Fulbright Project, introduction

On 23 Aug 2008 I arrived in the beautiful Rupublic of Panama to begin my Fulbright project. The Fulbright program is sponsored by the United States Department of State.

The following text is from their website, "What do Fulbrighters do?"

Since its inaugural in the late 1940s, the Fulbright Program has been an integral part of U.S. foreign relations. Indeed, face-to-face exchanges have proven to be the single most effective means of engaging foreign publics while broadening dialogue between U.S. citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad. In doing so, the Fulbright Program creates a context to provide a better understanding of U.S. views and values, promotes more effective binational cooperation and nurtures open-minded, thoughtful leaders, both in the U.S. and abroad, who can work together to address common concerns.
Whether the challenge is transforming conflict into dialogue, conducting medical research to end a modern-day plague, halting the trafficking of persons, or designing an efficient energy grid, today’s issues call for new voices, new ideas and new leaders. Even in a networked world of the Internet and satellite television, there is no substitute for personal interaction—what journalist Edward R. Murrow called "the last three feet of communication." It is individuals, after all, not data streams, who must ultimately build the connections that in turn create lasting international partnerships. Fulbrighters do just that.

My collaborator is Dra. Edith Espino, director of the Centro Especializado de Lenguas, Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá.

Our field is Foreign Language Pedagogy, and during my term here in Panamá I will be working with language teachers and learners (the majority of which teach and study English.) I will observe how English classes are being taught by visiting Universities, language centers, secondary schools and primary schools throughout the country. I will come to understand the issues of concern to administrators, teachers and students by conducting personal interviews and researching, for example, with MEDUCA (Ministerio de Educación.)

Once I have collected and examined this information, I will design and co-teach a course for language teachers that will enrich their pedagogy skills, which is a nationwide goal that was mentioned by the current President. The topics of this course will include: sharpening skills in the communicative approach to language learning, using distance learning and computer-aided instruction as an alternative or supplement to face-to-face classroom settings, and implementing alternative pedagogies, such as service learning, in the curriculum. I will also design and teach TOEFL preparation courses for students who have registered for the exam at my collaborating university, la Tecnologica. I will also be organizing and teaching English classes for the local communities.

*Special thanks to the people who helped me attain the Fulbright grant:

**at the University of Delaware, where I have worked for the past 20 years: Dr. Richard Zipser, Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures (FLLT), Dr. Jorge Cubillos, Sequence Supervisor for the Spanish Section in FLLT
**at la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE), where I have colloborated on various study abroad programs, 2001-2007: Dra. Rocío Bastidas Enríquez, Directora de Relaciones Internacionales (DRI)
**at la Universidad Mayor, Chile (Santiago de Chile), where I colloborated on a new study abroad program in 2008: Dr. René Lara, Director, Dirección Relaciones Internacionales (RRII)




**at the center of my heart, always, my sons, mi vida, Allen and Marcus