Language Fellows

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Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Fellows

Each year, several Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) Fellows arrive at Susquehanna University to teach students their native language and share pieces of their culture.

As part of the Fulbright Foreign Student Program, the Fulbright FLTA Program is designed to develop Americans’ knowledge of foreign cultures and languages by supporting teaching assistantships in more than 35 languages at hundreds of U.S. institutions of higher education. The FLTA program offers educators from more than 55 countries the opportunity to develop their professional skills and gain first-hand knowledge of the U.S., its culture and its people.

Image of Language Fellow Jorge del Cano.

Jorge del Caño Durán

I am from Madrid, the capital of Spain. I spent all my childhood and adolescence there, although summers in Galicia (northwestern Spain) have made half of me feel Galician. In recent years I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, and I have moved several times to improve my training. I studied modern languages and translation in Guadalajara, Spain, at the University of Alcalá. I went on Erasmus to Lyon, France, where I continued my studies at the Université Lumière Lyon 2. The following year I moved to Pau, France, to study for a master’s degree in translation, documentation and interpreting at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour. I returned to Madrid and did a master’s degree in translation and interpreting for public services at the University of Alcalá. Finally, I did a master’s degree in teaching languages for secondary and high school at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas. In between I went to study in China for a summer, to work as a teacher in Vietnam for a summer. I have worked as a private tutor, done some work as a voice-over artist, been a tour guide and have appeared on television showing the city where I lived. All in all, I have lived an endless number of adventures around the world. I have never stopped studying and working. The passion for adventure, languages, translation, education and getting to know the world has brought me to Susquehanna, where I will spend a year giving the best of myself as a teacher and as a person, exploring this wonderful land and absorbing as much knowledge as I can. I will be the teacher two sections of Spanish 101 and will lead the round tables and some other cultural events with the best attitude and all my passion.

Image of Language Fellow Tatiana Gallego Hernandez.

Tatiana Gallego

My passion as a language teacher comes from a very young age since I loved listening to music in English and I studied in a secondary school that instructed me on how to be a primary and secondary teacher. There, I decided to continue the pedagogical pathway and I pursued a degree in modern languages at Caldas University in Colombia. At the time I was in the transition from high school to university, I started studying English and I became part of a seedbed called MGT, Making Great Teachers, in which I was provided with instruction in second language acquisition and how to become an English teacher. Ever since, I have volunteered in this same program giving instruction to future generations on how to become English teachers. I have also worked as coordinator, leader and counselor in MGT camps that strengthen students’ leadership and teamwork skills. I am excited about sharing Colombian culture and expanding my insights about American culture so that I can construct bonds to expand my students’ points of view once I return to my country.

Image of Language Fellow Gersmeier Lucas.

Lucas Gersmeier

After growing up in Gelsenkirchen, a medium-sized city at the heart of the Ruhr Area in the west of Germany, I moved out to study English and American studies as well as sports science at the Ruhr University Bochum, where I also completed parts of my teacher training for English as a foreign language and physical education. Being a sports enthusiast, I found delight in teaching physical education at schools and making sports and physical activity in general more accessible to kids and adolescents in a social project. Apart from spending several months at the University of Nottingham during my Erasmus stay abroad in the United Kingdom, I have visited many countries primarily in Europe and enjoyed getting to know new people, immersing in foreign cultures and exploring the unknown. My travel experience further ignited my already existing passion for languages and helped me realize that having a command of another language, even if it is only on a basic level, can open so many doors and provide opportunities to grow. This reaffirmed my decision to work as a language teacher since I would like to help others gain second language competences that enable them to have a similarly beneficial experience and grow personally. Currently, I am teaching novice-level German at SU and am grateful for having the opportunity to engage in a mutually enriching cultural exchange and broaden my professional horizon.