Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Archives - Page 4 of 11

The Simple Things That Matter

March 26, 2015

Charles M. Hornstra, 2012-2013, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Malaysia (sixth from right, in green shirt), with the SMK Indahpura Dodgeball Team posing for a picture in the rain after practice

Living on the outskirts of a jungle, adapting to different spicy foods, eating with your hands, bearing the relentless heat, and being the only foreigner in the community who does not speak the native language were all experiences that quickly became a part of my life while living in Kulaijaya, Malaysia, as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at SMK Indahpura.

At the beginning of the year, most of the students were excited to see me, but many of them would only stare from afar and avoid interaction for fear of having to use their English. After a few weeks of embarrassing myself through games, lessons, and many awkward attempts to get a laugh, I finally was able to gain the trust of the students while forming one of the most amazing bonds that I have ever experienced in my life–one that I will never forget.

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U.S. Fulbright

Un Natale Viterbese

March 5, 2015

Card games on Christmas at Valentina’s house (clockwise from front center: Sara Hales, 2014-2015, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Italy, Alessandro Foti, Giulio Merlani, Alessandro Petricca, Valentina Petricca, Federico Fuser, Chiara Fersini, Daniele Ragni, Cristiano Petrini, Riccardo delle Monache, Cristina Cecchetti I spent Christmas Eve and Day with one of my teachers, Orietta

I’ve been putting off writing this post because I don’t really know where to begin in describing my Italian Christmas experience. Throughout December, I anxiously anticipated my first Christmas away from my family with a mixture of excitement and dread. The holiday itself here in Viterbo, Italy, where I am working as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA), was likewise a mixture of the familiar and the new. As I walked through the bancarelle downtown, I got to see, smell, and participate in the charming European tradition of the Christmas market. But even this became a reminder of the commercialism of Christmas that many in the United States have tried to move away from. Italy is not immune from the commercialization of Christmas, and many that I’ve met here have expressed disdain for the market booths filled with useless trinkets. I was quite pleased, however, to discover a box of Christmas decorations in my apartment, so in true American fashion, I put them up the day after Thanksgiving.

A few days later, a friend came over and was surprised to see my decorations already displayed. Locals decorate for Christmas on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8. So I had jumped the gun, but this was luckily rectified by my adopted family who invited me over to have lunch and help them decorate their home on December 8.

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U.S. Fulbright

Beginnings: Making Your First Contact

February 5, 2015

Giuseppe Cespedes, 2011-2012, Fulbright ETA to Brazil (left, with guitar), on his first visit to the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, playing music to his then future students, having a casual conversation (in his initially limited Portuguese), and enjoying some delicious Brazilian pastries

When you are applying for Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant, remember that Fulbright is not solely about assistant teaching English or about doing research; you need to dig deeper. Fulbright was my community in Pontal, a small beach town in the city of Ilhéus, Brazil. It was the place where I made my first group of Brazilian friends, where I learned how to dance forró, and where I practiced capoeira. As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, Fulbright placed me at the forefront of my first English class at Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, a state university where students from all across the state of Bahia came to attend. My students, pushed by their curiosity, unabashedly asked me questions about my life and my perspectives on Brazilian culture. I tried my best to answer with my limited Portuguese. I was teaching while being taught. My students were my most encouraging Portuguese teachers, and the more we learned from each other, the closer we became as a group.

My students weren’t always the most confident English speakers, so I thought to incorporate music into the classroom to ease the tension. It started off with simple classroom activities, but it quickly spawned into a small choir of dedicated students with different levels of English. The choir met outside of class hours, performed at one of our campus-wide presentations, and we even recorded a few songs at the university recording studio. The choir wasn’t anything fancy or professional, but the students took to it and – if only for a moment – they sang without being consumed by self-awareness of their pronunciation.

Fulbright made me appreciate my own uniqueness, and it brought me into another culture I would have never otherwise experienced. If you want to be tourist, there are several ways to travel, but if you want to grow within a community, then Fulbright might be for you.

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U.S. Fulbright

Light Dispels Dark – Chanukah in Berlin

January 29, 2015

Michael Snow, 2014-2015, Germany, center, discussing the holiday of Chanukah and its significance with friends in Berlin (Photo courtesy of Amira Mintz-Morgenthau)

The smells and sights of this holiday party – onions and potatoes frying in oil, neatly arranged candles waiting to be lit, some Hebrew tunes playing from a MacBook – were unfamiliar to most of the people present.

That said, four months into my year of living in Berlin, Germany, as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, celebrating Chanukah with new German friends was the most natural way I would choose to celebrate the holiday.

“Hash browns?” one friend asks, pointing the seasoned potatoes bubbling in oil on the stovetop of my friends’ apartment. “Latkes,” I clarify, the oil symbolizing one of the miracles of Chanukah. New recipe, ancient tradition.

“What’s this all about, anyway?” another friend asks, as we take seats on the floor to enjoy a delicious holiday food mash-up: Sufganiot (Chanukah jelly donuts) served alongside homemade Glühwein, a hot spiced red wine thoroughly enjoyed by Germans as the temperatures drop.

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Fulbright in Motion

Fulbright in Motion: November

November 17, 2014

Many of you may have seen Fulbright around your town lately. Here’s a recap of where we’ve been in the past month!

Washington, D.C.:

The Fulbright Program and Gilman Program were represented at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s Leadership Institute by alumni and the Institute of International Education staff. This event hosts over 450 students from from public Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and teaches them skills they need to be competitive in the marketplace.

Fulbright and Gilman Program alumni shared their excitement from their experiences with students interested in studying abroad at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s Leadership Institute.

Fulbright Student and Scholar Program Alumni hosted the Fulbright Alumni Photography Exhibit at The Atrium Gallery at the Ronald Reagan Building. Fulbright Alumni Ambassador, Kristen Erthum, presented on Nov. 8, at the gallery on her experience as an English Teaching Assistant in Egypt. Visit the gallery’s Facebook page to learn more.

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U.S. Fulbright

The Importance of a Smile: Creating a Culture of English in a Spanish High School

October 2, 2014

Rio Bauce, 2012-2013, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Spain (right, standing), observing a student delegate speak about clean water in a UN conference committee in CRIF Las Acacias in Madrid

I would like to dedicate this post to my mother, Meryl Zelda Kolevzon, who has provided me with the inspiration for this article. In August 1998, she passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. She would have been 69 on October 9th, 2014. Her ability to smile through all of her struggles has showed me the power a smile on those around you, even when they are under difficult circumstances.

The sense of wonder a student feels after a teacher pauses in the middle of a thrilling story, a high-pitched laugh at a joke told on the schoolyard, a parent admiring their child’s drawing of a goat. Curiosity, humor, and joy are emotions that make lasting imprints on a child’s education. In April 2012, I was selected to become a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in Madrid, Spain. That September, I left California to be an ETA at IES José Luis Sampedro in Tres Cantos, Spain. On the first day of school, teachers and students at my suburban school thirty kilometers outside of Madrid were nervous to begin school and hoped that everything would function smoothly. From my experience, the last three years teaching in a classroom setting, one of the most powerful tools that teachers have in their arsenal to make students feel safe is an uncompromising smile.

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