Fulbright Reality Czech

Anya is a preschool teacher, actor, and Marketing Director for her local community theater. She is also one of 300 English Teaching Assistants, who have come to spice up foreign language education of Czech students at various high schools all over the Czech Republic since 2005. With a BA in Theater Education, a PreK-12 teaching license, and family heritage in Central Europe, Anya was placed at Masaryk Gymnazium and Nursing School in Vsetín, a town of 25,000 in East Moravia. During the 2019/2020 academic year, beyond teaching English, Anya hosted a popular drama club, where students played theater games, learned how to improv, read parts of scripts, and built scenes with the expectation of performing a play at the end of the school year. In March 2020, however, Covid suddenly paralyzed the world. The Fulbright Program was terminated, and Anya, as well as thousands of other Fulbrighters all over the world, had to return home, often without the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to their...

Elinor Grage is an actress. This  past academic year, she has served as an English Teaching Assistant at a Catholic High School located in a gorgeous town of 7000 inhabitants called Odry. Her host school prepares mostly female students for future careers as kindergarten teachers, teaching assistants, social workers, nurses and massage therapists. True to her passion for acting, Elinor included acting experiences in her everyday English classroom, discovering that acting, teaching and learning a foreign language complement each other surprisingly well. After school, Elinor has met her students and colleagues in a tutoring club, in a crafts club and in a Czech class. Reflecting on her 10 months far away from her home, Elinor admits that there were times when she was homesick, but, at the same time, she felt overwhelmed with kindness. Her students invited her to their towns, teachers kept her busy with weekend trips, and she did some special activity with her Czech mentor at leas...

Veronika Bednářová is a journalist, Fulbright alumna and one of the few Czechs, who personally experienced the tragic events of 9/11 in New York City. After graduating from Film and Theatre Studies at Charles University in Prague, Veronika won a Fulbright scholarship to continue her education at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Today, Veronika writes for the Czech weekly magazine Reflex, and she teaches Travel Writing at New York University in Prague.  Veronika Bednářová wrote about her 9/11 experience the following text for her book “ Má americká krása ” (My American Beauty), published by Ringier/Daranus in 2006. Below Veronika's preface written this week, we publish the  English translation of the  original text acquired with the author’s permission. ________________________________________   New Ground Zero During this year’s reverent anniversary ceremony of 9/11, I wish I could be at the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan - two gia...

by Chloe' Sky  Maeve Duffy is serving this year as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Rakovník (17,000 people), although she lives in a village called Senomaty (1000 people). Having majored in Theatre at Barnard College, Maeve is bringing Broadway to Czechia by directing a play in her town. Read below to find out exactly what classic American story she’s working on with her students, how she deals with the tough topics that are seen differently in Czech and American culture, and how being so close to nature has impacted her life. Fast Facts Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland Age: 22 College, Major/Minor: Barnard College, B.A. in Theatre with a concentration in Acting, pre-med track, minor in Biochemistry School in the Czech Republic:  Gymnazium Zikmunda Wintra Rakovník Favorite Czech word or phrase: veverka, squirrel. “Day 2 of my grant I was attacked by a squirrel, so this was one of the first Czech words I learned. I used it in the classroom and now ...