Ailsa is a current LTS student on the two-year schedule  and is at the beginning of her second year of study. 

Hello Ailsa! Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Hello everyone! I’m Ailsa Li, a native speaker of Chinese who was born in Hebei province in China. Probably not many people have heard about my hometown, but it’s located in the northern part of China and is close to Beijing. 

I came here as an international student for my undergraduate degree 6 years ago. I was originally enrolled in the Economics department and minoring in Business at UO for my first two years. Although these are popular majors for many Asian students, I finally decided to quit due to my terrible calculation skills (what’s a shame!). But more essentially, I realized Economics is not the true interest for my whole life. Later I started learning Japanese and it was the most memorable experience that I personally enjoyed throughout my undergraduate studies (I will talk more about it in the next question). Finally I achieved a double major in both Japanese and General Social Science 2 years ago, and now I’m one of the grad students in the LTS program! 

For leisure time, one of my favorite hobbies is trying out cooking recipes of different cultures. I believe cooking is an amazing strategy to release stress and train patience. Also you can have a real taste for the little success! I also have a cat named “Soymilk”, she is my best “friend” but also the most annoying “roommate”! She likes staring at me or sleeping on my desk when I am working or studying. But deep down in my heart, I am really thankful that Soymilk has always accompanied me, especially during the pandemic when everyone had a tough time connecting with others. 

What made you interested in studying language education?

Here I’ll continue with my Japanese learning experience in UO. I was going into this cold; I had zero experience in learning Japanese except occasionally watching Japanese TV shows, and I needed elective credits at that time so my friends recommended that I take Japanese classes. I wasn’t very confident for the first couple days of starting Japanese class, but soon I realized I did a better job than I expected. To be honest, the main reason for me to choose a Japanese major is that all the professors I met are real experts in teaching. As a student, I could feel their contagious enthusiasm in every single class. I was learning the language with fun, and I still had the passion to learn Japanese after I graduated.

Soon I started thinking about the importance of a teacher’s role in language class. It reminded me of the English learning experience of TOEFL classes in China. I understand most extracurricular English courses are score-driven programs in many countries, and China is not an exception. But I still remember how stressful and tedious the class was. I questioned myself a lot during that period because of my shifting TOEFL test scores. Comparing  these two completely contrary language learning experiences, I was curious about becoming a language teacher who could make language courses more enjoyable and delightful. Now, I’m stepping on that path. 

What has been most interesting or motivating for you as an international student living in Oregon? What advice would you give other international students interested in LTS?

Eugene is a relatively small town but it has a mixed urban and suburban environment. You can enjoy a very peaceful life surrounded by plenty of greenery. Walking through campus, you can feel the changing of the four seasons by observing the colors of tree leaves, smelling the breeze and feeling the rain. Oregon is also famous for its beautiful landscapes, coastal scenery and outdoor activities. I was originally from an inland city without any sea around. But living here I experienced crabbing, fishing, snow skating and other fun outdoor entertainment. 

For international students who have a passion for language teaching or are interested in applying to the LTS program, welcome and please join our LTS family. We have many current cohort members and alums who are elaborating their creativity in language education. Some of them are mainly focusing on teaching the majority languages such as Spanish and English. But we also have people who prefer to do projects on minority languages or even endangered ones. In LTS, we encourage everyone to pursue their own path of teaching. Besides we have the kindest program director Keli, she is always willing to hear individuals’ needs and provide thoughtful advice. 

What would be your ideal career path after LTS?

Currently I really enjoy being one of the tutors in the Chinese Flagship program in UO. I’m offering one-on-one tutoring classes to Chinese learners with English L1 backgrounds. I’ve also participated in other Chinese teaching courses in past terms, such as a Chinese Honors class at Oak Hill high school in Eugene. My bilingual or even trilingual linguistic background helped me a lot in teaching, and I feel it’s beneficial if a teacher is able to share their language learning strategies with students. My ideal career path would be teaching Chinese to adult learners with native English backgrounds in a school setting. But teaching communicative or pragmatic focused English class in China or other EFL contexts also sounds appealing. 

Finally, how did you get your unusual name and spelling? I’ve always wanted to ask you that.

I’ve heard this question all the time, and now I can explain it to everyone. During my high school, one day there was a Caucasian looking man with a big smile walking into our classroom. He said he will be the teacher for our English speaking class for this year. The first task we had is that everyone needed to find a nickname they preferred to use in speaking classes. Then we needed to write down our nicknames on note cards and give them to the teacher. The teacher gave us 5 minutes for thinking, discussing or searching online. I just did a quick search on general English names for girls and originally planned to use the normal “A-L-I-S-A” name. But at that point, I didn’t notice my spelling was slightly different….

Soon an extremely interesting thing happened when the teacher started calling everyone’s name from the note cards. He found there were two girls who wanted to be called “Alisa”, but he compared our two name cards and noticed my spelling mistake. So he suggested why not just use “Ailsa” as my unique nickname and it sounded quite cute. I think being a little bit different indeed is a cool thing so I have been using Ailsa ever since. 

Sometimes I feel annoyed explaining my nickname’s spelling in every self-introduction situation. But thanks to my unusual name, people always remember me!