Behar English Language Center (BELC) at Koya University is pleased to announce that its classrooms have been busy for the last three weeks with the students of the Religious High School in Koya. Those 25 students and 4 teachers are being engaged in a semi-intensive English program as the target population of a program that is generously funded by The American Embassy and kindly hosted by Koya University.

This program, which is a project competition of the U.S. Department of State’s seventh annual Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF), was won by a team of three faculty members at Koya University who are Fulbright Exchange Program Alumni. Those are Peshawa J. Muhammad Ali, the Project Director and Head of the Department of Software Engineering, Dr. Hamid B. Abdulsalam, Course Coordinator at Behar English Language Center and a faculty member at the Department of English, and the emeritus professor Dr. Hamid Muhammad Jassim.

The project which is entitled “English Language Camp; Computer Skills Training Course for Students of Religious –oriented Schools & Institutions” has a twofold goal. First, its direct observable goal is to teach those students the basics of the four skills of learning English. The second, which is the long-term goal and the most important, is to promote tolerance and expand the vision of the students to be able to accept the other. This is achieved by the material being taught throughout the course, which is culturally oriented, and the environment that is being created. Through its innovative and distinctive language-learning classes, BELC provides English courses in an environment that embraces respect, understanding, integrity, and cultural awareness of the target language.

Two different sites are hosting the program simultaneously. The first is at BELC, Koya University, which is managed by Dr. Hamid B. Abdulsalam and two other faculty members: Ibrahim Ahmed and Mariwan Dhaher. The other is at University of Kurdistan Hawler and managed by Professor Hamed Jassim and his team. Mr. Peshawa J. Muhammad is the program director and the teacher of the computer classes at both sites.

The duration of the first course is four weeks. Afterwards, another course will start to host 25 more students together with 3 of their teachers.