Before I came to P.A.L.S. I was a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t go out very much because I didn’t understand English and didn’t understand even basic math. I never attended school when I was a child in Libya. I used to cry to my mother that I wanted to go to school. I wanted to learn so badly that I taught myself to read Arabic with the help of my brother. I never studied math in my whole life until I came to P.A.L.S.
When I first came to Canada, we lived in Calgary. My husband worked overseas. I stayed home most of the time with my sons, as I was a mother and a father to them. I only went out 1 hour a week to meet with an LELL tutor. He told me about an organization in Edmonton called P.A.L.S.
When I was in Calgary I was very busy looking after my children and taking care of my home but I couldn’t help my children with their math homework. I didn’t understand multiplication, decimals, and percents or how to write and read math. I didn’t understand what the dot meant in a number. I didn’t understand the bills that I received especially the utility bills. It was confusing. Because I love to shop and saw these kinds of numbers in the stores, I kept wondering what they meant.
When I moved to Edmonton, I found life very hard for the first year, as I didn’t know the city. I didn’t have any friends at the time and I even got into a car accident! I went to P.A.L.S. and started learning LELL, Literacy for English Language Learners. My sons encouraged me to also become a math student. I then started to understand more about everything. I began learning subtraction vocabulary in 2007. Today, I am almost done my program.
The people working here at P.A.L.S. are very nice. My teachers encourage me to always do better. My math tutor is Nelly. She is a good math teacher and also gives me good advice. I plan on getting my core high school subjects so that I can challenge the diploma exams. Nelly will be helping me reach my goals.
With Nelly’s help, I first acquired good working habits and the discipline that allowed me to understand the basic math modules and the first aid course I attended last year at P.A.L.S.
Since I started learning math, I have gained confidence and now have goals that I want to reach. I can now fulfill my life-long wish to pursue an education. Thank you to Nelly and to P.A.L.S. for helping me.