Chloe Lai Receives Fulbright to Taiwan

Spring graduate Chloe Lai will reconnect with her family’s heritage and hone her skills in language pedagogy in Taiwan as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA).

During her Fulbright year, Lai will live and learn in Hualien county, a rural mountainous region on the eastern coast of the island. She applied for a Fulbright ETA because she is passionate about learning and teaching. 

“I enjoy all parts of the teaching process, from planning to reflection, and am constantly striving to become a better educator,” says Lai, an art history and East Asian studies major with an education concentration. 

Lai has taken Chinese at Oberlin for three years, and she has worked as an America Reads tutor in the same fourth-grade classroom in the Oberlin elementary school for all four years. She has also taken a course in language pedagogy, and she has been a teacher with the Spanish in the Elementary Schools (SITES) program. 

“I love language teaching and learning because for me, these classes make the world seem so big,” she says. “Through (SITES), I learned a lot about language acquisition and leading student-centered classes.”

Outside of the classroom, Lai has been a member of the Third World Co-op, a writer in the Arts Students Committee, and a gallery guide at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. A resident of Redwood City, California, she plans to continue teaching in the future, and possibly pursuing graduate studies. 

“I think I am prepared to adjust to challenges, and I'll be able to find questions and pathways to pursue my interests. During my year in Taiwan, I am most excited to learn about the nuances of cultural identity, explore the natural landscape, and try new foods!”