As Spanish is becoming more and more the second language of the United States, a West Virginia University professor in turn is going to Mexico as a Fulbright scholar to help train English teachers in that country.

Dr. Helen Huntley will spend the 2006-07 academic year at the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California in Tijuana, where shell train teachers and help update the curriculum of the schools English as a Foreign Language program.

She has directed WVU s Intensive English Program in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences since 1996.

Huntley, who has been presenting papers and research in Mexico for the past several years, saystheres a great needfor the training of English teachers across Baja and across the regions surrounding states.

Shell be among the nearly 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel to 150 countries as part of the Fulbright Scholar Program. It was created in 1946 as an academic healing balm to a world still ravaged by the aftermath of World War II, which ended the year before.

The Fulbright program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of States Bureau of Economic and Cultural Affairs, and its scholars are accepted because of the excellence they demonstrate in their fields.

Huntley expects to return to WVU after her Fulbright appointment as assistant director of the Intensive English program, which was established in 1979 for the benefit of international students who need to improve their proficiency of English before entering their majors.

The help also carries past the classroom. Students are also given guidance and help as they open bank accounts and rent apartments in the Morgantown community, and other assistance is offered for students needing counseling in healthcare, banking and legal matters.