English Language Fellow Program
Program Spotlight
The Challenge of Being a Fellow
Letting go of yourself and letting go of your expectations and entering a
new kind of educational system
a new kind of group of teachers and students who think differently than you
and balancing that with what is quality education
and that's a challenge to figure out how to balance
a current worldview culture on education and your previous one.
One of the biggest challenges
that I faced during my fellowship for the first year was language barriers.
It was up to me to learn a little bit of Laos in order to communicate with them and get
the things that I needed.
Befriending a local person has really helped us.
My neighbors have been really kind to me helping me adjust to
the city and to the culture. They've been
my cultural informants in helping me just do
simple things, from going grocery shopping to also dealing with the politics of
the university that I'm working at.
Prioritizing what is critical
what can be held on the side and where you can really make the biggest
difference for me is a challenge because there's so much need.
Sometimes Fellows have very high expectations about
what they're going to achieve and they're disappointed when
they come across challenges and they can't achieve what they want to
but it's just sort of, maybe lowering their expectations
and achieving things in a different way, maybe on a more personal level
and growing that way.