Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast
Transcript For: Cara Wolinsky, Manager, Critical Language Enhancement Award
September 15, 2008
Cara Wolinsky, Manager, Critical Language Enhancement Award, discusses developments in the program.
Tony: Welcome to the Fulbright US
Student Podcast. I’m your host, Tony Claudino with
Schuyler: Schuyler Allen. And today we’re joined
by Cara Wolinsky who’s going to talk to us about some updates and new
information regarding the Critical Language Enhancement Award.
Tony: Welcome back to the show.
Cara: Thank you so much for having me
here. It’s a pleasure.
Schuyler: So Cara, could you give us some
background information on the Critical Language Enhancement Award for our
listeners.
Cara: So the Critical Language
Enhancement Award is a three to six month grant for Fulbrighters. It extends
your Fulbright grant period by 3 to 6 months depending on how long you decide
to take up the grant for and it is a great opportunity to improve on your
language ability and it offers a good chance for you to be able to engage
better with the people in your host country and that you are working with on
your grant due to your improved language abilities. The program offers a lot of
flexibility for you to design your own program of study because the grant is 3
to six months long, you can either do the entire 3 or six months before the
Fulbright grant period starts or you can do a minimum of 2 months before and 1
to 4 months concurrent. The way the award works is you basically propose your
program of study, and then it has to be at one of the approved language
institution which are all listed on the website, and then after you are
notified of being an successful applicant we approved your program of study and
you go ahead and start the plan which is basically what you proposed. So there
is a lot of flexibility and it gives students the option to do tutoring if they
want to or enroll in a school. You can read more about the grant duration and
scheduling online if you go to www.fulbrightonline.org..
Schuyler: So, Cara, tell us a little bit about
some new things that are happening with the Critical Language Enhancement
Award.
Cara: Well, this is an extremely
dynamic program and it’s only been around for a couple of years, so it’s
changing all the time so we do have some new additions for the coming 2009-2010
cycle. We have approval for ETAs, which is English Teaching Assistants, to Russia and Turkey; they are now eligible for
the Critical Language Enhancement Award. Information is always being updated so
please check back on the website if this interests you. But as it stands right
now, for Russia
this is for, only can be for concurrent study. So you wouldn’t have an
intensive study period beforehand. And for Turkey, you would be eligible for 2
months of intensive language study before and then 1 – 4 months of concurrent
study during your ETA award.
You apply at the same
time as you apply for the Fulbright Award. In order to be a successful
recipient of the Critical Language Enhancement Award, you need a Fulbright
grant in an eligible country, of which there is a list online, you can check it
out. Or, you can be a Fulbright ETA to Russia
or Turkey.
You need to have at least one year minimum of language study in most of the
languages. Actually, one of my other new points of news is that we recently
lowered the language requirement for a couple of the more obscure languages, or
languages that, you know, it’s hard to find…
Tony: Universities that offer them.
Cara: Yeah. Teaching in the US. So
we don’t any longer require one year of language study for Azeri, for
Bangla/Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Pashto, Punjabi, Tajik/Farsi, and Uzbek. So
if you are interested in studying any of those languages, or you’re applying
for a Fulbright grant to any of those countries, you can apply for the Critical
Language Enhancement Award without having a year of language study.
Schuyler: That’s tremendous news.
Cara: The other thing that we’re
looking for in applicants is an interest in continuing language training beyond
the Fulbright grant period, so in your application you should definitely stress
that.
Tony: That you’ll continue to study
it?
Cara: That it will be useful for your
professional career, academic career…
Schuyler: So it needs to be useful to your
Fulbright grant and beyond.
Cara: Mm hmm. We want people who are
committed to studying these languages.
Tony: How many grants are we talking?
Cara: We are talking about 150 grants
for the 2009-2010.program year.
Tony: Great..
Schuyler: And what are some of the typical
languages that people apply in, Arabic? Chinese?
Cara: We have a lot of Arabic, a lot
of Chinese because basically you can study Chinese in a bunch of different
countries now, and Arabic as well. There’s a good number of Russian. We have
Korean. Those are pretty big.
Schuyler: And the types of, because there are
different types of these languages too, so the type of language that you are
required to do for your grant is what you study? So for example, there are
different types of Arabic. And if you’re going to, let’s say, study in Egypt,
Tony: But you want to go to Morocco
and do the Critical Language Enhancement Award. Can you do that? Can you go to
multiple countries or does it have to be the same?
Cara: No, you have to do it in your
host country. The only exception is for Bahrain
and Kuwait.
For Bahrain and Kuwait, you need to do your Critical Language
study in Egypt or Jordan.
Those are the only 2 places. Because there are no approved institutions in
either of those places. Otherwise you should plan to do your study in your host
country.
Tony: Within the application, let’s
say someone is starting the Fulbright application, how does the Critical
Language Enhancement Award appear? Do you check off a box? Is there an extra
essay?
Cara: Yeah, there’s an extra section.
You do have to check off a box in the beginning and then you have to fill out a
language evaluation and also there’s a small section to have a proposal: what
you plan to do, what your general timeline is. You can look online also where
the country that you’re interested in, there’s, you’ll find a list of approved
institutions. You have to propose to study at one of the approved institutions.
There is a chance that we can, if you want to study at somewhere that’s not
approved, you can mention it and we can look into the possibility of getting it
approved but definitely you should have an approved institution as your number
2 that you’re OK with. And then you need to talk about why this is important for
your project, how you’re committed to studying this language in the long term,
or how you have been up until now.
Schuyler: Question, just sort of rewinding the
tape a little bit. That year that you need to have under your belt before you
apply, what if at the time of application you have, let’s say, 6 months and you
intend to take another 6 months. Can you state that in the application and
still add up to the whole year that’s required beforehand?
Cara: Yeah, you can state that in your
application and then before, when the notification comes out we’ll contact you again
and ask for a transcript or other proof indicating that you’ve had tutoring or
classes that you said you were going to sign up for.
Schuyler: And then when you’re done with your
Critical Language Enhancement Award training, is there some sort of evaluation
of your language ability?
Tony: Yeah, testing.
Cara: Yes, there is an oral
evaluation. It’s through a language
testing institution called Alta and basically you just get tested once 2 weeks
before your grant starts and once two weeks after it’s over just to test your
level of ability and so that we can show that this has been an effective grant
in improving your language skills.
Tony: But, that second test at the end
of the grant- are you talking about at the end of the Critical Language
Enhancement Award or the end of the Fulbright grant?
Cara: The end of the Critical Language
Enhancement Award period.
Tony: OK.
Schuyler: Just to clarify, English Teaching
Assistants are eligible or are not eligible to apply for a Critical Language
Enhancement Award?
Tony: Yeah, that was stumping me as
well…
Cara: Right now, only ones to Turkey and Russia are eligible to apply.
However you should check back on the website because we’re expecting to add
some other countries in the future but nothing’s confirmed yet so if you are
applying for an ETA and you’re interested in the Critical Language Enhancement
Award, check back on the website regularly.
Schuyler: OK, question, so let’s sort of paint a
little picture here of somebody who’s applying for a grant and let’s say I need
to speak Arabic because I am going to be doing interviews in the field, but I
only have, let’s say, 6 months of Arabic under my belt and I want to begin to
seek out ways for me to obtain that language and on my campus I’ve found a
foreign Fulbrighter who is willing to tutor me while I’m working on this and
then I’m also going to enroll in another program somewhere else over the
summer. Are there other opportunities out there that I can seek that U. S.
Department of State supports in terms of learning Critical Languages?
Cara: Well, basically, we count
enrollment in a class and tutoring, and those are the 2 main ways, Generally
the best proof is, I mean to get everything done in a timely manner and make
sure you are approved in time to leave you need to sign up for a course or have
private tutoring and have your tutor sign off on it if we require further
proof. As far as other opportunities for studying critical languages go,
there are several available from the US Department of State’s National Security
Language Initiative, including Intensive Summer Language Institutes. There are
also Critical Language Scholarships which are sponsored by the U. S. Department
of State and administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers
(CAORC). However, it is not possible to receive a scholarship for an Intensive
Summer Language Institute or a Critical Language Scholarship (also known as
CLS) from CAORC in the same years as the
Critical Language Enhancement Award.
Tony: Cara, thank you very much for
joining us.
Cara: Thank you.
Schuyler: Thank you so much. Cara, if people
want to contact you, what’s the best way to reach you.
Cara: You can send me an email at cwolinsky@iie.org or you can give me a
call; my contact info is on the website.
Tony: Great.
Schuyler: Great.
Tony: Thank you very much.
Cara: Thank you.
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