Julia Berrebi ’19 Awarded Visiting English Teaching Post at Lingnan University in Hong Kong

As an English major, Berrebi has fine-tuned her passion for language and pursued teaching opportunities outside of the classroom. Berrebi began working as a writing associate in the Writing Center during her junior year and says that this experience piqued her interest in applying for the Visiting English Tutor (VET) position at Lingnan University.

“I loved working with students in a drop-in setting at the Writing Center, because it provided this constant excitement and a variety of people and material to work with,” she says. “The opportunity to work with new people and writing from all disciplines was priceless to me, because I got to enhance my skills in working with different types of writing and writers, at all steps of the writing process.”

After her first semester of working in the Writing Center, Berrebi began working as a course writing associate for Expository Writing, an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) course, and has continued in this position throughout her senior year. She says that supporting students in this capacity helped solidify her desire to apply for the VET position.

“Being a course writing associate for an ESOL class has really helped me feel equipped to work with English as a foreign language. The fact that the VET position combines my love for the Writing Center drop-in structure and working with English as a second language motivated me to give it a try.”

The VET program at Lingnan University not only enables recent graduates to gain experience teaching English to non-native speakers, but it also facilitates opportunities for engagement between local undergraduate students in Hong Kong and the international tutors. VET tutors teach in the university’s English Learning Support Service, providing academic support and facilitating cultural activities and workshops, such as English Cafés, movie nights, and TEDx Lingnan University events.

“I’m really excited about this part of the job because I love film and believe it is an engaging way to forge conversations around cultural exchange,” Berrebi says.

“I’m also a strong advocate for using art, music, and stories when teaching a language. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of this position as an opportunity to put this into practice.”