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My Fulbright Life
Transcript For: Amanda Wiehl, Fulbrighter to Poland, 2008.
July 31, 2009
Amanda Wiehl, Fulbrighter to Poland, 2008 discusses her Fulbright experience in Poland.
My Fulbright Life – Amanda Wiehl, Fulbrighter to Poland,
2008
Lee: Hello and welcome to My
Fulbright Life. I’m your host Lee Rivers and I want to thank you for your
listening support. Today, I’m joined by Amanda Wiehl and she’s going to share a
little bit about her Fulbright experience in Poland. Well hey Amanda. I just
want to thank you for taking time out of your day to join me here.
Amanda: Oh, not a problem, I’m happy to do
so.
Lee: Wonderful, Amanda, can you
just begin by telling our listening audience exactly where in Poland you’re
studying and talk a little bit about what you’re doing with your Fulbright
project.
Amanda: Sure. Well, I’m in Poznan,
Poland which is about
halfway between Berlin and Warsaw and I have an English Teaching
Assistantship. And, in Poland,
here, they place their ETAs at universities. So I’m at Adam Mickiewicz
University and I have
second year linguistic and ethnolinguistic students and I actually teach two
sections of a public speaking and academic writing course. So that’s my main
focus, teaching these classes and then I meet with a lot of students outside of
class as well for extra help when they need it. So that’s the main part which
really takes up most of the time I have during the week, a lot of teaching
duties and then meeting with students as well.
Lee: Very nice. So what led you to
apply to Poland,
of all countries?
Amanda: Well, kind of a multitude of factors.
When I was looking to apply to Fulbright I knew I wanted to stay in the Europe region and I looked at some of the different ETA
programs in the different countries. And, depending on which country you’re
looking at, some of them require language proficiencies, some of them don’t.
And so I was looking more in these Eastern Block sort of countries, and I did a
little bit of research, I contacted some of the Fulbrighters in these areas,
asking them about their experiences and what they thought. And I got very
positive reviews from the Polish side and I also have some Polish ancestry, it
goes a little far back, some great-great-great-grandparents, but I do have some
there, so that also prompted me to apply for Poland as well. And I had never
been here before. This was my first time coming here so it was going to be a
completely new experience for me.
Lee: And so, what led you to apply
for the English Teaching side of the Fulbright program.
Amanda: Well, my undergraduate degree was
with elementary education and right after I finished that I went into a masters
program in teaching English as a second language and while I was in that
program I found out about the Fulbright program and I was very intrigued by it.
And I started researching it a little bit more and I found out that with this
English teaching assistantship, depending on which country you’re in it’s shaped
a little differently, but basically you’re there for 9 to 10 months working
with a senior professor. So it’s basically like an internship for teachers,
kind of like student teaching. So it’s a really good learning experience, as
well as a cultural exchange. It fit all these positive qualities, things that I
was looking for. And it just worked out fantastic. I started this Fulbright ETA
program right as I finished up my masters in TESL, so it correlated perfectly
with the two.
Lee: That’s excellent. And so, walk
us through a typical day, Amanda. What’s it like for you on a daily basis, you
know, who are you interacting with, where are you going, and what are you
doing? Not just in the classroom, but a little bit outside of the classroom as
far as preparation is concerned. What is a typical day for you?
Amanda: Sure. Well, usually I get up pretty
early in the morning. Because of the 7 hour time difference between Poland here and the Midwest in the U.S. I
usually have a lot of emails and catching up to do first thing in the morning,
but I’m also getting things ready, especially at the beginning of the week, for
my lessons. Being in Poland,
things just take a little bit more time. I don’t have a printer here so I have
to go to a special copy place to go and take my flash drive to make copies. So
all of this stuff just takes a little bit of time. So there’s a lot of
preparation for my classes. So my university is walking distance from the
dormitory I live in, so I’m able to walk there in 10 or 15 minutes. I have
classes on Mondays and Tuesdays and afterwards usually I meet with students for
several hours. And this has kind of progressed very well over the year. And now
I have different groups of students that I meet with just about everyday. And
some of it is working just with conversation skills; we’ll go to a café and
have coffee and talk in English. And then other students I am working with on
pronunciation. So usually I do that for several hours. And I find that really
rewarding because it’s a social thing for me as well and I’m able to interact
with other Polish people. They appreciate it. There’s not a lot of native
speakers here in Poland
and so it’s a good chance for them to improve their English skills. So it
really is a great cultural exchange as well. But I am also taking a Polish
language course while I am here. So I have Polish lessons so I am learning as
well. So I’m studying that. And then I’ve met different students that are
studying here from the Erasmus program which is the European exchange program
for students to study in other European countries. So I’ve met several of those
students so I’ll meet with them as well to go out to eat, just to meet up. So
my days are pretty filled with meeting a lot of people, actually, which I enjoy
a lot.
Lee: That’s awesome. And, I mean,
that’s the major purpose of the Fulbright program, to develop those
relationships and to be a citizen ambassador in a sense.
Amanda: Right. And I’m in Poland for cultural exchange in Poland, but because of all these international
people that I’m meeting as well, it really is a wonderful cultural exchange
because I’m representing the United
States for these other foreign students and
other international people that I meet. And some of the trips that I’ve done,
it’s the same thing. You are representing the country, so it really is, it’s a
great way to meet new people and exchange ideas and I really love that a lot.
Lee: A major point in doing these
interviews with current Fulbrighters and recent returning Fulbrighters is so
that you guys can give advice to students who are thinking about applying for
the Fulbright program. And so, could you share a little bit of advice with
students about what they can do to prepare their application as well as get
ready for a Fulbright experience?
Amanda: Really, researching the country
beforehand, I think, is really key, to know a bit about the culture and the
language—it can be very beneficial depending on the country. But really get to
know the history of the country and make some kinds of contacts there as well.
I did some of that while I was preparing my application and now I really see
the value of that. Because when I was trying to prepare my proposal, I had a
little bit of information for my side project. But then when I came here I realized
that what I had prepared wasn’t going to work and so I did something completely
different and it worked out great but I think that if maybe I had done a little
bit more research with the culture and with the people here- because there are
some very deep cultural differences- that I think if you can contact, you know,
Americans that are living in that country and get their perspective on things I
think that can really- you know even when you’re preparing your application but
also just before you come over to help settle your nerves a little bit, to get
to know what to expect. It does help if you can know some of the language
before you come over. If it’s a requirement for you to be proficient, that’s
one thing. For Poland, I knew some phrases and a couple of words and for my
first few days here those came in very handy, just knowing hello, thank you,
goodbye, please, where… So those are some things to really consider. That would
be a big point that I’d like to make, just to do some research and to contact people,
if you can, that live in the country to
get their point of view and some tips as well that they may have for you cause
each country’s very different for what to expect.
Lee: Talk a little bit about what
you’re doing on the side, your side project, your- I like to call it your mini
Fulbright project. What are you doing with that?
Amanda: OK, well actually that changed quite
a bit from what I was originally planning on doing. I had originally planned on
doing something with some translations, some movies, more on that aspect of
things but when I came over, my first couple of months that I was in the
classroom, I’m teaching a writing course and so I noticed some big problems
with their discourse, their writing style completely boggled my mind. I couldn’t
make any sense out of it. And so I was talking with my professor and I started
doing some research, just online on Polish discourse and I found a lot of good
information on how this Polish style of writing is completely different from
the English style of writing. And so I started to work on that and I actually
created this action research project, which basically… action research is where
teachers, practicing teachers, use their classroom context to try to improve it
using research and making a plan.. And so that’s what I did with my classroom,
was working with their discourse, creating this action research project, and it
worked out really great. I had the students do a lot of comparison and
contrast, and so from this I made a paper and a presentation on the research
that I found comparing Polish and English discourse and the steps that I took
with this action research and I’ve actually presented it at 2 conferences so
far and another one coming up in June. So I’ve been really happy with that. So
that’s something that I didn’t … I didn’t plan that before I came, it just kind
of, the opportunity arose while I was here. And that’s another good thing with
the Fulbright. You know, you can’t prepare for everything but there’s a lot of
opportunities that will present themselves once you’re here so it’s really up
to you to take advantage of that and to grasp onto it because you can make this
into a wonderful learning experience when you take these opportunities that
come up.
Lee: Very good. And so, Amanda, do
you have any closing thoughts, any words of wisdom you would like to share with
out listening audience?
Amanda: Well, if anyone is on the fence about
whether to apply or not for the Fulbright program, I would wholeheartedly
encourage them to apply. It’s a wonderful learning experience not only
academically or for your profession, but just life long skills that you learn
traveling and meeting new people. It’s been a wonderful experience and I can’t
imagine not having applied and done this so I strongly encourage everyone who’s
thinking about it to just go ahead and take the leap and do it.
Lee: Great words of wisdom. And so,
Amanda, I just wanted to thank you once again for taking time out of your day
to chat with me.
Amanda: Not a problem Lee. Happy to do so.
Lee: Alright. I wish you the best
in your final months in Poland.
Amanda: OK, thank you very much! Thank you. I
appreciate it!
Lee: Alright, take care.
Amanda: Alright, bye bye.
Lee: Well that concludes this
episode of My Fulbright Life. Hope you join us next time. Good bye.
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