by Selin Alkan
Although the options to study and/or do research abroad are numerous nowadays, the name Fulbright still excites and attracts many thanks to what it has to offer to scholars in terms of reliability, undoubtable quality academic opportunities, and prestige. As a current FLTA (Foreign Language Teaching Assistant), I will share my personal experiences with you in this program.
It was our dear Yasemin Hoca from whom I first heard about a scholarship program named Fulbright in my freshman or sophomore year at METU – FLE. She had herself acted as a Fulbright FLTA and being a professor who loves helping everybody gain better academic achievements, she informed us all about it. Furthermore, she has always actively supported me in the courses I took from her, many of my Fulbright applications and those to some other scholarship and master’s programs abroad; therefore, I would like to thank her again for all that she has done for me!
Application
Yes, it is me again. Even I have lost the count of the times I have applied to Fulbright for various programs and positions. In some of them, I could at least have an interview or two with you, and the other times I could not even make it to the next step. However, I never stop improving myself and trying over and over again. Now that I am a more qualified, knowledgeable, and experienced FLTA applicant, I strongly believe it is high time you gave me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a change.
This was the introduction of my motivation letter. Some people go through very smooth processes when it comes to Fulbright; it was not the case for me as you can tell.
I first applied to Fulbright FLTA program in 2013, when I was still a junior, for the academic year of 2014-15. I was lucky enough to attend the interview; however, I was not selected. Being the unyielding person I am, I applied for the master’s grant twice, attended the interview in the first but not the second. Also, I applied to two different positions, one in Ankara and the other in Istanbul, attended two interviews, and I was one of the 5 people who were chosen for the supposedly more prestigious one in Istanbul; however, I failed to get the job. Heartbroken but determined, I applied to the FLTA program again in 2017 for the academic year of 2018-19, and here I am writing this text at the bookstore of the University of Pennsylvania.
I should note that I was not expecting even to be invited for the interview when I submitted this application. Except for some extra academic and professional improvement, my application was basically the same as the one in 2013. For those who are not familiar with any type of Fulbright grant application process, I would like to tell you that it is very long and can take even more time or require different types of research depending on the program you are applying to, so it is wise to check the application page as soon as it opens. In addition to lots of detailed personal information, you are usually basically required to write at least one motivation letter, or statement of purpose, and a few other essays, and obtain 3 reference letters.
To give you a sense of how things usually move, here is my example: I submitted my online application on August 25, sent the hard copies to Ankara around the same time, received the e-mail inviting me for the interview on October 6, had the interview on October 12, received the good news on November 29, and we had the first orientation on December 13.
Interview
The number of the professors carrying out the interviews vary; there were 4 from the field I wanted to study in the interview for the master’s application, and there were only 3 in my most recent FLTA interview. There is always at least one person from the Fulbright Commission present during the interviews.
The professors are more interested in seeing how adaptable and flexible a candidate is in possibly hard-to-handle situations rather than his/her academic knowledge of language teaching. Therefore, I highly encourage you to try to come up with situations that might put you in trouble and the ways to solve them in addition to improving yourselves in language teaching and to teach Turkish as a foreign language while preparing for the interview.
Another suggestion, which might help you get ahead of many other candidates is attending courses on teaching Turkish as a foreign language. I did not do that myself but met a few fellow scholarship holders who did, and I know that that helps them a lot in their Turkish classes here in the States.
The length of the interview and the number of the questions asked vary depending on the interviewee and the interviewers, but they never signal failure or success in my experience. Also, expect to be asked questions about the structure and exceptions that do not follow the general rules in Turkish. One of the questions I was asked and remember was the reason why we add an -i letter to the stem when we want to conjugate the verb gel- in the present continuous tense in Turkish. I was also asked to read out loud some paragraphs from Ince Memed by Yasar Kemal written on a piece of paper sitting in front of me, it was the final phase of my interview.
After receiving the hopefully positive selection results in about 1,5-2 months, you basically wait to hear from the Fulbright Commission to complete the following steps, and the rest is even easier since you are always led through everything, and you can always call or e-mail the people in charge of the FLTA program at the Turkish Fulbright Commission, and they always do their best to help you out as soon as possible. One of the things that confuses many candidates is the university they will be assigned to. There is a set of partner universities where you can be an FLTA at, each scholarship candidate receives some “offers” from some universities, the number again varies (I got 4 options to rank, some got 5, some got 3). I, honestly, do not know what determines which universities are offered to which candidates, since my selection looked rather random, for the universities I got were quite different from each other. However, you are placed somewhere as a result of the online matching system between the universities and the candidates. Only after being placed at a university are you called a ‘scholarship holder’ rather than a ‘candidate’. Also, one thing that worried me and 3 other candidates was that 14 candidates of the 17 received their placement results on the same day or the day after in the first week of June; however, we received ours about 3 weeks later. It was apparently because of some technical problems in the States, so there was nothing the Fulbright Commission in Turkey could do, but they did their best to calm us down! J
That being said, I was one of the first scholarship holders required to arrive in the States on July 31 (the earliest orientation date), and I was freaking out thinking there was not enough time for me to get visa; however, my visa was issued in 3 hours in Istanbul, so do not worry about that! Instead, enjoy your last days with your friends and family to the fullest!
FLTA-ing in the States
Probably, I am not the best person to write about this since I am only acting as an assistant rather than a primary teacher. I have an amazing supervisor, Dr. Feride Hatiboglu, here at the University of Pennsylvania. I assure you that she is the perfect Turkish mother one can ever have, and she will make sure that you never miss baklava or Turkish tea! J
Apart from her amazing personal qualities, she has been teaching Turkish for many years at UPenn, so she has a large library and lots of experience. In addition to teaching/assisting in the courses, you are supposed to represent Turkish culture. To this end, we have organized some cultural events like Turkish marbling workshop, Turkish movie screening, poetry readings, and so on, and we are planning to do more of them in this spring term, as well.
You are also required to take 3-4 courses (you can take more on the condition that you pay the tuition fee for those extra courses yourself, and that they do not prevent you from carrying out your main duty as a TA) as non-degree grad students, but what you will take depends largely on the university you will be at and what you are interested in. One warning is that you are not allowed to get TESOL certification via Fulbright; you will need to pay separately for it, or at least, this is what we were told by our IIE advisors in the orientation at the beginning of the academic year.
There are many more things I can write about, but I neither want to spoil rest of the fun for you nor bog you down in details! One last suggestion would be to collect as much information as you can regarding the practicalities of everyday life in the city/town you will be at, and to travel the heck out of this country because I am telling you; this country is bigger and much more beautiful than you can imagine! It at least greatly exceeded my expectations. Also, this is a huge program; we are now 405 FLTAs from around the world dispersed all over the States. Try to meet as many people from different countries as possible, you can meet your Turkish friends much more easily than meeting those other awesome people after the program ends… J
I’d be happy to help those who want to learn more about FLTA-ship or anything related to that as much as I can. Feel free to send me an e-mail, and I will get back to you as soon as possible! Stay hopeful!
E-mail: alkan.selin@gmail.com
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