The University of Notre Dame hosted its 12th annual summer orientation for the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants (FLTA) Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Institute of International Education, on campus Aug. 5-9. This year, 69 teaching assistants from 32 countries attended a series of workshops designed to enhance their teaching in the United States.
The orientation prepared the teaching assistants, most of whom had never been to the U.S., for the academic year ahead, when they will go to an American college or university to teach their native languages and cultures. Sessions during the orientation covered topics including course planning and grading, the U.S. banking system and technology in the classroom.
Their orientation experience included a tour of the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend and a farewell banquet to which the FLTA program participants were invited to wear the traditional dress of their home countries.
The FLTA program brings approximately 400 foreign language teachers from more than 50 countries to the U.S. Notre Dame is one of only six orientation locations chosen by IIE in a highly selective process to host these teachers and help prepare them for the year ahead. After the orientation program, the majority of the teachers left to attend their host schools across the U.S. Eleven are staying at the University of Notre Dame: Raghdaa Abouserie (Arabic, Egypt); Gourab Ghosh (Bengali, India); Han-Wen Hsu (Chinese, Taiwan); Charlotte Lange (German, Germany); Seaghan Mac an tSionnaigh (Irish, Ireland); Mamiko Tokuda (Japanese, Japan); Rossana Luna (Portuguese, Brazil); Valentina Kurenshchikova (Russian, Russia); Silvia Junde (Swahili, Tanzania); Gunes Tunc (Turkish, Turkey); and Thao Nguyen (Vietnamese, Vietnam).
The teachers at this year’s Notre Dame orientation came from Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nigeria, Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Taiwan, Tanzania, Turkey, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
The orientation was organized and funded by the Fulbright Commission, a program of the Institute for International Education, which is sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Originally published by at news.nd.edu on August 03, 2017.