Farrah Beck (’21) recently arrived in South Korea for her placement as part of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program. Beck will teach English at a local middle school and will serve as a cultural ambassador through December 17, 2022.
“I will be teaching at Yeongil Middle School, a private co-ed school in Pohang, right on the coast!” Beck said. “This is the exact placement I wanted.”
The Fulbright ETA program places recent college graduates and young professionals in classrooms around the world to help teach English alongside local teachers and to serve as cultural ambassadors for the United States. Beck was announced as a semifinalist for the Fulbright ETA program last January and received her official acceptance letter on May 5, shortly after receiving her Clinton School diploma.
Beck said that she is even more excited for the experience now that she is in South Korea and knows her official placement. She takes four hours of Korean language classes each day. The Fulbright program provides her with frequent teaching workshops, and she participated in the Fulbright English Program, a summer English camp for Korean students.
“I taught one lesson during this camp,” Beck said. “I’m really excited about my placement because all of my preferences were honored. Pohang is a pretty big city, so there will be a lot to experience.”
Beck, a native of Conway, Ark., who graduated from the University of Central Arkansas, has experience living abroad and teaching English to non-native speakers. She lived in Spain for a semester as an undergraduate. She earned her degree in TESOL, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Prior to enrolling at the Clinton School, she worked as an AmeriCorps VISTA with Literacy Action of Central Arkansas and City Year in Little Rock.
“At this time, I don’t know what my direction is after Fulbright,” Beck said. “I think that my future will depend on how much I enjoy teaching, but I am interested in working with education-related nonprofits. I enjoyed my time working at a Little Rock middle school and my time with a local literacy council, both AmeriCorps years.”
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