05/29/2026
Congratulations to Shayna Klainberg ’26E who studied abroad with our exchange partner and has been awarded an English Teaching Assistant grant to Germany with the ! 🎉🦣🇩🇪
📷️ Repost: Congratulations to Shayna Klainberg ’26E who has been awarded an English Teaching Assistant grant to Germany with the ! As a German major who studied abroad at the University of Göttingen, and with plenty of experience in education, Shayna is perfectly suited for this role. She has fostered language learning through imaginative play in person with preschoolers and incorporated role-playing games while tutoring adult Korean learners of English remotely. She draws on her four-years long involvement with Mr. Gad’s House of Improv at Amherst to come up with inventive and responsive solutions to student’s stumbling blocks.
Shayna notes that play “lowers barriers to communication, builds confidence, and makes language practice joyful.” She even plans to use her love for the game of baseball to teach aspects of American culture as an ETA. She also hopes to share elements of her Jewish upbringing, hosting Shabbat dinners to stimulate conversations about tradition, history, and identity. She hopes this will create a setting where students and colleagues can reflect on their own German traditions in the spirit of exchange.
As a lifelong language learner beginning with Hebrew and Spanish as a child then German and Yiddish in college, Shayna knows the challenges and rewards of finding one's voice in another language. In fact, she plans to make language the center of her career. After Fulbright, Shayna will pursue graduate study in education or linguistics and continue to promote mutual understanding as she works as a teacher of language and culture.
Here’s to the year ahead, Shayna! We are so of you!
