Interviewed by: Mira Bekar

Selected as an English Teaching Assistant by the U.S. Fulbright Program to N. Macedonia for the 2021-2022 academic year, Mrs. Kathleen Holmes-Smith, currently hails from rural Pea Ridge, Arkansas, after having lived in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Israel, Virginia, Philippines, Hawaii, Japan, Colorado, and Dominican Republic. She brings a lifetime of experience to the Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, specifically to the English Department at “Blazhe Koneski” Faculty of Philology as an educator, businesswoman, private tutor, grant writer, author and community volunteer.

Mira (MAAA): You were appointed as an ETA to the English Department at “Blazhe Koneski” Faculty of Philology, so you arrived in our country and experienced the educational system here for the first time in 2021. What was the rationale behind choosing Macedonia and what expectations did you have? (e.g. Were the adjustments easy? Any culture shocks? etc.)

Kathleen: With an English and U.S. history teacher father and a math and science teacher mother, education has always been considered the highest and most noble profession in our family, even though in the U.S. as in N. Macedonia, the pay is often not that great. As a longtime homeschooling mom to 5 ambitious and energetic children, I longed for an adventure with my youngest son, age 17, that we would remember for the rest of our lives. He was always the “tag-along” to the older children so this would be a challenging, educational experience to take us out of our comfort zones and be a memory all his own.

The study abroad experience enhanced his college application to the point he received a full scholarship to study engineering at the University of Arkansas, our home state. The university experience for me will of course give me preferential hiring when I return to the States though I am embarking on a new degree, mechanical engineering, which as a pensioner, I can attend any Arkansas state university free of charge.

 As far as expectations, the Fulbright summer orientation prepared us for low and high tech classrooms and the option of mandated curricula versus create-your-own scenarios. Since I have been in education my whole life, I understand the business of education, the politics in education and the challenges of fitting into a new school. One advantage, which allowed me to stay objective, was that I was paid by the U.S. government, so not affected by local economic decisions. However, I was definitely outclassed by the talented and far more experienced faculty. My Fulbright mission was to be a good representative of what makes America great and lighten the load of overworked professors while having fun at the same time. My expectations were exceeded in every way possible, personally and professionally.

Mira (MAAA): You have had experience with both public tertiary education and private high school education in Macedonia. What are your impressions about these educational systems?

Kathleen: My Fulbright placement was at the prestigious flagship state school Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, where I discovered the students fluent English, by their own admission from watching British and American television. I found I could really help them in fine-tuning their technical academic writing skills, including the introduction of the APA reference formats. They were eager, polite, attentive, friendly and hard-working. Many were balancing jobs, sickness or lost loved ones from Covid-19. I have great admiration for those who pushed their education forward under extreme circumstances. They are to be commended.

As I was formally a regular substitute teacher at my son’s private high school, I noticed his work at NOVA was far more challenging than his U.S. high school. There were assignment miscommunications, which did not help of course, but he also did not have the easy year he anticipated. On the contrary, he had two, 2000-word essays to complete in order to graduate. We were very pleased with his final grades and the rigorous preparation he received to study engineering at the University of Arkansas.

I want to add that Jon and I had the good fortune, along with one of his NOVA friends and one of my college English students, to volunteer at an after-school program in the disadvantaged Roma community to teach English in person. This program was well-attended, loud, boisterous and extremely rewarding. It helped fill the void of not regularly interacting with my fellow faculty members or students due to the nature of online classes.

Mira (MAAA): At the English Department you taught Writing and Speaking classes. How would you describe that professional experience?

Kathleen: My Fulbright cohort was prepared to teach elementary and high school positions, even writing curriculum, but we literally gasped out loud and panicked at the thought of teaching college students. I like structure so I was very pleased to be provided the tools I needed to be successful. University professors shared their curriculum with me and answered all my questions, especially the technical aspects of teaching English as a second language. For the Speaking Classes, I was provided topics and ideas which I could tie in to other areas they were studying. This made the Speaking classes relevant and often lively. One class involved the subject of a debate of the Metaverse, whether students thought this was a good idea or not. There were some very strong and well-researched opinions. Another topic involved financial planning but with a twist: the context was making financial decisions in getting out of an abusive marriage. Students listened to a very raw description by one young mother and made so many insightful comments. I enjoyed my classes very much and found them personally rewarding and satisfying.

Mira (MAAA): how would you describe the students’ skills (talking about English majors at Blazhe Koneski Faculty of Philology) and their English proficiency levels?

 Kathleen: They were all fluent though different levels of academic writing. My niche was to Zoom with them one-on-one as time allowed to help hone their technical skills. This was important to me because one of the NOVA parents, who was also a UKIM graduate, told me at a parent meeting she was impacted by a Fulbrighter who worked with her one-on-one when she was a student. As many students mentioned a goal of being a teacher, I made an effort to point out pedagogical skills when a lesson was not working so they would be better equipped in the classroom with their own students. I also broke down academic writing in a formula fashion, line by line, to show the underlying mechanics for future writing assignments. I hope they do not forget!

Mira (MAAA): What improvements would you recommend at a university level?

Kathleen:

1) Double the salaries and bring on more full-time staff. The workload is too heavy (each of my classes had 45-50 students on the roster) and I could only make a small dent in floating an otherwise jam-packed lifeboat of English classes.

2) Restore the English Library budget for new books and an online searchable academic journal database. There have been no significant book acquisitions in 10 years and students are unable to search for the academic journals they need for writing assignments. I had to look for them at my home university library or send them to other U.S. libraries.

3) Secure the university website and provide university emails to all students. This should be the highest priority after increasing salaries. Students would be able to receive free Microsoft products which are critical to English majors. Please add Canvas or a similar learning platform as soon as possible.  Canvas has launched unlimited subscriptions for universities worldwide.

4) Provide a commercial-grade, password protected WiFi thoughout the UKIM Campus. I taught classes hybrid-style from the classroom and found it necessary to use my personal hotspot and pay for a Zoom subscription. Despite my personal interventions, my Zoom links would often crash. Students were polite but my best efforts seemed so amateur.

5) Besides tuition incentives for good students, provide powerful laptops. UKIM needs to be known as the most technologically advanced university in the country and a hotbed for potential IT start-ups. English, and the ability to communicate effectively, is the key. Provide the tool as a concrete incentive to demonstrate that you are willing to invest in the best and brightest and mean it. My son Justin, once, at a computer engineering summer camp was given a portable USB flash drive on a keychain with the capacity of the best external hard drive at the time instead of other usual gifts at camps. That was 7 years ago and he still uses that flash drive.That was 7 years ago and my son still uses that drive. Raise the bar and look for a grant to run a pilot program to put UKIM English students on a more competitive level with new laptops.

6) Aggressively pursue renovations for classrooms. Next door to the P5 classroom I used regularly was a beautiful, completely modernized room with new desks for the Psychology department. The English department, being one of the largest and most successful, deserves the same beautiful classrooms. It is time. If grants and grant writers are needed to make this happen, hire a grant writer.

7) Pay all expenses for each faculty member to attend one conference per year. This will ensure the faculty stays current and relevant.

8) Continue team building events in order to foster a friendly and supportive work environment.

Mira (MAAA): What advice would you give to our students in regard to their future career plans?

Kathleen: Please take advantage of funded study abroad activities on the U.S. Embassy website. UKIM students are the best and brightest. If they want to leave for a different country to work, thank God they have the freedom to do it. If they want to stay in Macedonia and complain about the lack of a good paying job, an American would tell you to create it. The American Corner on our campus has the tools to assist students in setting up an NGO and applying for start-up grants. Students could also seek political office to be the change. You can be an honest politician, make this country an energy exporter of natural gas and become a money magnet. That was America just a little over a year ago and we will again, possibly as soon as this summer. Build on what works and bring prosperity to all your countrymen. It starts with energy in combination with your fluency in English.

Mira (MAAA): What advice would you have for the new Fulbright ETAs coming to Macedonia?

Kathleen: I paid attention to my Fulbright orientation training which was to be an ambassador of American goodwill and help in any way possible. No experience will go perfectly and not everyone will like and appreciate your efforts. Be firm but always be kind. The university curriculum and other educational materials were provided to me and I was glad to have some guardrails. I want to pass on the advice given to me to use their native speaker skills as a way to enhance individualized learning with interested students. Yes, it takes time but it will lighten the load of your underpaid colleagues and give students an opportunity to engage with an American intellectual in a very constructive, and hopefully, inspiring way.  I also encourage week-end activities to introduce volunteering. I had students who handed out hot meals to the homeless with me say they never had volunteered before but would consider doing so again. N. Macedonia has many NGO’s needing helpers and I made many contacts through the like-minded, English-speaking, International Church of Skopje. Though religious, it was a very practical contact.

Normally a free Macedonian language class is offered to Fulbrighters but because of the pandemic and very few foreign students, one was not offered to me. I would have had to pay a pricey private tutoring fee via Zoom and I just could not sit for one more Zoom class. If the free class is offered again, I highly recommend they sign up. It’s a beautiful language.

Mira (MAAA): Thank you so much for the shared ideas. All the best in your future endeavors!