Fulbright Teaching Awards

We are very proud that several of our Allegheny Education Studies minors have been awarded the prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Award.  The Fulbright ETA is a nationally competitive award that places newly-graduated students in classrooms all over the globe.  Fulbright winners teach English alongside local English teachers for one year in their host country. As the Fulbright organization explains,

ETA’s help teach English language while serving as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. The age and academic level of the students varies by country, ranging from kindergarten to university level.” Meet two of our award winners below:

Dan Cheung ‘17:  Dan has just begun his Fulbright year in Kenya.  As an English/Creative Writing major and double minor in Education Studies and Political Science, Dan was also an outstanding cross-country and track and field athlete.  Dan was drawn to a Fulbright experience in Kenya, in part because of its legendary runners.  During his time at Allegheny, Dan had several meaningful teaching experiences, including a summer as a Teaching Fellow with Breakthrough Collaborative in Pittsburgh, an organization that seeks to address inequity in education though programs for students from under-resourced communities.

As Dan explains, “the education minor led me to certain skills I initially did not know I had. I’ve found that I fit well in positions that demand leadership or instruction from me, such as teaching with Breakthrough Collaborative, offering up my voice in writing workshops, or even being a captain of the cross country team–and I don’t really see myself giving that up. Good teachers and leaders have always made an extraordinary difference in whatever I’ve done. I was lucky to meet some remarkable leaders and educators at Allegheny who really instilled in me the value of having a critical and supportive perspective. To be that force in someone’s life offers the fulfillment and purpose we are meant to achieve.”

Kelly Frantz ‘16:  Kelly received the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant award for the 2016-2017 academic year in Ecuador.  At Allegheny, Kelly was a double major in International Studies and Spanish with a minor in Education Studies.  Among her many activities at Allegheny, Kelly also was a two-year student member of the Education Studies Steering committee and spent a semester abroad in Ecuador.  As Kelly describes her Fulbright experience, “ I taught at an elementary school in the town of Urcuquí, Imbabura, Ecuador. In addition to my primary position as an English Teaching Assistant, I worked on a number of secondary projects, including volunteering at the local library, tutoring university students, and offering free community yoga classes.” Currently, Kelly is a graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University, pursuing a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics.  After graduation in May ‘19, Kelly plans to teach English as a Foreign Language abroad, maybe even returning to Ecuador. Her research interests have grown out of her work at Allegheny and her Fulbright experience: she studies Second Language Acquisition and works as a Research Assistant a on a study investigating the effects of explicit grammar teaching and written input on second language learners’ academic writing in English.