From Lebanon to Yerevan with new ideas and missions

The story of the A+ Skills training center should begin with the story of the founding director, Armine. Armine is from Lebanon. She says that she dreamed of having such a center for a long time. "I worked as an English teacher in Lebanon for many years, as well as in various publishing houses, where we compiled and published textbooks. I wanted to put the experience, ideas and innovative methods accumulated during those many years into teaching." However, establishing a training center in Lebanon was risky. As Armine says, a war situation could have arisen and all the efforts you had put in would simply disappear. 

In 2015, Armine moved to Armenia, studied the field of education and for some time worked in several educational centers. "In the year 2000, there were many reforms in the field of education aimed at transforming education from theoretical to more applied. That very year I graduated from the university, participated in many trainings, taught in different centers, worked in publishing houses producing textbooks, and when I came to Armenia, so many years of experience allowed me to notice local problems and gaps."

According to Armine, the biggest gap in the teaching of foreign languages in Armenia is that instead of developing practical skills, emphasis is placed on theoretical knowledge. "Actually, knowing a foreign language means being able to use it. There are many cases when people come and say that they want to take a spoken English class, but in reality there is no such division like "spoken English", to learn a language means to master that language completely and be able to apply it in life.

Armine says that although A+ skills was officially founded in 2017, we can say that the history of the school began in the summer of 2016, when several parents from Lebanon asked Armine to practice English with their children. "I continued to conduct an active classroom. We practiced English with the children in different places, depending on the topic we were studying. We used to go to the park and other places of entertainment, and when I saw that the interest was growing, I wanted to have my own school."

In the beginning, it was particularly difficult for Armine to choose teachers and staff, she decided to train those specialists who had a good command of the language, but not so much in teaching methods. And today, Armine no longer teaches alone at the school.