Çiğdem Blocker, MS

ELL Coordinator

Hometown

Hatay, Türkiye

What attracted you to Arrupe College?

Arrupe is a dedicated community to providing quality education for a diverse student population, especially for first generation students. Arrupe strives to give them a chance to excel in life. This requires intercultural understanding, an effort to overcome all the students’ challenges and help them reach their highest potential. I wanted to be a part of this mission to support multilingual students, which has always been the focus of my teaching.

How did you get involved in teaching languages?

Growing up as a bilingual person, I have always been interested in learning languages. For me, multilingualism is a valuable asset that broadens horizons and nurtures interpersonal skills, personality, and identity. Especially, learning English opened the most unexpected doors of opportunity for me and helped me connect with the world from different perspectives. During my undergraduate years in Türkiye, I led many international youth exchange programs and interacted with multicultural and multilingual youth groups which inspired me to choose higher education as a career. I taught English in many universities and institutions in different countries, focusing on English for global competences. My path of learning languages and learning about the world inspired me to share my experiences with language learners, accompany them in their journey, and help them improve their English skills while discovering the benefits of language learning.

What is your favorite aspect about working at Arrupe?

Meeting students and witnessing their achievements is the most valuable experience for me at Arrupe. I enjoy watching them grow and gain confidence with their language, academic skills, and personalities.

Education

Cukurova University (BA), University of Wisconsin (MS)