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Schuyler

FLTA

When I Wanted Time to Freeze: My Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Experience

October 22, 2015
Nihan Yilmaz

Nihan Yilmaz, 2014-2015, Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant from Turkey, painting the walls at Blackshear Elementary School, Austin, TX as part of a volunteering project

 Have you ever been involved in something in which time goes by so fast that you find yourself saying, “Has it already been four months? Feels like I just started!” I have. I do not think words are enough to express how lucky I feel to participate in the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship (FLTA) Program, where time literally flies, leaving good memories and experiences behind.

Let me start with my language teaching experiences, which actually began before I started my Fulbright FLTA Program at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). Even before my departure from Turkey, I prepared many things to share with my future students. One of them was organizing a demonstration of a Turkish bridal party or “henna night.” I brought everything that I needed to make it as authentic as possible, and last year on November 7, I held the best Turkish bridal party ever! Many guests from other UT departments came and took photos and told me that they thought everything was superb! I taught my students some Turkish wedding dance moves and played traditional songs as if it were an actual henna night. It was a memorable event, not just for my students and guests, but for me as well. Now I am thinking of doing a similar activity with one of my Turkish classes. I plan on giving some presentations about Turkey and Turkish culture, and taking every opportunity to teach them about my culture. Moreover, I will be teaching additional classes next semester. I was asked to teach informal classes on Turkish culture at UT Austin with open enrollment. This means that I will be teaching Turkish culture not just to UT students, but to whoever wants to enroll, so my audience will be getting bigger and bigger! And I am consequently getting more excited to share my culture with a wider range of people from my host community.

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U.S. Fulbright

English by Day, German by Night

October 19, 2015
Larena Nellies-Ortiz

Larena Nellies-Ortiz, 2013-2014, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Germany (right, in blue jacket), with a group of her sixth grade students on an excursion in Spandau, Berlin

On my last day as a Fulbright English Language Teaching Assistant (ETA) at the Paul Moor Elementary School in Berlin, Germany, the fifth and sixth grade classes shyly presented me with a colorful booklet. It was filled with students’ most memorable moments in my English class. Some wrote about the time they tried salty seaweed and chili sprinkled mango, and were charged with the task of guessing what they were called. Others remembered researching and leading a sightseeing tour through their neighborhood. During these activities, I noticed students who had shown little participation during regular class time were now fully engaged, attentive and willing to try their English in a new setting. As an ETA, I had the freedom to create engaging material that would resonate with students. Of course, I got my fair share of blank stares, as any teacher would have, but those moments were heavily outweighed by the countless times students stepped out of their comfort zone and into the possibility of genuine learning and exchange.

After school hours, I continued to teach, but in a different setting and language. I joined a group of dedicated volunteers to teach German to refugees through Multitude e.V., an organization that provides German language classes to refugees across Berlin. Drop-in evening lessons took place at the public housing where refugees lived, and on any given day, topics ranged from basic literacy skills, to practical tips on everyday life in Germany. My students and I found common ground in our shared experiences of navigating a society and culture different from our own. Participating in the Fulbright ETA Program gave me an opportunity to help create a foundation for cultural exchange and mutual understanding by integrating into the community and contributing my skills in a meaningful way. The stories and connections I shared with students were vital to revealing how our differences in origin, language and culture were a tool, rather than a barrier, to achieving our language learning goals.

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Foreign Fulbright

Dance to Love

October 15, 2015
Minh Tuyet Bui

Minh Tuyet Bui, 2013-2015, Vietnam (center), performs her dance “Dreamer’s Café” with Heidi Stonier and Bryan Wilson at the Center for Modern Dance Education, New Jersey.

My dance/movement journey started in 2010 when I read the book Dance as a Healing Art by Anna Halprin. To this day, I am grateful for her spirit and wisdom. It empowered me to cross the ocean on a Fulbright grant to become a Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) student in the United States at Sarah Lawrence College.

After 10 years of experience in education, I have observed that the teaching methods currently in use in Vietnam cause students to suffer. Students are rarely encouraged to observe, ask questions or think critically in order to make their own decisions. In an ideal environment, students must learn inner leadership, personal responsibility, and self-discovery. They should add value to the world by playing a part in it. In this respect, traditional education is failing.

By experiencing my own body through movement and applying this experience in teaching, I see how creative movement empowers students to develop personality and strengthen their inner leadership. In one of my classes, “Movement with Nature,” I guided children to make physical contact and engage all the senses with a tree. Students pay attention to feelings, emotions and images stimulated by their contact with the tree, then are asked to dance with the tree and find their relationship to it. The tree is in you and you are in the tree. After that, they draw the tree and write about their experience. Children identify with nature by projecting themselves into the form of a tree through movement. From this process, they can obtain rich insights and meaningful connections to their life needs. One shy girl shared, “My tree is scared to sleep alone.” Another said, “My tree doesn’t like being hit.” Another child saw the trees as endless, a home that offered strength and safety. “I am here if you need help” her tree said.

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U.S. Fulbright

Fulbright U.S. Student Applications Are Due Today. Good Luck to All Applicants!

October 13, 2015

Submitting a Fulbright U.S. Student Program application today by 5:00 p.m. EDT and want to know what happens next? Check out our interactive application timeline that shows you what happens month-to-month, before, during – and after – you’ve submitted your online application.

Have last minute questions? Contact us! We wish this year’s applicants the best of luck!

Fulbright Timeline - 2015

 

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U.S. Fulbright

Living the ‘High Life’: Studying the Music of Ghana

October 8, 2015
Ben Cohn - 1

Benjamin Cohn, 2014-2015, Fulbright-mtvU Fellow to Ghana (right), with friend and colleague Ba-ere Yotere on the coast of Accra, the country’s capital

My name is Benjamin Cohn, and I recently returned to San Francisco after a year in Accra, Ghana on a Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship researching the roles that music plays in society, its power to enact real change, and Ghana’s educational infrastructure. These research interests quickly led me to the Bizung School of Music and Dance in Tamale, the Northern region of Ghana. While a big portion of my grant was focused on conducting interviews, writing, and engaging in more theoretical practices (described below), my goal has always been to put my Fulbright grant to good use, which is why I am currently running a campaign for the school.

Although I am not a musician, I have worked in various aspects of “the industry” from radio to concert production and promotion. I maintain a hip-hop website and have contributed articles to many sites including Afropop Worldwide, TeamBackPack and KevinNottingham. Through my Fulbright Fellowship, I was able to immerse myself in the Ghanaian popular and traditional music scenes completely. I did camera work for educational documentaries, created a web series featuring episodic video profiles of contemporary musicians, wrote a video treatment for an up and coming artist and even found my way into the music video of the 2015 Ghana’s Best Rapper (The Ghana Music Award Winner). All of these relationships, and more, led to a serious cultural exchange any time we got together.

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