Every academic year, the Fries Center for Global Studies collaborates with the Office of Graduate Student Services, the College of East Asian Studies, and the Department of Romance Languages to welcome a cohort of international language teaching assistants. These Foreign Language Teaching Assistants, or FLTAs, come to Wesleyan as non-degree seeking graduate students to foster meaningful cultural exchange with the Wesleyan University students who are learning their native languages. They are appointed by the language departments in partnership with their alma mater institutions in their respective home countries: these include the Kansai Gaidai University in Japan, the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, the Universidad Complutense and the Universidad Carlos III in Spain, the University of Bologna in Italy, and Beijing Normal University in China, among others. The program also encompasses Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants, who are graduate students or young professionals from around the world who are sponsored by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs through the Fulbright Program to teach at Wesleyan.

The FLTAs are tasked with leading in-classroom lectures and TA sessions, grading and administrative work, as well as organizing a language table once a week to encourage students of all levels to practice their language skills outside the formalities of the classroom. Their shared office is located in Fisk Hall, giving them a centralized location that promotes engagement within the greater Wesleyan community. This year, the cohort of eleven FLTAs hail from nine countries, encompassing nine different languages: Libya (teaching Arabic), China (teaching Chinese), India (teaching Hindi and Urdu), France (teaching French), Spain (teaching Spanish), Colombia (teaching Spanish), Italy (teaching Italian), Japan (teaching Japanese), and Korea (teaching Korean). Learn more about the 2023-2024 FLTAs here!