Greetings

Hey there students of Bernardo Houssay! My name is Andi (or Andrea, my preference changes with my mood. But you can call me by either…it’s all good). For those of you who I have yet to meet, let me tell you a little bit about myself and what brings me to Rosario to serve as an English Teaching Assistant.

During my senior year at the University of Scranton (a university in Pennsylvania where I studied English Literature, biochemistry and Women’s Studies) I applied for—and won!—a Fulbright grant to Argentina. The international scholarship program, jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the Argentine Ministry of Education, was created by U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright to foster, in his words, “leadership, learning and empathy between cultures.” While I am a participant of the English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) program, there are currently Argentine students teaching Spanish in the United States as members of the Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship (FLTA) program. If you want to know more about the application process for such a scholarship, you can find all of the information at http://flta.fulbrightonline.org/home.html. You can also talk to me and I will do my best to connect you with staff members of the Fulbright Commission in Buenos Aires.

The Fulbright grant in my case translates into 8 months of living in Rosario, practicing Spanish, dancing tango, traveling, learning about Argentine culture and—most importantly—working with all of you at Bernardo Houssay. My role as a language assistant is flexible and dynamic. Of course I will attend classes, but I am also open to meeting with you outside of the classroom to answer questions, brainstorm ideas for projects, help to edit papers or whatever else you may need. Just ask! You can send me an email at andi.frankenburger@gmail.com or you can (and I expect you to) contact me here through your posts.

Which brings me to my final point: this blog. One of my goals here at Bernardo Houssay is to encourage you all to write. While I will certainly lend my assistance with academic essays and compositions, I want to offer a forum that will allow you to incorporate writing into your everyday life. To experiment. To share ideas. To continue conversations which begin in the classroom but are cut short. I will suggest topics and recommend prompts, but I also want you to make this blog your own. There are no rules. Get creative or stick to the traditional 8-sentence paragraph. I can give you feedback on your posts if you would like, but as none of your work here will be graded, there’s no need to worry about the occasional grammatical oddity. The most important thing is that you write! Bottom line.

For your first post, I ask that you introduce yourself. That’s all! You can share information about your family, your hobbies or what inspired you to become a teacher of English in the first place. Anything goes. Also, feel free to post any questions you have for me. I look forward to working with you all!

Besos,
Andi