Education Graduate Wins Fulbright to Teach English in Taiwan

Jennifer Tam ’18, a former double major in Early Childhood Education/Art Education and Children and Youth Studies, headed to Taiwan this summer for an 11-month Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Fellowship.

“I like to go to new places, so this is great because I get to hone my professional skills and travel at the same time,” says Tam, who wants to either be a classroom teacher or work in museum education.

Tam, who minored in Chinese, is helping teach English to elementary school children who are mostly native Mandarin speakers in Hualien City, on the east coast of Taiwan.

When she herself was a young student, her parents did not speak much English. During her time at Brooklyn College, she conducted fieldwork in New York City schools with kids who were native Mandarin speakers.

“Working with this population is something I wanted to pursue,” she says. “It’s really rewarding to me to help them understand.”

A former Macaulay Honors College student, Tam has studied abroad twice—in Brooklyn College’s three-week Study Abroad China program and through a six-week Queens College program in South Korea. She has also visited China twice with her family. Additionally, she is a member of Kappa Delta Pi, the International Honor Society in Education, and interned at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in New York City.