“English without Borders", a joint tutoring project in Netanya, a combined venture between AACI Netanya and ESRA Netanya is ending its third year. It is coordinated by Ros Ben Ezra, Miryam Bar David and Ada Kaplan.

A unique facet of our project is our professional approach.  We do not just place our volunteers.  As our committee members are all seasoned educators, thought has been given to the screening procedures and to the training the tutors receive. 

We start our yearly schedule with a day's workshop.  It is targeted to all, but during the day groups are formed according to the age and level of the students to be taught.  Different learning content is presented to elementary, junior high school and high school volunteers.  As of next year we will have collected and arranged learning materials for each of these groups. 

We are in constant contact with our volunteers.  Asking their opinions on various issues is important, and problems are dealt with as soon as possible. 

At the same time, we keep in touch with the English teachers, coordinators and principals to ensure satisfaction on all sides.  In addition, we visit the volunteers in their schools getting feedback and suggestions from them which we then implement and pass on to the other tutors.

Most of our tutors are the age of our students' grandparents.  They do not threaten them with grades and they are genuinely interested in the youngsters and rejoice in each improvement.  It is this supportive approach that wins over even the shyest and most belligerent youngsters.

Not only do the students benefit from this project, but so do the volunteers themselves.  Many of them come from countries where volunteering is a way of life.  In Israel, due to the language barrier, they find themselves hampered and their ability to serve their community is restricted.  This project turns their English into an advantage and allows them to serve the community in a unique way.

We have tutors who have received calls and letters of gratitude from youngsters who have graduated as well as teachers.

Now to numbers:

This year we are serving eight schools.  Next year we hope to add two more schools to our list.  Most of our volunteers are "fulltimers", meaning they are in the school once a week for two lessons (two hours) and some even come to school twice a week. 

In addition to our regular volunteers, we have "seasonal" ones who spend a few months each year in Israel and are interested in volunteering their valuable time.  We now have eight such temporary weekly hours and 57 regular hours. The average volunteer sees three students every hour.  That makes about 200 weekly hours.  This is a good contribution to the Netanya schools.

We advertise widely and try to get as many English speakers as possible to participate in our project.  We constantly look for ways to improve and expand. 

For us it's a real privilege to work with this special group of volunteers.