My name is Hadrien and I have been studying English for three years now at Rennes 2. In order to perfect my studies I am applying for this program. I heard about this program last year thanks to one of my professors and I immediately thought that the Fulbright FTLA program would be a perfect opportunity for me and my goals..
For many years I was never really sure about what I wanted to do with my life. I first entered into a medical school after high school and failed to advance after a first year of study but I did not want to try a first year of study a second time, as I would have to give up my social life and my family life one more year for something about which I was increasingly doubtful from a professional point of view. I was also beginning to become overly stressed and my health was affected. But during this year of medical studies I was able to think about what I wanted to do with my life and how I could still help, or at least, share something with people just like a doctor does and started to become a professional goal for me. I might have chosen to teach biology or chemistry, instead I decided to teach English which would allow me to share something with my future pupils. Why English? First, coming from a science background, English was and still is the language of science, and what would science be if we could not share it worldwide and discuss it? One year later when I entered the English Bachelor’s degree I realized that I had found my place.
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During these past three years I have met incredible people with whom I have been able to be myself from the very beginning and who freed me from what was certainly a shell. It was through these contacts that I knew I wanted to become an English teacher and that I had to go abroad to improve my English. I can say with certitude that my greatest failure has been the key to my greatest success.
Moreover English is also something dear to me. I am the second son of a family of four and my mother who is Portuguese never taught us her language. That is why, when we went to Portugal we had to speak English with our family and, fortunately for us, most people in our family are able to speak English. If we could not have communicated we might have never shared this bond between us. English has finally been something that is part of the family and something that I’ve “come home” to with my choice of study. I was very fortunate to have an excellent English teacher when I was young who gave me the basis to understand a new culture, a new world, the way to talk with my foreign family and by the same occasion the love for languages.
Last year I signed a contract of apprenticeship (an EAP contract) which has allowed me to work for two years as a trainee English teacher in an Educational Priority Area middle school under the guidance of several English teachers. I must admit, at first, that I was rather afraid as just like most of the student wanting to become teachers I heard some terrible thing about those kind of schools, about how it was just a “terrible moment to endure” when you were assigned there as a novice teacher. I was totally surprised when the first month all my apprehensions disappeared, and how fun it could be to work with those kids who may be rude sometimes but who are really interesting when you speak with them. I have been able to work with several English teachers who have their own way of teaching, I have seen and done so many things from helping one teacher by taking with me half of the class in order to make them practice their English, to staying with children who had a lot of difficulties be it in French or English, and even handling the first half of a one hour lesson by myself to introduce a new notion or a new subject to the class. One of my mentors has asked me to take care of a whole lesson at the end of this year and I will have to build it from scratch and present it on my own. I have learned so much and I am still learning right now thanks to both my mentors and my pupils, not only about teaching but also about how important communication is in those kinds of schools and how it is important to be strict but fair with pupils who crave fairness when life itself has not been fair to them until now.
I was really delighted when one of my colleagues told me that I had what it takes to be a teacher and that my dynamism and my cheerfulness were liked by the pupils I worked with. I have learned one more thing thanks to this job: even though the experience is very rewarding, I don’t want to teach in a middle school all my life. I hope that, when I have enough experience, to able to help teach and mentor future teachers. This current apprenticeship experience has changed me and now I wish to work in Educational Priority Area schools before going teaching to the next generation of teachers and break their false image of those schools.
Obviously, in order to succeed in this professional goal I must go abroad to improve my English. I am not applying to this program simply to improve my English but also to widen and expand my teaching experience. I think the skills I’ve acquired as an apprentice teacher are solid and can be tested with American students, while teaching French. One thing I experienced as a young boy was sharing my personal history and background with my cousins in a foreign language and I think this program is almost a natural continuation of that experience: I would be able to use my teaching skills to share so many things about France, about the French language, about Brittany and to give students the same desire I have: to visit the country of their language study.
This chance will only appear once in my life so I wish to go the USA to perfect my studies, the USA has always been this fascinating country on the over side of the ocean, the country which through its movies, series and books gave me access to its culture and helped me to improve my English on my own, now and when I was younger. This once in a life chance to live a one-year American dream is the reason I am applying for this program in the USA and not somewhere else, because it really is the completion of a long “story” of love for English and my decision to become an English teacher.
I have always been curious and as I’ve said science has always been one of my favorite subjects so I enjoy going to Les Champs Libres in Rennes which offers a variety of exhibitions which revolve mostly around science. I’ve tried to clear that meeting people has been for me the best way to satisfy my curiosity. I have met so many people thanks to my origins, the different trips I have made and when I started studying English I met even more people who were able to give me so much and who were able to open my horizons, that’s why I think that foreign languages are so important because they have allowed me to meet so many people. I hope to be able to share this experience with American students and offer them the same opportunities I have been given.
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