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Transcript For: Fulbright Manager, Cara Wolinsky, discusses the Critical Language Enhancement Award

Fulbright Manager, Cara Wolinsky, discusses the Critical Language Enhancement Award

Schuyler:          Hello and welcome to the Fulbright US Student Program Applicant Podcast. I’m Schuyler Allen, your host, and today I’m joined with my colleague, Cara Wolinsky who’s going to share some information about the Critical Language Enhancement Awards (CLEA). Cara, welcome.

Cara:                Thank you, Schuyler.

Schuyler:          So, Cara, what is the Critical Language Enhancement Award and how is that different or how does that fit in with a traditional Fulbright grant?

Cara:                The CLEA is an opportunity for an additional 3 -6 months of language study. It’s contingent upon receipt of the Fulbright grant. So, you have to have a Fulbright grant in order to take the CLEA. The grant has two different options for the schedule. The first option is that the entire 3 – 6 month award is taken before the start of the Fulbright grant. And then the second option is that you do a minimum of two months before the Fulbright grant starts followed by 1 – 4 months of concurrent study.

Schuyler:          OK, well…

Cara:                It’s very flexible.

Schuyler:          There’s a lot of flexibility, but as a basic question, is the CLEA- I think there’s a lot of confusion out there amongst applicants- is it a separate Fulbright grant or is it something that you have to indicate that you want to do in conjunction with a Fulbright grant? Just sort of as a basic fact.

Cara:                You apply at the same time as the Fulbright grant, there’s basically a box you check off and there’s an additional form to complete. You would also have to do a language evaluation if that applies to you. It’s in addition to the Fulbright scholarship, so you can’t do the CLEA without doing the Fulbright scholarship.

Schuyler:          And what languages does the CLEA involve?

Cara:                We have a lot of languages on offer, Arabic, Mandarin, Korean, Russian, Turkish. Those are some of our most popular. We also have Bangla, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Pashto, Punjabi, Tajik, Farsi, Urdu, and Uzbek.

Schuyler:          Wow.

Cara:                It’s a lot of languages.

Schuyler:          It’s a lot of languages and it’s impressive. Quick question- which are the most popular and which languages would you like to see more applicants apply in?

Cara:                We have a lot of applicants for Arabic and Mandarin. We also have a fair number for Korean and some for Turk-- actually Russian we have a lot also. The good thing about the Russia and also, well actually let me just say briefly that ETAs are also eligible for Russia—

Schuyler:          So the English Teaching Assistants are eligible ?

Cara:                Yes.

Schuyler:          And this is a new thing now?

Cara:                This is a new thing. This year actually, this current year is the first one we’ve had ETAs do it. So for Russia, Taiwan, and Turkey ETAs are eligible. So that has helped boost numbers for Russia especially. We’ve had a lot more this year.

Schuyler:          Great. So, let’s say I’m an English Teaching Assistant to Russia, and… how many grants are on offer to Russia? I mean, is it something I could find in the country summaries? Also, how much Russian would I need to have in order to be eligible to apply for a CLEA?

Cara:                There aren’t any specific language or country quotas. There are about 150 awards on offer total worldwide and how it shakes out every year just depends on the number of applicants we have and to what countries and how the different countries recommend them. But we’ve been able to get almost everybody who’s applied, who was ultimately recommended… you know, almost everybody was offered an award. So that was really good news. The numbers are higher than they have been in previous years. Last year we only had about 125, so 150 is a lot of people. And… what was the other question? How much language do you need?

Schuyler:          Yes, how much language would you need in order to be eligible?

Cara:                It depends on the language that you’re planning on studying. For many of the languages you need at least one year of prior language study, for instance, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu. And Korean and Hindi. So for all those you need at least one year. So if you’re applying for Mandarin to China, you actually need two years. But for the rest of them, you know, they’re less commonly taught, Azeri, Uzbek, Pashto. I don’t know where- there’s not very many schools that would be teaching those languages so there’s no minimum requirement in fact for those languages.

Schuyler:          So it’s probably wise to check the country summaries for information on the amount of language you need to have under your belt in order to be eligible.

Cara:                Exactly. There’s a CLEA page on the website and I keep it very up to date. So all the latest information about the program is online and there’s a chart that shows what the minimum language requirement is for each language.

Schuyler:          Excellent. So, just a couple of thoughts. You mentioned something before about not commonly taught languages. And let’s say I wanted to learn one of those languages and you know, I’m sort of early on in the Fulbright process and I’m thinking about applying. Where would you recommend I go to begin to learn some of those less commonly taught languages?

Cara:                Well, I would suggest maybe—there are some intensive summer programs that offer classes. Others, though, that really are difficult to find, you might just have to try and set up some kind of tutoring situation with a native speaker that you know. Actually one thing I did want to mention with regard to the minimum language requirement is that if you are what we consider a heritage speaker, meaning that you grew up speaking the language at home, the minimum language requirement still applies to you. So you still, even if you grew up speaking Korean at home, even if you speak at a very high level, you still would need to show us that you’ve studied it for one year and part of this is because the Department of State wants to support people who have demonstrated a commitment to studying the language. So that’s just one more thing.

Schuyler:          Right. Now I don’t know if, well our audience probably doesn’t know this but you were a Fulbrighter yourself and you also received a Critical Language Enhancement Award-

Cara:                No I didn’t.

Schuyler:          You didn’t?

Cara:                No, no…

Schuyler:          OK, scratch that. But, what would be an example- my point I think more is, what examples do people normally apply, and what cases to people normally apply for CLEA?

Cara:                Well, really it depends. For most people, if you’re going to any one of the countries where the grant is offered, why wouldn’t you want one. I mean, I could see, for instance, if you need to be back by a certain date to start school in the fall, maybe that would affect you. You wouldn’t be able to fit it in time wise. But otherwise, it’s an amazing opportunity, it would really enhance your experience in the host country, it would really boost your language skills no matter what it is you’re doing. Let’s say you’re like working in a lab or something. There’s pretty much any situation, in any country, in any project, having increased language ability would enhance your experience and enhance the effectiveness of the work that you’re planning on doing out there so I think anyone who’s applying to any of the countries where it’s offered should definitely consider it. And if you don’t meet the minimum requirement for language now, there’s other things you can do. You can do tutoring, you can take a summer language course. If you start studying in the fall, you can fit in two semesters before the grant starts so there’s definitely ways to get that one year, one academic year of language study in. I mean, we basically consider one academic year 108 – 180 hours, so if you start now you can definitely get it in before the grant starts, so don’t be discouraged.

Schuyler:          Right now!

Cara:                Right now.

Schuyler:          OK, so sort of on those points, I think I just, for people who are listening to this and just getting started there’s typically, I mean, there’s the country summaries where you should definitely look at the language requirements to apply to that country but then there’s also the project itself. So, would you recommend people who are doing field research definitely think about applying?

Cara:                Oh, absolutely. Anyone who needs, especially if you need to talk to local people as part of your project, and I don’t see how you could avoid that! So, of course, yeah.

Schuyler:          We encourage language learning all over Fulbright.

Cara:                Yeah. And many people are looking at texts, studying newspapers, have to do reading in whatever the local language is… absolutely useful.

Schuyler:          Now, let’s say I’ve got my language together and I’m starting to prepare my application itself. It’s summer right now and the applications are due in October, October 19^th for the online copy and then 21^st for the hard copy here in New York for the listeners out there. It’s also on our website. But what is some important information that I would need to pay attention to in terms of the actual nuts and bolts of applying?

Cara:                Well the grant is very, very flexible as we mentioned earlier and it’s somewhat complex so I would suggest visiting the CLEA page. If you go to the left side of the website, you’ll see an icon called “Program Overview” and if you click on “Types of Grants” you’ll see the link for the CLEA page. There’s a lot of information online, but I suggest that you try and wade through it because there’s a lot of important information that might be relevant to your application. You definitely want to read the country summary to find out what approved institutions there are, where you can study basically. You have to propose an approved institution. And then also it’s a pretty dynamic program, it’s a pretty young program so there are a lot of changes that happen even between now and the time you apply something might change. So even before you hit the submit button I would say just to look over one more time the country page, the CLEA page-

Schuyler:          on our website.

Cara:                And, see if there’s anything that you- that has changed. Just to be sure you have the most up to date info.

Schuyler:          You raise a really good point and I mean, last summer alone we witnessed a lot of changes to the program, English Teaching Assistant programs being added on. So, the website, again, is the most up to date and best place to get information about the program.

                        So, Cara, any other points you’d like to raise? Any other encouragement you’d like to give students who are thinking about applying?

Cara:                I would suggest absolutely to apply. And if anyone has any questions feel free to email me. I’m very good about email and I’ll respond pretty much right away so don’t hesitate-

Schuyler:          But read all the country summaries first!

Cara:                Read the website first before you email me! All the answers to almost all your questions are online.

Schuyler:          Well, I have just one more question before we close and that is, is it possible to get a Fulbright grant for study or research and not get a CLEA?

Cara:                Yes, absolutely. That’s a very good question. You can apply for the CLEA and the Fulbright together at the same time. It’s possible that you could be denied the CLEA, but get the Fulbright award. It’s also possible that you could be offered the CLEA and the Fulbright award and decide you don’t want to take up the CLEA piece, you can decline that separately and take the Fulbright. What you cannot do is decline the Fulbright and take the CLEA.

Schuyler:          Excellent. Cara, thank you so much for all this useful information.

Cara:                You’re welcome.