Three Fulbright Scholars consider their time at Saint Michael’s College

As soon as Mutahar Al-Murtadha, a graduate student from Yemen, was nominated for a Fulbright scholarship to earn his master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MATESOL), he started to search for appropriate universities in the United States that matched his interests. He chose to apply to several universities, including Saint Michael’s College because its MATESOL program provides both theoretical and practical knowledge.
One year after the nomination process, Mutahar found himself living in Burlington, Vermont, and studying at Saint Michael’s. After starting his courses, he says, he realized that he made the right decision by choosing Saint Michael’s community as a place where he gained both academic and cultural knowledge.

It was challenging at the beginning, because of the differences between the education system in the U.S and that in Yemen. The relationship between professors and students is different from that in Yemen. “It’s a much closer relationship!” he says. Assignments are different too. For example, he did not write weekly journals or discuss online while he was a student in Yemen. But soon Mutahar was adjusted to the new educational experience, and after about one month he started enjoying it.

During his studies, Mutahar met many other international students with whom he interacted, which raised a question that led Mutahar to do his thesis research. He wanted to know which pronunciation features of the speech of Yemeni speakers of English interfere most with their comprehensibility for non-Yemeni speakers of English as an international language. He also wanted to know who understands the speech of non-native speakers more: native speakers of English or non-native speakers. The results of his research thus far show that native speakers comprehend the speech of Yemeni speakers of English more than non-native speakers.

Hung Nguyen is a Fulbright Scholar from Vietnam. He also pursued the MATESOL at Saint Michael’s and graduated in May. “I’m very thankful for being sponsored by the Fulbright Program to pursue my lifelong dream to study the MATESOL at Saint Michael’s College to become an English professional in the field,” Hung says.

Hung says that he has had a lot of unforgettable experiences during his study at Saint Michael’s. “I’m so glad that I’ve established such good rapport with many other international students here,” he says. Studying at Saint Michael’s has also given him another opportunity to better understand multicultural perspectives. This, Hung says, makes Saint Michael’s MATESOL program academically known to the world, as it connects the world by its academic reputation.

“I like the truly academic environment at Saint Michael’s, within which we can learn and challenge our knowledge in the field of TESOL with the support and encouragement from our professors,” he says. He’s glad because what he has gained is what he had expected before when he was in Vietnam. Now he believes the knowledge and skills he has learned in the MATESOL program will help influence the learning and teaching of English as a Foreign Language at Hong Duc University upon his return to Vietnam.

Nguyen’s thesis was on assessment of Vietnamese faculty members’ English speaking performance in the academic workplace. Based on research on assessment of oral production in the area of English for Specific Purposes, one aim of Hung’s research was to find out if different assessment topics and tasks elicit different levels of performance on oral tasks. Hung’s hypothesis was that a ‘hybrid’ speaking test of both general topic tasks and academic field-specific topic tasks could give a sound assessment of Vietnamese faculty members’ speaking performance in the academic workplace. The results of his pilot study showed that the pronunciation of the faculty speakers had a great influence on their overall rating for speaking performance, and that when comprehensibility was rated low due to faulty pronunciation, there was little difference in ratings for topic or task. This finding suggests that in order to establish criteria for topic and task in oral production assessment, the level of pronunciation must be high enough for the speaker to be easily comprehensible, and that training programs for university faculty members who teach their courses in English should give a high priority to teaching pronunciation. Future English language training programs for faculty members should give more attention to pronunciation.

Zena Al-Jubouri is a Fulbright scholar grantee from Iraq who arrived in the United States in August 2007. Once she arrived, she thought she might face some unexpected challenges and unusual experiences because she came from a culture which does not have much in common with American manners and traditions, and because of the political conflicts and existing tensions in relations between Iraq and the United States since 2003.

Al-Jubouri says that she has always thought that people should not believe what is being said until they have the opportunity to experience it. As Arab people say, “Ask the experienced rather than the learned,” and she started to believe deeply in this saying. As a Muslim, she was often questioned before she came to Saint Michael’s (which honestly caused her some anxiety) if it was an appropriate place for her to study because it was a Catholic college. Now, after a year and a half, she says her experiences at Saint Michael’s have shaped a new understanding in her in a more positive way. She says her experiences of Saint Michael’s College have reinforced her perspective of what liberal arts stands for. “It is an institute where students are exposed to general knowledge and their intellectual abilities are firmly developed. It is a place where students have the opportunity to express their own views and communicate with one another in a respectful manner.” As an international student, her perspective is that this is what people need to clear up the misconceptions about their countries.

Being a candidate for the MATESOL has given her the opportunity to further develop her teaching experience as well as add new dimensions to her philosophy of teaching. Working with great minds in the field of TESOL has helped her learn from their professional skills and their friendly and supportive student-teacher relationship. She believes this program enables her to be more confident to pursue her future career. All these incidents have left a long-lasting impression about her Fulbright experience.    :
Mutahar Al-Murtadha M’09, Hung Nguyen M’09 and Zena Al-Jabouri M’09 wrote these reflections during their final semester at Saint Michael’s. They were Fulbright Scholars studying in the MATESOL program at Saint Michael’s. The Fulbright Foreign Student Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, brings citizens of other countries to the United States for master’s degree or Ph.D. study.