Tag Archives: international

Writing Resumes in Bulgaria

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“Ivan Vazov” Foreign Language High School, Smolyan, Bulgaria

My 12th graders have a huge range of goals, some are pursuing university in Bulgaria, while others will head to universities in the UK or Germany. An equal amount expect to go straight into the work force, domestically and abroad. A couple have expressed interest in the military.

As I was brainstorming for lesson plans, there was one writing assignment that stood out as being useful for every single one of them: resume writing.

I took the things I’ve learned from CP&R over the years, borrowed some tips and tricks from their page on the Scripps website, and adapted it for presentation to my high school students. We were able to practice work-related verbs and appropriate tenses (the difference between “filing documents” and “filling documents”). There was a lot of “what is it called in English if you are someone who does XYZ.”

My co-teacher and I printed out and distributed the “EuroPass” CV form, a common form used by employers throughout Europe. After having discussed the components and important parts of resume-writing the week before, we gave them the 45-minute class period to fill out the form and hand them back for evaluation.

Having an actual form in front of them allowed for more specific questions and gave us a space to problem-solve some of the issues unique to them. There’s no name for the qualification you have upon graduating high school in Bulgaria that would be equivalent to “high school diploma,” so they were unsure what to write on the line for “title of qualification.” We went over the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, so they would know how to self-assess and report their language skills on their CV.

Most students here don’t have part-time or summer jobs, as their aren’t an abundance of jobs to go around. There weren’t even any babysitters in the group, as families here generally can’t afford to hire them. With this in mind, we thought about how they can interpret the experiences and occasional job they do have for use on a resume. Among my group we had a class representative, a freelance sports writer, Guinness World Record-holding bagpiper, and mushroom factory worker.

Even if they never need to write a CV or resume in English, I hope the exercise of thinking about their strengths, abilities and experiences will be helpful wherever they scout for jobs. And for those of my students who will be applying to jobs and universities abroad, this was a good start for them to think about how they represent themselves on applications in another language.

How do I know it was a success?

Other teachers heard about the lesson, and asked me to work through it with their classes as well. When suffering from culture shock and trying to survive the first year of teaching, there’s nothing better than the feeling that you’ve done something right. Many thanks to CP&R for teaching my resume-writing skills. Now I can pay it forward.

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.

Fulbright Part 2: Working on the Application

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There’s a reason this post is not titled “How to Write the Perfect Fulbright Application.” I cannot tell you the secrets of THE perfect Fulbright app, because a successful application, I suspect, is less about being the Best. Applicant. Ever and more about making a convincing argument that you and your country of choice would make a productive partnership. Here are some ideas for how to craft your own best application.

• Spend time picking the right country for you. You can read about my country-choosing process here, or Adelina Solis ’11 perspective in this post.

We all came for different reasons… but no one came because they were already fluent in Bulgarian. Half our ETA cohort and our language teacher, Diana, in Beginning Bulgarian Language. Fulbright International Summer Institute, 2012.

• Don’t be afraid to take questions to the Fulbright Program Adviser or other staff on-campus. They are busy people, so respect their time and make sure your question hasn’t already been answered on the Fulbright or Scripps websites.

• The Off-Campus Study office keeps binders full of successful Fulbright applications. Do spend time reading them. I went back a couple of times. I found it helpful to take notes and write down ideas I had as I was reading. Take notice of what people list under publications, awards, abstract, and future career goals. No one will tell you how exactly to write these sections, but you may find ideas for what to include and how.

• If you’ve been abroad before, or have previous teaching experience, think about the moments that have stuck with you. Because Fulbright’s mission is to foster mutual understanding, moments that focus on cultural or interpersonal exchange may provide good anecdotal fodder for personal statements.

• If you have a side project, craft it to be mutually beneficial for your country and yourself. If I stayed inside writing science fiction all day, I wouldn’t be interacting much with the culture. With a travel writing focus, I practice my writing, interact with the country, and hopefully help others interact with Bulgaria as well. Other ETAs here plan to volunteer at orphanages, teach music to Roma kids, and practice cartography in their placement cities; use something you’re passionate about.

Cultural exchange can be as simple as teaching Bulgarians the “Wobble.” Fulbright International Summer Institute, 2012.

• Finish at least one draft of your personal statements and grant purpose in time to have the Writing Center take a look. Taking criticism can be hard, for these personal essays even more so than with academic essays (I cried, and I doubt I was the first to do so). The Writing Center staff is there to offer support and constructive feedback. Their ideas can lead to fruitful revision, but it means being vulnerable and open to suggestion.

• Be honest in your application essays. I mention it, because it’s important that you know your essays may be used not only to decide whether or not to award you the Fulbright, but may also determine (in the case of ETAs) where in the country you’ll be placed. It might be a matter of where your side-project (if you have one) will best be completed, or where your hobbies might be accomplished. My own essays mentioned Bulgaria’s natural beauty and my semester learning Balkan Dance. My placement is in Bulgaria’s most beautiful mountain range, and my predecessor took Bulgarian Dance classes at the community center. Coincidence? Nope.

• Make sure you can articulate to yourself WHY you want to do this, WHAT you’ll get out of it, HOW you’ll approach various aspects of the grant (language learning, culture shock, teaching), and ANY reservations you have. Figure out how to address these questions before talking to faculty recommenders, and certainly before your interview. If you’re confident in yourself, they will be confident in you too.

• If you need a neurotic online community, check out the Fulbright thread on the Grad Café forums. I appreciated knowing that the anxiety was not mine alone.

These are my tips for navigating the Fulbright application process. I’ll admit they are biased towards the ETA application, where I have experience. What suggestions would you add to this list?

Fulbright Part 1: How I Chose Bulgaria

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It’s hard to believe that it was exactly one year ago that I was starting my last year at Scripps and frantically preparing my Fulbright application. It’s even harder to believe that the “Dancing of the Balkans” class I took junior year to fulfill my fine arts requirement is about to become a practical life skill here in Bulgaria. Some of you may be considering a Fulbright application yourself. Here’s how I chose this little-known Balkan country for my English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) application.

Credit: Google Maps

But first I am obligated to tell you that my ideas and opinions are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any affiliated agencies.

It actually took me two years to settle on a particular country, because I’m a neurotic planner (an INFJ, heavy on the J, in Myers-Briggs terms). There are over 60 countries with ETA programs. I started with an open-mind, and narrowed down my list from there. I started by crossing out those countries for which I was ineligible, or much less preferred (e.g. those countries requiring language proficiency, prior teaching experience, or strongly preferring masters students). I took 3 years of French in high school, 2 years of Italian in college, but I didn’t actually speak either language, so I nixed countries where my level of language ability would be a detriment to my application.

Next, I followed the advice of then Associate Dean of Faculty Thierry Boucquey and focused on countries that had ~30% acceptance rate or better. Statistics regarding the number of grants available and the number of applicants from the previous year are available on the Fulbright website (here). Applying to Bulgaria, a country that has historically drawn fewer ETA applicants than its fellow EU nations, allowed my application to stand out. I also noticed during my research phase that the size of the Bulgaria program was growing; Bulgaria only offered 2 ETA placements in 2008, and offers 25 for the upcoming year. You can see how many ETAs a country has hosted over the years by browsing the Fulbright grantee directory.

By this time, my list was a manageable size and spanned Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Southeast Asia. Then I began thinking about my own preferences. A classroom full of 7-year-olds is my worst nightmare, so I narrowed it down to programs teaching high school and above. I don’t function well in hot weather, so I researched the climates of my remaining countries and crossed out the hottest and most humid of the lot. From what I had left, the Balkans interested me the most, but I knew I had no “demonstrated interest” in the region.

At this point, two years ago, I searched the word “Balkan” in the 5-C class schedule and came up with two possibilities. “Dancing in the Balkans” with Pomona Professor Anthony Shay later inspired my European Studies minor. I took a class in Comparative European Politics. I read the blogs of previous ETA grantees. I read articles about Balkan countries on travel sites, like the Matador Network. I researched the unique Fulbright summer institute opportunity for ETAs to Bulgaria. Everything I read appealed to me more and more.

Pravets, Bulgaria, the site of the 2012 Fulbright International Summer Institute and ETA training.

Now, Fulbright in hand, I’m heading to a town in the mountains where folk dance is still a popular form of entertainment. I’m learning a language that will, most likely, be of little utility in my future endeavors, but hey—I never thought I’d dance the horo again either.

Did you have a different strategy or alternative criteria for choosing a Fulbright destination? Share your process in the comments below!