And here comes first post!

Hello all,

Grüßchen! As they say in Rohrbach, the town where I will be teaching this year!

Last Monday, I began my term as a US Teaching Assistant through Fulbright Austria. I met with my Contact Teacher at the Business and Trade Academy (HAK) in Rohrbach who organized my working hours for the week and introduced me to the several English teachers at the school.

The HAK has around 1,000 students that are pursuing Maturas, or specialized High School degrees, in multiple fields of business, including IT, International Business and Marketing, and Digital Business. The students range in age from 15 to 19 years old, with the oldest in the 5th Class completing their Matura with an English oral examination at the end of the year. After they graduate, the male students are required to complete 6 months of army training or 12 months of civil service.

My duties as the English Language Assistant at the HAK primarily deal with helping the students communicate with each other in English. I do this through designing group activities, brainstorming, and presenting situations to the students that require their response and input. Besides helping the students with their English, my secondary roles revolve around the teacher. I assist the teacher whenever help is needed, or if he/she wants a second opinion on certain words or phrases in English.

So far, each day has been getting better, and I´m finding more creative and unique ways of reaching the students. For example, I introduced myself to most of the classes this week by presenting my hometown, Akron, as well as other characteristics of where I´m from. Surprisingly, some Austrian guys know more about American basketball than even me (I asked if anyone had heard of LeBron James or Shaq - and several students raised their hands : ). When I told them that LeBron was born in Akron, a few of them were notably stunned.

Some of the students´questions that I came across were to be expected: Do you like Fast Food? Do you drive a truck? Did you vote for Bush? etc.
At the same time, though, I am a little narrow-minded when it comes to knowing Austrians. Do you know any Austrians? Luckily, I have gotten to know the German Language Assistants at Wooster as good friends, but I still sometimes associate German culture with Austrians - Wrong!

The more time I spend talking with teachers and students, the more I find that Austrian culture differs in many ways from German culture - and, for the most part, I really like these differences. We´ll see how I do this coming weekend: Music rehearsal with the local brass ensemble this Friday night (I´m betting there will be some beer drinking to follow - "haha, shall we get the American betrunken" - ehh), perhaps some hiking in the Bohemian forest - which is practically in my backyard ; ) and then listening to a Organist perform at the Pfarrkirche, the main church in Rohrbach.

Getting settled in,
Much love,
-Stephen