Honors College graduate and translation major Mallory Woods, BS ’22, a native of Fairview, Pennsylvania, is living in Ecuador for nine months as the recipient of a prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Assistant award.
Woods, who studied in Florence, Italy, for the 2021-2022 academic year, says her education-abroad experiences in Israel, Palestine, the Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Spain and Italy have been fundamental in improving her language skills and multicultural competence.
She moved to Ecuador in September 2022, and we recently caught up with her via email to find out more about her experience so far.
Where are you living and working?
I am currently living in Riobamba, a city of around 150,000 people in Chimborazo, a province in the central Andes of Ecuador. Riobamba is in the mountains with an elevation of 9,000 feet, and the altitude has taken some getting used to. On a clear day, four volcanoes are visible towering over the city. Last week, the city was dusted by ashes from the Sangay volcano over 30 miles away!
I am working as an English teaching assistant at the Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo (UNACH) through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Through June 2023, I will be assisting professors there in teaching intermediate English and other elective courses, organizing English conversation hours, auditing Kichwa classes (Kichwa is an Indigenous language prevalent in Riobamba with different dialects spoken throughout the country) and volunteering at an intercultural bilingual Kichwa-Spanish primary school in Columbe Grande, a nearby Indigenous community.
How does the higher education system differ from the United States?
In Ecuador, public universities, like UNACH, do not charge tuition and are generally more difficult to enter compared to private universities, which can be costly. High demand and limited university spaces have affected access to higher education in recent years. At the end of high school, students’ scores on standardized exams determine which fields of study they can pursue.
Additionally, some academic procedures are much more formal than their U.S. equivalents, such as introductory meetings. Most of the classes I assist have 25-30+ students, and student-teacher dynamics are characterized by respect.
Why do your Ecuadorian students want to learn English?
At UNACH I am working in the foreign language pedagogy department, so almost all of the students are aspiring language teachers. During the first week of classes, I asked students to tell me why they chose to study English. A major motivator for almost all of them was being able to communicate while traveling internationally.
Once a week, my roommate and I visit an intercultural bilingual Kichwa-Spanish primary school in the Columbe Grande community to supplement its English curriculum. The students would like to learn English, and I can’t wait for them to share more about their Kichwa language and culture! That first day, a few of the students asked me to translate about 40 words into English from Spanish, and then I asked them for the Kichwa equivalents.
What do the students want to know about you and the United States?
Lots of Ecuadorians have been curious about how universities are structured in the United States. I have had a lot of questions about my experience of earning an undergraduate degree and how this compares to Ecuadorian norms. In conversations with local friends, I have spent a lot of time discussing topics like food, friendship and family dynamics, and Ecuadorian and U.S. politics.
How do you spend your free time?
I enjoy traveling to new Ecuadorian cities, practicing yoga at a local studio, attending soccer games and enjoying new foods.
What Ecuadorian foods have you sampled?
I am vegetarian, so while I can’t speak about many of the traditional dishes—which contain chicken, pork or guinea pig—I can say that there is no shortage of delicious produce, flavorful cheese empanadas, and amazing vegetable soups here. Also, to my pleasant surprise, Riobamba is full of crepe and waffle shops. Another surprise is that ice cream topped with shredded cheese is a popular snack that became prevalent in the last 10 or so years!
Can you tell us a bit more about your host country?
Ecuador has four distinct regions: the mountainous Andean highlands (where I am), the coastal lowlands, the Amazon and the Galápagos.
Even though the country is roughly the size of Colorado, I am intrigued by how diverse it is and how much variety there is in accents, food, lifestyles and more across the regions and even from city to city. There are more than 1.1 million Indigenous people in Ecuador from 14 different nationalities and, from what I have learned so far, Indigenous customs and traditions are anything but homogenous!
