Yes, meet Ms. Afaf Yafi, the English-Language Program Coordinator. She is in her office.
If you don't find her there, then she's giving a class. Or check the Library.
Absolutely committed to her job, which she treats as a mission, Ms. Yafi has had a very direct and immediate impact on the quality of the program since she joined the faculty of Azm University this year. The results are palpable. Intensive English students, often reluctant to use English in conversations, many of them now do so enthusiastically.
In part, this is a result of bi-weekly extra-curricular activities introduced by Ms. Yafi, that students are encouraged to attend and where they are invited to discuss important and often controversial issues in English.
Ms. Yafi believes the activities have helped students "take their courses more seriously and become more disciplined in how they approach the subject." They have also helped the instructors know their students better, she says.
Ms. Yafi credits the support she receives from President Ramez Maluf, her dean, Dr. Derek Bousé, Faculty Assistant Jana Omary, and her colleagues in the English-language program with making the program's success possible. "This is the effort of a team, working together, not of an individual."
A graduate of the Lebanese University and with a master's in Education from Swansea, South Wales, Ms. Yafi is now pursuing a second master's, this time in Instructional Design, from Balamand University.
"I'm doing Instructional Design because I feel that the program will help me in developing my skills in the field of teaching. Instructional Design is a foundational basis to systematically improving the learning and performance outcomes of individuals completing a course."
Students very much enjoy the rapport they have with Ms. Yafi, whom they describe as both friendly and demanding. "She listens to us," says a student, who asked not to be named. "I am not in her class, but if I have a problem, she's the person I go to. The problem is that I have to discuss my problem with her in English." Still, he says with a smile, it's worth it.