Hello Fulbrighters!
Congratulations on being selected as a Fulbright FLTA! We in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at Syracuse University would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the 2019 Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Summer Orientation Program to be held August 11-15 at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. We expect your arrival on Sunday, August 11th either at the Hancock International Airport or the William F. Walsh Regional Transportation Center. The hours of 10 AM and 9 PM are most ideal for arrival times; however, we can accommodate other times as well.
Please visit our Syracuse University Fulbright FLTA Orientation website (https://flta.lang.syr.edu), where you will find lots of information related to your preparations for coming, your travel to the United States, and your arrival in Syracuse. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any more information. You can also communicate with us or other FLTAs traveling to Syracuse University for the orientation via our Facebook page(https://www.facebook.com/groups/2861996183815862/).
We also want to ask you to do a couple of things to prepare for the orientation:
1. On our website, you will find a registration form that we would like you to complete when you have made your travel arrangements to Syracuse, New York. We hope to have all registration forms submitted by July 29th in order to help us with our planning. It would be helpful if you respond as soon as possible once you have received your flight information.
2. As part of the orientation, you will be doing a microteaching lesson for about five minutes on Wednesday, August 14th. For that, you will need to prepare a five-minute lesson that would be appropriate for someone who has no familiarity with your language – think about something you could teach during the first or second week of a beginner class. You can teach a poem or song, the numbers, days of the week, colors – anything that the others would be able to follow and learn easily without previous knowledge of the language. Keep in mind that you only have five minutes, so keep it simple! We ask that you limit your presentations to using the chalkboard; no PowerPoint or technology please, simply because there is not enough time, and we would like to see your ability without it.
3. The last evening of the orientation, Wednesday, August 14th, we will have a culture program. The culture program will allow you to share some aspect of your culture with the others. You may sing a song, recite a poem, show us a dance, play an instrument – something that is entertaining and that you can do without any technology (other than a microphone and music file). Once you arrive at Syracuse University, you may pair up with another FLTA or even a group of other FLTAs, but it will help if you come with some idea of what you would like to do. Also, keep in mind that this is not mandatory – you can participate only if you want to!
We are looking forward to an exciting program this year and hope that your experience here will prove to be the beginning of a wonderful year in the United States! If you have any questions or concerns about the lesson, culture program, or anything else, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Hope the planning is going well for you! We’re getting very excited to meet you all!
Your Syracuse University Orientation Directors,
Laura Lisnyczyj
Maryanne Patulski