“The moment I walked into my first Chinese class, I knew that it was a language I wanted to stick with,” recalled Nebraska Wesleyan University sophomore Terri Seier.
Now Seier is stepping into a Chinese class in Taiwan, thanks to a Freeman-ASIA Award she received in December.
The Freeman-ASIA Award is a national award that provides scholarships for U.S. undergraduates who want to study abroad in East or Southeast Asia.
Seier, an English major from Petersburg, Neb., is spending the spring semester at Providence University. In addition to taking classes, Seier plans to participate in volunteer opportunities that will give her experience needed for a career as an English Language Learner educator.
“Studying abroad and becoming proficient in Chinese will help me as an ELL teacher because it will be easier to make known the cultural difference — especially if they are planning to move to the United States,” she said. “Likewise, my experience on learning Chinese and how others respond to the different methods of teaching a language can be transferred into my own methods for teaching English.”
Seier is also pursuing minors in Chinese and writing and is active in the NWU Philosophy Club and Creative Writing Club. She is a graduate of Pope John XXIII Central Catholic High School in Elgin, Neb.