have to present in a way that’s going to be really attractive to them. Of course, it’s going to be attractive to adults as well, but then once you’re dealing with adults, you have to present something that’s going to be up to their level. What I mean by that: if I’m presenting a grammar point to primary school students, I’m going to use some games. I’m going to ask them to move around; I’m going to get them to be a bit active.

But in this classroom, I’m going to have to present it in a way that’s going to be a bit serious, maybe including some debates about some topics so they can use the grammar points while speaking, of course. And the way that you introduce the topics, it’s going to be way different. So for people that I’m teaching here in JRS, it’s going to be topics related to their personal experience, while living back in their home countries [or] in Jordan, and how they’re planning their life to be in other countries as well. But then for kids, it’s going to be the games that they’re playing at school time, etc.

So how was the transition from teaching younger children to adults?

Yeah, to give you an idea, during my master’s degree, I was doing assistantship in the university, so I was teaching adults. So I had experience [for] almost a year, teaching TOEFL and IELTS [international English language testing] for students who didn’t get accepted to university but [whom we were] helping out. So I had this experience dealing with adults. But once I move to children, I have to go read online, and of course my master’s degree has already prepared me for different audiences, different students, and how you have to prepare the lesson depending on the student’s needs. And one of the students' needs, of course, is their age.

To answer the question [about] how was the transition, the first two weeks I was like, "What am I going to prepare for those adult learners? They are really different from the other ones." So I was searching Google, using many different websites, reading some research studies as well, and especially reading some research studies about refugees. I was really concerned about that idea, because, you know, they suffer from psychological [trauma], so you have to address that when you’re teaching, I guess.

And so would you say there are challenges involved in teaching students from a refugee background?

Of course. Once you come to see refugees, you can notice that [what they’ve lived through] on their faces. But the role of the teacher comes here, where he or she should start to, maybe create an enjoyable environment for them. And maybe a relaxing environment for them. To me, as a teacher, I don’t really talk much about their circumstances, and I don’t get too much into their personal lives. Because, you know, if I kept asking about that, I’m always remind[ing] them of that life. And I don’t want to do that in my classroom. I want to create an environment where they come, want to learn, have fun, and maybe create a community with all the refugees from different backgrounds.

Now, how I have created that as a community? What I usually do is I choose a clip from YouTube which asks the students, or which elicits the students to think of the community as an aspect itself. So one of the clips I used is [called] "Zero." It’s talking about the status in the community. So it’s dividing people into high, lower, and middle status and depending on the number they have on their bodies. This is going to be one of the most influential videos that I’ve come to. It’s telling them that even if their number is a zero and you’re not counted then, after a while, you’re going to create something out of nothing.

Do you notice challenges at the beginning but, after introducing these things you just spoke about, it smooths out?

Sure. Well, actually, I find some difficulties, some challenges, because I noticed from the beginning of the class, Iraqi people sit next to one another, Sudanese sit next to one another, Somali, etc. But then what is the teacher’s role in this case? To me, I do some group activities where I just mix them together, so that it’s not just Iraqis sitting next to Iraqis. Iraqi has to mingle with Sudanese, Somali, etc.

Another idea is that we introduced [the] community leadership program. The idea is that each day a student is going to do something for our community here in the center. So basically, some of the students are going to come clean the classrooms, so they are going to feel responsible for the [center]. Some of them bring food, so we celebrate during break time. Some of them are very good at something, so they do a workshop for the other students. One of my students did a workshop about wisdom teeth, and we got really interested. She was a dentist, so she did it about wisdom teeth; she was explaining it to the students. Another student did something about first aid, how to do first aid kits and things in general. So it was really inspiring, and everyone was asking questions; everybody got interested. So I felt that these kinds of programs created a community, and if you look at the photos we have in [our] classroom, you are going to notice.

Another thing that we do for community is that, once a month, we do a kind of bringing all the students together from different levels. One of the activities that we did was a quiz night. So we asked all students from different levels to come with their parents, and we did a quiz asking about the center—who’s the project director, who’s the country director, how many. It was a kind of game. And after that we gave some prizes to the students. It was really interesting. And the students’ feedback about that was really good! They asked for more activities and things. And sometimes my students and I organize trips, so it’s not only we’re meeting in this center, we sometimes go out. Sometimes we play billiard, bowling, and these things. We have dinner, we go to movies, etc.

Could you broadly describe the curriculum you teach?

Well, basically, for each level we have a course verified by Georgetown University. We’re using New Total English; I think it’s a British curriculum. For each book we have a teacher’s guide, so you’re going to see what are the teaching methods suggested, and you can implement that with the students. Of course, the teacher has to do some modifications because the level is going to be maybe—sometimes we have students that are at a lower level than what is the book so we have to adapt, do some kinds of other activities. And sometimes we have to supplement; we have to add some other materials to that book in order to improvise.

To me, while I’m teaching the curriculum, I feel that the curriculum is really rigid. It’s a bit boring, for the students; I can notice that. So, for example, if I’m presenting a grammar point, I’m going to do that using YouTube videos, I use some online activities, for them to practice the form, the meaning, etc. And then after that I have to do a speaking activity when they have to use the form. This is for grammar, but for vocabulary what I usually do is that I present the vocabulary to the students with some images, some photos, linking them to their lives. Sometimes I’m describing that, and after that I’ll ask the students to use it in a sentence because if they [just] know the meaning of the word, it doesn’t make sense. No one is going to ask, "What’s the meaning of this word?" But then they have to go to one of the websites and put it in a sentence so they can get used to using that word.

For writing, I usually explain what should be. For example, in a complaint letter, I explain what students should write in each paragraph, and after that they’re going to write a complaint letter, and then they have to peer correct each other’s work. So it’s kind of collaborative work.

The websites you use, do you find them on your own, or does JC:HEM suggest them?

Well, actually, I find them myself. Sometimes for three hours of class, you have to spend six hours preparing. Because you know three hours is really a lot of time, and if the students are really bored, you’re getting bored, too. So you have to make the class fun.

So, what helps you prepare for class?

Well, actually, to get back to my master’s degree, the teachers actually asked us many times to do lesson plans and to do some classes where we have a mentor to observe us, etc. So the professors themselves actually gave us some websites, some reliable websites you can go to. But then sometimes you feel, "This is not going to work with my students." So I have to go search, do other activities, etc.

So once you get to know the students a bit better, does it become easier to prepare for class?

Yeah, definitely. Because sometimes you feel that those students are really interested in debat[ing] political things, so I’m going to introduce these to the students. Others are really interested in video games. So during these speaking activities that I do, I try to design it in a way that I can get to know the students, what they’re interested in. And then based on that, as you say, I’m going to prepare the other lessons throughout the course.

And so does it seem that each individual student...do their personalities come out? Do they get to know each other better?

Of course it does, because, as I mentioned before, during the speaking activities I tried to do some of them personal, but not hitting it into their private lives. So it’s going to be kind of personal in a way that it’s going to encourage them to talk about their interests, things that they hate doing as well. How do they spend their time in general, their free time..things like that.

How do you think the experience of the students you teach now compares to the experience of previous students?

I can answer that question by saying that while teaching primary school students, those kids are not really into education like [my current students]. Because [the primary school students] are offered education, everything is just secured for them, so they don’t really know what’s the meaning of not having that education. But [these students,] once they come to our center, as refugees, they don’t have access to education in general. They do really value what we are offering them. So you really see the motivation in their eyes.

Are there challenges that you notice in their studies?

If I got your question right, I feel that some of the students have studied English in a way that was really traditional. So they were really taught grammar [as], "These are the rules, you have to follow them. Otherwise it’s just incorrect." What I do mention in every class is that there are no rules. Once they hear that they are going to be kind of shocked, to be honest. Because based on my experience as an English as a foreign language student and as a teacher as well, I feel that if you give students rules, they are just going to memorize it. But once they are applying that, it’s going to be really difficult. I faced that myself, so I know what they are kind of suffering. But once I tell them there are no rules, you have to kind of understand the sentences, you have to analyze it, try to—so if you use this tense rather than the other tense, it’s going to give you a different meaning, and it’s not a rule to use that one and that one.

So, if you are not very familiar with the exams here in the Middle East, the exams are really traditional, and they are going to sentences, so if it’s a sentence and it’s out of context, you can really answer it in many different ways, depending on the meaning, depending on how you use it. But these students were taught, "You have to use this one and not that one." Without understanding the meaning of how to use it in conversations in general.

How do you negotiate the fact that these students have different levels of study, different backgrounds of study? Does it add an extra challenge to class?

Yes, it does. So for some of my students, especially in my previous course, they were really at a higher level in the classroom and their English was—I could say they were near-native speakers. But then for others, they were kind of struggling. And as a teacher you have to cope with these different levels. So it doesn’t have to be something really easy so that the others are going to find it really boring. And it doesn’t have to be at a really higher level so that the others will not benefit from the class. You have to kind of balance what we’re having. So usually I start with things that are really at a lower level, then I kind of—we call it scaffolding. I’m scaffolding what we have.

So once I’m doing speaking activities, some of the students finish that first while the others are still doing it, so I give others other activities so that they are going to be busy while the others are still doing the very first step. So we’re just...I think we’re just trying our best to reach that level of education to our students.

What do you think are the greatest challenges in teaching or working here at JRS?

Well, I don’t know if that’s okay to mention, but for me, as a teacher, in the first two weeks, I feel really kind of pressured because, you know, I’m Muslim, and [many of my students] are Christian. But I don’t really mind having that difference, and that’s why I’m working here in JRS/JC:HEM. So the very first two weeks, I kind of feel that the Christian students are just looking at me in this way—especially if they fled away from their countries because of some extremists, maybe. So in the very first two weeks, I have to present [to] them how am I tolerant to different religions, different backgrounds, different educations. I don’t really mind if you’re Christian, if you’re Muslim, if you’re educated, not educated, if you’re male, if you’re female. I don’t really mind having all that difference in my classroom. So yeah, in the very first two weeks I have to kind of present that to my students, and I do really encourage the students to talk about religion in the classroom. Of course, I have Christians and Muslims as well, but then I do stress out that as long as there is respect among us while discussing, then we can still discuss that issue. But then if you are trying to impose your ideas, if you are trying to insult maybe the others, then I stop the conversation right after that.

And other greatest challenge that we have is, maybe we don’t have enough resources. So sometimes you feel that, "I want to do that, but I don’t really have the resources to implement in the classroom."

Could you give me an example of lacking resources?

The simplest thing is sometimes the projector itself. Sometimes it’s driving me crazy—sometimes it turns on, other times it turns off. And once you plan all your lesson depending, using that projector, you feel like, "What am I going to do?!" So yeah, technology things, and even maybe internet. Sometimes I plan online exercises and because there are some technological issues—the internet is slow, this computer is not working. So you feel like, "What am I going to do?!" So then I just send these links to the students’ email addresses so they can do it at home.

What would you do to improve the JRS/JC:HEM experience?

The space here issue at JRS/JC:HEM is really limiting us from doing many different things. So these days we have three different levels: elementary, pre-intermediate, and intermediate. But then we notice that there is a gap between elementary and pre-intermediate and there is another gap between pre-intermediate and intermediate. So we thought, if we could just have more space, so we can do something between elementary and pre-intermediate and the others.

You know, the British Council and these things, they have many different levels, and it’s going to go just as smoothly from one level to the other. We can notice this gap actually from the placement tests themselves that we are having. Because sometimes we have [an] elementary student who’s doing the placement test, but then he’s not moved up to the next level, to the pre-intermediate. So they’re not given the chance to do it again.

Is that also a factor of the size of the classes, too? What are the size of the classes?

Well, in language classrooms, I prefer to have just the small ones, like 16, 17. I feel it’s the maximum because if not every person is given the chance to talk and to give them feedback then—it’s not a history class where the teacher is just going to present. It’s going to be a time for them to practice, to involve in the class. So if it’s 16, 17 it’s enough. But I’m talking about the rooms; we only have two rooms.

How many students do you usually have in the classrooms?

We have up to 25 students, which means that at the beginning two months we are going to have 25, but then by the end of the class we will have 19, sometimes 14—because some of the students are resettled in other countries; some of them are not really offered with transportation. Because we can’t really cope with everyone.

How do the teachers or the center help support students in their studying outside of class?

What I do (I think I mentioned that): I send students online resources for them to practice either grammar, reading, and writing as well. We usually have a Facebook group where I’m going to have an administrator, so I’m going to send the person all the PowerPoint slides that I have, I send them all the links, so this is basically it. So if the students have any questions, any concerns, they can just send me an email, or they can meet me before the class or after the class. But I usually prefer after class appointments because just before class I need to prepare.

Do you get a sense that they do use the PowerPoints or the online resources by themselves?

Yeah, many of them told me that. So if they’re listening to me explaining PowerPoint slides and these things and then they go home, they’re going to forget 70 percent of that, I’m really sure of that. And as I told you, the book is not really explaining the things in a way that I really see it. I kind of add some more information to what the book is providing the students with. So they told me that, "We did this exercise. We got kind of nine out 10 correct, 10 out of 10 correct; we go just further." Sometimes the reading, I send them some reading websites, so they’re practicing that because some of them want to do TOEFL, IELTS, and these things. So this is going to be a time for them to practice both reading and listening as well. And sometimes I do find some courses offered online for free to students. I do send them to my students so that they can benefit from that.

What, in your view, is the benefit or the value of pursuing this education when students don’t have access to work?

Well people here, or as refugees, they really do acknowledge they don’t have access to work or education, but then they’re coming here with the idea that they can improve their English. So, once they are resettled in other countries, they can use the skills that we are providing them with while doing the English exams, while dealing with, of course, native speakers who are going to be [in that country].

It seems in general, from what I’ve heard in speaking to students, that their idea is learning English to fill their time and "improve themselves," but that it’s especially for the "next step." Is there never any plan to stay here? It’s always to go somewhere else for resettlementthat’s the next step?

Yeah, they’re going to say, "We’re just living here temporarily, so we’re just using our time to develop our skills," especially the English skills. And as I told you some of them have already received traditional education, and so they can’t really apply the things that they have studied in real-life conversations.

Do you feel that you’ve learned from your students, and in what ways?

Yeah, of course I did learn a lot from my students. From some of my students, I learned how to be positive about life. Because really, some of them have gone through many difficult incidents, and some of them are sharing that with me, but I don’t really go deep into it, as I’ve told you. And how they’re coming to class, laugh, and have fun with the other students—sometimes I feel really surprised how they can do that while they’re really suffering, and they are really deprived of many of their rights, to me.

And to get back to the community thing that you mentioned—sometimes my students and I organize trips, so it’s not only we’re meeting in this center, we sometimes go out. Sometimes we play billiards, bowling, and these things; we have dinner, we go to movies.

What is your greatest source of motivation in teaching at JRS?

Of course, the ideal answer would be, helping students from different nationalities just to get their education. But, to be honest with you, I’m really interested in dealing with people from many different cultures. And that’s why I joined the American University of Sharjah; it has people from 80 countries, and I was really interested in know about [them]. So here I think it’s an environment where you can meet people from many different cultures and from many different nationalities.

And maybe, as well, once you listen to those people suffering, you do really value what you have. So this is going to be one of the motivations that you have. Once my students [were] doing projects about refugees and [explaining] that they don’t have access to education, they don’t have access to the workplace as well. [And so you realize,] "Oh my god, we’re really fortunate to have these things!" And sometimes I go back home and tell my sisters and brothers that you just have to value what you have, because other people out there are just having kind of nothing.

What does social justice mean to you?

Social justice to me is having access to the basic needs that everyone should have. Having access of course to education, have access to, or be provided with food, shelter, someone that can take care of you. Social justice to me, as well, it means that you have to treat all people from different backgrounds, whether it is religious backgrounds, cultural, whatever, just totally the same. So there should be equality and equity as well.

And so do you think that social justice plays a role in your teaching, or in general at the center?

Well, yeah, I think it plays a role, but maybe it’s just at a smaller scale. This is just going to be providing people with education. And I think JRS is doing more than just providing education, but this is just the part that I am concerned, involved in. And if you see people’s face once we give them the certificate from Georgetown, "Oh my god, this is the only certificate that we have certified wherever we go." So once you see the happiness in their faces you feel, "Oh my god, we’re doing something for these people’s lives." And by the end of each course, people come to me and tell me, "This was the most wonderful four months that we’ve spent in Jordan." I feel really satisfied inside that I did something [for] that community.

How do you interpret the name of the JC:HEM program, "Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins?"

I don’t really like the idea of “at the margins,” because I believe in social justice, as we’ve mentioned, and equality. So I don’t believe that someone is at the margin and the others are not. But then, if we can think of it and relate it to this context, we can say [maybe it refers to] people who don’t really have access to education and people who are really deprived of that basic need of improving themselves by studying and developing their skills and personalities as well.
A Discussion with Jumana Ayoub, English Teacher, Jesuit Refugee Service Higher Education Center, Amman, Jordan
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