Tag Archives: Fulbright

Introducing My Students: They’re… well, teenagers.

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As I researched programs and opportunities to teach English abroad, I noticed a prevalent (and conveniently marketable) idea that all students abroad, particularly in newly industrialized and developing countries, love and are grateful for any education. Now this is a trend that perpetuates neo-colonialism, white-savior complexes, and a whole lot of other –isms I’m not going to get into right now. What I am going to talk about is how my experience hasn’t resembled the classroom full of wide-eyed, smiling kids you’ll find when you Google “teach abroad.”

My students are doing their eyeliner, teasing their hair, texting and even leaving to answer their phones in the hall (at least they don’t answer it in the classroom?). Then there is the sudoku, the driver’s manuals, the earbuds with music just loud enough so that everyone can hear it, and the constant chatter of people in the back. There’s the girl who turns her chair all the way around to talk to the girl behind her, and the boy who comes to class late and immediately starts talking loudly about how he is bored. There are the boys who walk into class 20 minutes late, and the couple in the front row who are always cuddling. I set my rules and expectations clearly the first day, harshed down the second, but I only see each class once a week. I’m faced with the dilemma of enforcing rules (something akin to whack-a-mole), or using my short 45-minutes to teach something to those willing to listen and only commenting on outrageous breaches of conduct.

If you only observed the first day of school, this might not be the classroom environment you expect. I arrived at Ivan Vazov’s quad (a large cement rectangle that hosts stealthily smoking teens and playground games after school), to find all grades, quite a few parents and all the teachers gathered around the speakers blasting a dubstep remix of Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling.” The official ceremony included speeches by the principal and local big-wigs. Students loaded down their teachers with bouquets of flowers.  Students gave musical performances, read poetry, and danced traditional Bulgarian steps. One of my 12th graders played the gaida (a traditional Bulgarian bagpipe) as teachers and students lined up for a symbolic processional into the school, eating a piece of bread dipped in honey as they crossed over the threshold. A Fulbright scholar here doing fieldwork in Anthropology observed this ritual and pointed out that rituals don’t represent what is, but instead harken back to a golden, mythical age (Mircea Eliade, and a huge shout out to the RLST department). In this case, the ritual recalls some time under Ottoman rule, when the three most revered people in town were the mayor, clergy leader, and school-teacher.

A colorguard leads the processional

Younger students present themselves in the mandatory school uniform

A 10th grade English teacher carries an armful of flowers from her new students, who have forsaken their uniforms for the day

This isn’t to say I don’t have some awesome students. One student has emailed me detailed questions regarding university in America, and another asked where she might be able to find a paperback of the Great Gatsby. Five of my twenty-five 12th graders turned in the short personal essays I assigned, and they were a delight for me to read. My 8th graders have a lot of energy and someone always volunteers. On birthdays and name-days, students and teachers bring in large boxes of chocolate to share. This Saturday, the school marked World Walking Day with a school-wide hike to Balieva Voda, springs with purported healing properties.

Teaching here is a challenge, but it’s not all bad. If anything, it’s just louder than I expected.

The Job Description

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On the Fulbright website, the English Teaching Assistant job description is as follows:

In most cases, ETAs:

  • Are placed in schools or universities outside of capital cities
  • Are assigned various activities designed to improve their students’ language abilities and knowledge of the United States
  • Are fully integrated into the host community, increasing their own language skills and knowledge of the host country
  • May pursue individual study/research plans in addition to ETA responsibilities

This description is necessarily vague, because each country dictates where and how ETAs will be most useful. Even within countries, the job can vary greatly.

The view from my kitchen in Smolyan, Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, all the ETAs are placed at Foreign Language High Schools. Some are in cities of several hundred thousand inhabitants. My town, Smolyan, is a town of 30,000 in the Rhodope Mountains of Southern Bulgaria. For reference, 30,000 is roughly the population of Claremont, but Smolyan doesn’t have the added benefit of surrounding towns like Pomona, Montclair, and LaVerne. Smolyan simply is the urban center of this region, and the bus station here acts as the transportation hub to surrounding villages, which range in population from several thousand to only several hundred. The nearest city (and mall and fastfood chain) are three hours north in Plovdiv.

The English hall of my school, GPCHE “Ivan Vazov”

At school, I’m responsible for 16 classes a week, about 4 per day Monday through Thursday. I work with every single English student in my high school, which amounts to 300+ names and faces. I never see any class more than once per week, so learning their names has been a slow process. While I work with all English students in all five grade-levels (8-12), some ETAs here spend all of their time with one grade level, often the 8th graders.

The opening ceremony was filled with speeches and student performances, including a student singing Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day.

Most students receive basic English instruction starting in 3rd or 4th grade, but our 8th graders start again at the very beginning and move quickly through a curriculum designed to get them from A1 (breakthrough or beginner) to B1 (threshold or intermediate) on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

 

For 9th and 10th graders, I lead discussion classes. My goal is to get them speaking and actively using English. For the 11th graders, I am their once-a-week “English through Literature” class, meaning we will somehow move from mythology to Steinbeck over the course of the year. I’ve been asked to focus on writing with my 12th graders, though speaking is an important part of class, too. I’ve also been asked to help with a Creative Writing club that meets approximately once-a-week. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting an American Movie Club, primarily because I’d like a venue for showing 10 Things I Hate About You, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Forrest Gump, staples in any American cultural education.

Girls in traditional Rhodopean attire serve bread and honey to students and teachers as they cross the threshold into school on the first day

Before I arrived in Bulgaria, the Fulbright Commission sent paperwork, which included an outline of my job responsibilities. Although this was a contract, it was also, apparently, an approximation and my job duties look quite different on the ground than they did on paper. Those changes and uncertainties were a source of anxiety for me, and I’m glad to finally have a solid and clear idea of what I’m doing each week with each class… unfortunately it took well until after school started for me to get there. If you couldn’t tell from my previous post about planning, “going with the flow” is not something at which I excel, but I’m learning.

On Interviews and Business Casual

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By my next blog post, I’ll have completed the three interviews I have scheduled for next week; there are lots of mock and campus interviews in my future.

I’m guessing this is likely the last year I’ll have to differentiate actual interviews from fake ones, and I feel fortunate to have CP&R as a resource that is able to provide the mocks. If you haven’t utilized their mock interviews I would highly recommend scheduling one. In my mock Fulbright interview with Gretchen, I was able to respond to questions directly related to the Fulbright and then go over how my answers could have been stronger. While I know we are all brilliant and qualified for the fellowships, internships, and jobs we’ll be interviewing for, it only makes sense to take advantage of the practice runs that are mock interviews. Having certain responses down, e.g. a challenging situation and how you got through it and grew from it, will mean you can focus your energies during the conversation on being articulate and engaging rather than scrambling for answers. This will make a huge difference, and I can tell you this with 100% authority as someone who interviews prospective students and sits through quite a few both very well prepared for and ill prepared for interviews every week.  For your viewing pleasure, this is one of my favorite interview scenes ever. Here’s hoping nothing like this ever happens to you!

This brings me to my next and quite related subject, which is interview and job attire. In honor of CP&R’s recent professional dress fashion show, I’ll be talking a little bit about what I’ve been wearing to work interviewing prospective students with the Scripps Office of Admissions. The fact of the matter is, I kind of always thought that I would hate wearing professional dress or even business casual because it would be restricting and no fun. Instead, it turns out I adore it. The secrets to the ease in which I’ve been dressing are two: Marshalls and Forever 21. At these two stores, I found a number of very inexpensive jackets, pencil skirts and flowy pleated skirts, and blouses (sleeveless, short sleeve, and button-up) in a wide enough variety of colors and patterns that even after a month of piecing together outfits for the office, I’m able to mix things up. Throw in fun jewelry like that wooden fish necklace I picked up at a garage sale this summer and some staples, namely black straight-legged trousers from Gap and incredibly comfortable black flats from Born, and I have lots of delightful outfits to wear to work.

How are other fellowship applicants feeling about the upcoming interviews? Which questions are you looking forward to answering and which are you dreading? And most importantly, should I do a work attire photo shoot for next week’s blog? Vote yes or no in the comments section. Have a great week, everyone!

Post-mock, pre-real interview thoughts and reflections

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First and foremost—a huge congratulations to everyone who submitted Fulbright and Watson applications last week! We did it—wahoo! On Friday, I had my mock-interview in preparation for the actual Fulbright interview this week. It was so helpful that I decided to share some general tips that I think can apply universally to any interview:

1) It is okay to pause. During interviews, I am so anxious to start talking that I immediately plunge into an answer. I sometimes end up missing the actual point of the question (not ideal) and a train-wreck of fragmented thoughts instead spills out. Silence in an interview feels terribly awkward, but actually pausing a moment to think about the question and mentally outline a response will help you immensely. It is perfectly, 100% acceptable to take a second (though it may seem like a painful eternity to you) to organize and collect your thoughts. Ultimately, you will sound more articulate, qualified, and confident because your reply will be well formulated and structured rather than a jumble of disjointed ideas.

2) Select, in advance, a list of five achievements/ experiences/ qualities that you definitely want to incorporate into the interview. For instance, personally significant moments in my life (that are relevant in a Fulbright context) include studying public health in India, working with AmeriCorps last summer, building community through spearheading various South Asian organizations on campus—and so on. By pre-preparing concrete cases that truly define me and speak to my interests, I can be presented with any question and be prepared with a solid answer. Entering the interview with five specific points to highlight, I will adapt them to a question and work to weave them into my response. The goal is that this will help eliminate any curve-balls and make it so that you are not scrambling for an example to draw on during the interview.

3) Don’t shy away from your own greatness. The hardest question in any interview for me is “We have many strong applicants—why should we choose you?” I feel wildly uncomfortable by questions that so directly shine the spotlight on me and my qualifications, and I know others share this unease as well. My friend recently had a mock interview at CP&R for medical school, and while describing her involvement on campus, she failed to mention that she serves in positions of leadership—including president—in many of the organizations. In emphasizing the important and meaningful work of the organizations, she unknowingly downplayed her role and minimized her own outstanding contributions. It has been extensively proven that women are socially conditioned from childhood to be modest and humble. The resulting hesitation to take ownership of our personal merit and success means that we are constantly devaluing our strengths and experiences. (Did you know that one of the reasons for the wage gap between women and men is that men will aggressively negotiate a salary while women are much more likely to accept an offer immediately without any discussion?) An interview is meant for you to market yourself, and while I’m not encouraging you to lavishly embellish every minor detail of your life, I think it is imperative that we actively work on being comfortable with self-promotion and proudly voicing our unique achievements and ambitions. Don’t short-change yourself.

Life After Scripps (happening NOW!) is offering various workshops that address this critical issue. Be sure to check out ‘Negotiating Skills’ on Tuesday and ‘Crafting Your Identity: Personal Branding and The Post-Scripps Transition’ on Wednesday for expert guidance and advice on how to effectively communicate your worth.

In reference to last week’s blog entry, my friends vetoed the black blazer and grey pants combination (Where would I be in life without them to dress me?). Here are some pictures featuring our interview outfits if you are searching for a little inspiration:

Not the most flattering of pictures (it was really early in the morning in our defense), but Emily and me in the Motley beforehand doing mock mock-interviews.

Bryn (another fellow blogger!) and me after our interviews at the lovely CP&R staff lunch. 

My friend Monica looking super trendy for her mock-interview on Friday as well. Yay!

It is Officially Application Crunch Time

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I think I heard a collective sigh of relief emanate from Claremont Monday at 5:00PM as several seniors hit the ‘submit’ button on their Fulbright/ Watson fellowship applications. I am so incredibly thrilled to be applying for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Fulbright in Malaysia, but I am also looking forward to nearing the end of the Part 1 of the process (Part 2 is the interview with a Scripps committee). It has been hard to keep focus on thesis and school work because all of my free time these past couple of weeks has been devoted to application editing, editing, and oh yes… more editing (I think I can recite my statements from memory at this point).

My decision to apply for a Fulbright was prompted by several reasons. First, I knew I wanted to take a couple years off before applying to graduate school for my masters in public health. I think it’s important that I give myself the time to gain a full and deep understanding of global health through experimenting with different jobs, internships, and research projects before I dive into a specific grad program. Because right now I am learning towards international health, being abroad after graduation was a high priority. As I was investigating the range of possibilities to gain international experience, the ETA Fulbright program in particular stuck out as a fantastic opportunity. Not only would I get to explore a country I’ve never been to, but I would also get to teach English and propel a mission that I feel really strongly about. My time studying in India evolved this passion. Working in rural villages (which is where 70% of India resides), made me confront and accept that reality that mobility and advancement is only imaginable and truly achievable through knowledge of English. Language access is a HUGE barrier to breaking the cycle of poverty and marginalization, something I had never completely understood prior to studying abroad because I come from a privileged position where English and all the opportunities it affords were never questioned.

While I’m trying not to put all my eggs in the Fulbright basket—given how competitive the fellowship is— it is still hard to invest so much of your energy and time and self into an application and not feel both hopeful and vulnerable. The last application I recall completing that was this extensive would be college applications, and similar sentiments of excitement and anxiety are resurfacing. However, I am trying to channel those feelings into being proactive. I just downloaded a Malaysian news application, ‘The Star ePaper,’ onto my iPhone and made it my goal to read at least two articles a day to make sure I’m staying current on the latest happenings in the country. Right now, I am waiting to meet with a friend from CMC who is actually from Malaysia so she can share any thoughts and insight she has. I also scheduled a mock interview this week with CP&R, so preparations for that are underway. I’m mentally racking through my closet as I type, trying to assemble an appropriate interview outfit. (Can I wear a black blazer with grey slacks? Help! Stay tuned for a later post on what concoction ends up coming together.) While the process can seem overwhelming at times, all of these actions have helped me feel calmer and more confident in my application, as well as more prepared for the upcoming interview.

Sending lots of calming, de-stressing vibes to all my fellow seniors! I had an orange jasmine tea with almond milk for the first time at the Motley yesterday, and it was very delicious, soothing, and of course, caffeinated. I HIGHLY recommend it for a little kick to push through the weekend. Hang in there and best of luck, friends 🙂 Please share any other tips you have for preparing and managing applications– I know I can use them!