Taking on Roles as an ETA: Community Engagement

 

Disclaimer: "This blog, Southern Plum Blossom, is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of my own and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

Would I be myself if I didn't do multiple things at the same time? I don't think so. 

These are the following roles I have so far:

• English Teaching Assistant at an elementary school
• After-School English Teacher at the high school
• Webmaster for LEAP Innovation Labs*
• Committee Member for Taiwan DEI's Empowerment Committee*

I applied to two of these roles (*) before I had a visa to permit me to travel to Taiwan. Alongside the English Teaching Assistantship, I get to contribute in meaningful ways outside the classroom. These roles correlate to my passion of community building. 

During the school day, I spend my free periods lesson planning or working on my outside-of-work tasks. As my ETA schedule left time to think and reflect, I started bringing a memo pad to sketch. Because the campus is large, there are many spots to sit and draw. My students come up to me and ask what I'm drawing. They enjoy seeing me outside of class, and this way, I get to share one of my hobbies with them. 

Once a week after school, I teach an English class at the high school. It's a conversations class, where the students practice speaking English. I have a class of 11th graders. They find me cute and nice! I usually don't have to make a formal presentation, since it is an after-school class. I start with a conversation starter, and then we play a game. Soon, we will discuss topics like various music genres, fashion, art, and makeup. It's a pretty chill class, since they love to participate. The after-school high school class also counts for Fulbright's community service hours. We participate in a number of activities and events per semester to foster more community engagement within our placement sites. Some community service opportunities include library storytelling, beach cleanup, and tutoring camp. Once I get my scooter license and a scooter, I would like to participate in more opportunities to serve the Jinmen community.

I like volunteering because I meet people I wouldn't meet otherwise. Besides lesson planning and coteaching, I would write, draw, or read. I can do more with these two other roles by creating and encouraging community in different aspects of my life here. 

Within the Fulbright Taiwan community, I am a committee member for Taiwan DEI's Empowerment Committee, which centers around BIPOC Fulbright experiences and creates opportunities for BIPOC voices and issues to be heard and raised through an intersectional approach. In my role, I help lead and create/compile materials for events. Right now, I am drafting two panel discussions focusing on current Fulbrighters' experiences in Taiwan. Taking inspiration from Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT)'s Story Circles and my experience in moderating conversations, I have found some thought-provoking questions to ask the panelists. I've been brainstorming the layout of the panel discussion with three main categories: Diversity and Truth, Inclusion and Belonging, and Justice and Transformation. I think an interactive panel format where the panelists and the audience participate in a story circle would be great. I think it's important to listen to each others' stories to create community. Since I had not been to the conference in Taipei in August, I don't know anyone from other cohorts other than the ones I've met virtually from online leadership meetings from the organizations I'm in. I'm glad to be a part of DEI initiatives of Fulbright Taiwan, continuing work that has been a passion of mine since high school. 

My next role outside of ETA is webmaster for LEAP Innovation Labs. LEAP is a U.S. Department of State funded program that reaches students from socioeconomic disadvantages who would like to pursue English proficiency. I designed the website and have been having fun working on it. It's not like building the website from scratch thankfully (that would be a lot of coding and even more hours), but I like creating an aesthetic website. I already added it to my LinkedIn profile!

To keep track of my hours, one of the co-founders and directors of LEAP suggested creating a spreadsheet. Now, I have a spreadsheet for LEAP and a spreadsheet for how many hours I have spent in each role as an ETA, volunteer, committee member, and webmaster. So far, the total amount of hours is 83 hours. The hours lesson planning are not measured, and honestly, are immeasurable, since it's kind of an ongoing process for about three days after the initial lesson plan (this takes the majority of my time). So, my days are spent lesson planning, web designing, brainstorming and organizing, co-teaching, drawing, reading, and writing. 

Really, the reason I applied to these roles was to increase my community engagement. I don't interact with many people on the island, mostly due to the language barrier, but I get to see my students outside of school around the township. I love teaching my students and seeing their reactions to different foods like fruit sushi, ratatouille, or genfo. They have fun learning the foods and saying the words. My activities have been improving and fitting the curriculum guidelines more than my first couple of weeks. My co-teachers are seeing improvements and have complimented the better lessons. Still learning, but I am hopeful that I have found a formula that works for my students. I. also, get to share my creative skills with my students and fellow Fulbright peers. I think it's a win-win. I'm learning and sharing-- just like I said in my Fulbright application.

To more adventures~

Brittany