help me with motivation statement for Erasmus Mundus

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Hello everybody! I am applying for Erasmus Mundus scholarship Masters course in Education Technologies. For this I need to answer some questions in the application form. I'd very thankful if you could proofread them and say what are my chances to get it with these answers. The deadline[/b] is on January 6th 2014 [/b]

Motivation/ Personal statement
What are your learning goals and objectives?
I was inspired by the "Summerhill School" of A. Neil and the life of Maria Montessori when doing my research in Pedagogics and later on by Sir Ken Robinson speeches and the way how schools work in Singapore. For this reason I am now working as a teacher of English and a pedagogue in the Youth Club turning my views on education into ideas and trying them out in my work but I can clearly see that I lack the knowledge that I can get observing the studying process of the teachers who work with the techniques of experimental pedagogics. I feel like I am trying to invent a bicycle after only seeing the picture of it once.
I want to learn more about the ICT in education. I have read articles on this topic including the UNESCO guide but I did not have a chance to see applied as long as in Eastern Europe they are just starting using elements of it in few public schools and some private ones.This program can give me a unique opportunity to see how education system and different work in different countries and make a research under supervision of professionals. When teaching I am trying to make my lessons interesting to my students and relevant to their needs although I can clearly see that I lack knowledge and experience.

What is your career plan? (what field would you like to work in? What company (or institution) would you like to work for? What position would you be looking for?)

My life dream is to create a modern school corresponding all the requirements for teaching contemporary children of XXI century that my architect friend has projected as a student. In the future, after coming back with clearer vision of my school having international experience and more knowledge I want to work in the places where they tell how the education has to work in the country or in my city. These are Ministry of Education or local Department of Education. I realise that I will not be able to get this job right the moment I come back home so untill get it I plan to continue working as an ordinary teacher of English and probably come back to work in the NGO where I'm doing internship now or do internship in private schools with author's techniques of teaching like Waldorf and Montessori.
Another thing I know for sure I am going to do on coming back is sharing my knowledge and experience with people holding lectures and seminars for beginning teachers, education students as well as to all other interested in education looking for likeminded people.

What topic have you chosen for your thesis/dissertation? Your answer will enable moderators to assess your degree of conceptualisation)
What is your research question? (major focus, line of argument)
I want to compare average public schools and author techniques schools in order to find out whether the author techniques schools really give the necessary life skills for the XXI century` to the schoolchildren and to what extent. So far it seems to me that mostly public schools do not provide the children with necessary knowledge and skills for living in the digital era

What is the theoretical framework for your research?
I hope to shed light on the following questions through my research:
1) what are the skills and knowledge needed to live in the XXI century?
2) do the average public schools provide these skills and knowledge ? What kind of schools? To what extent do they provide them?
a) what kind of methods and tools are used?
b) what is needed to for the public schools to succeed in providing the children with necessary XXI century skills?
3) Do the author techniques' schools provide these skills and knowledge? What kind of schools? To what extent do they provide them?
a) what kind of methods and tools are used?
b) what is needed to for the author techniques' schools to succeed in providing the children with necessary XXI century skills?

What research methodology are you planning to use?
My research requires field study in order to collect necessary data, analyze the material and to compare the studying and learning processes in the schools. I plan to use descriptive and action research for the reason that I want to observe and examine the studying process in the schools. Multiple interviews are planned with schoolchildren, their teachers and parents as well as school graduates, their professors and employers in order to provide more in-depth data collection and opportunities for follow-up. The goal is to interview approximately 20 people connected to 3 schools in different localities.
This project will utilize both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools, but is rooted in a qualitative epistemological position that recognizes the importance of locating the research within a particular social, cultural, and historical context. It also takes seriously the social construction of these contexts and the identities participants construct within them.
A qualitative evaluation shall be utilized for this research project leveraging subjective methods such as interviews and observations to collect substantive and relevant data.
I will work with faculty at the local Research Centers to identify potential participants. I will also ask teachers to respond to a series of journal prompts over the course of the project that allow them to provide a more detailed and longitudinal view of their daily lives as teachers-their experiences, reactions, beliefs, and ideas about their roles and responsibilities as educators.
This is the unique opportunity for me to implement by intercultural education expertise within foreign country and assist the recognized universities in developing a ground-breaking and vital research project.

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@nastasi,

This post has a datestamp of January 7, 2014 and you wrote:

Quote:

The deadline[/b] is on January 6th 2014 [/b]

...
then your deadline is already in the past.

Oopsy!

Also seeing that no one in this online community is an expert about Erasmus Mundus scholarships Masters courses in Education Technologies, I'll make an educated guess that it would be impossible to say what your chances are of getting accepted.

I will start you off by providing a small edit and general statement about style. Frankly speaking, your English composition in general is a bit confusing and stilted - particularly this last confusing sentence. It may have at least one typo, I believe:

Quote:

This is the unique opportunity for me to implement by intercultural education expertise within foreign country and assist the recognized universities in developing a ground-breaking and vital research project.

Did you mean to type the word my here?

Lastly, your sentences are far too long and complex in many spots. Re-edit and shorten sentences to a manageable length. I wouldn't suggest a lhard and fast sentence length by suggesting Fog Index formula which says an avg of 18-20 word length. Limit some sentences that are often times the longest - like this one:

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@nastasi,

Quote:

For this reason I am now working as a teacher of English and a pedagogue in the Youth Club turning my views on education into ideas and trying them out in my work but I can clearly see that I lack the knowledge that I can get observing the studying process of the teachers who work with the techniques of experimental pedagogics.

I'll use this previous sentence as a prime example to edit down and break up into more than one sentence.

BTW, I don't mean to be overly harsh or overly critical. Your English is very good. However the composition by which you will be judged has a focus on the quality of how accomplished your writing/composition/clarity level is. My thought is that it should to be the level of a publication.

What I was referring to earlier is known as Gunning Fog Index. I was NOT suggesting to use it as a hard and fast rule but to be aware of it because your judges will have that in their minds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunning_fog_index

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@nastasi,

the deadline was extended until 12th of january

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@Ragman,

thanks a lot for the advice! You are totally right about the length, I'll break them. and yes, I meant my.

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@Ragman,

Here's a bit about the program
Presentation of the program - Euromime
The Master is a multi disciplinary training program. It is based on a competency based approach organized in five complementary fields: technology, educational engineering, management, research methods and tools, communication competencies.
EUROMIME articulates high level courses, completion of projects with industrial partners, a professional training course, a research training course, research seminars and attendance to several international symposiums and a final thesis.
The course includes a distance preparation period carried out in the country of origin and two years of training within the universities of the consortium (from September of the first year to September of the second year).
The teaching languages are the national languages of the three partner universities (French, Portuguese and Spanish). A very important linguistic preparation allows English speaking students with no command of the three teaching languages to register.
Students are enrolled during the 2-year training program in Master Infocom Euromime (University of Poitiers, France), Mestrado Ciências da Educação (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal) and Máster Universitario in Estrategias y Tecnologías para la Función Docente en la Sociedad Multicultural (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain).

Please say what are my chances! Did I answer the questions fully enough?

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@nastasi,

Going along with Ragman - there's a lot of I, I, I in this. Many of your sentences are run-ons. Let's start with the first one.

Quote:

I was inspired by the "Summerhill School" of A. Neil and when doing my research in Pedagogics and later on by Sir Ken Robinson speeches and the way how schools work in Singapore.

How about something like this instead -

Quote:

While researching Pedagogics, my inspirations were A. Neill's Summerhill School and the life of Maria Montessori. I was later inspired by Sir Ken Robinson's speeches, and by the way that schools work in Singapore.

Summerhill School doesn't get quotation marks - it's neither a quote nor a title. The 'when doing' construction is awkward. The speeches belong to Robinson so you need to use an apostrophe and an s to denote possession. 'The way how' is technically correct but 'the way that' flows more conversationally.

I get the feeling that you are trying to sound really highbrow here. It is going to backfire if the basic sentence constructions are off. Go with shorter, snappier sentences and check carefully for things like possessives, subject-verb agreements, etc. These are the sorts of things that will pass through a spell checker but are still not correct.

1 Reply

@jespah,

thank you very much!

0 Replies

@nastasi,

This is a recommendation from my college teacher. I wrote it under her guidance. But I am not sure whether it is suitable for this particular program cuz we composed it for Organizational Management.. Seems like it has to show more of my interest in education. This 1 is meant to show my organisational skills

Dear Euromime team:
I am writing to you on behalf of Anastassia Onufriv. She was a student in my classes of “National Literature of English Speaking Countries” for six semesters (2008-2011) of studies. Thus, I had a great chance to learn about her personality and her abilities as a student. During this period of time she has shown herself as an outstanding student.
Anastassia thinks creatively and is able to think outside the box. This is what made her distinguishing from most of the students. At the lectures and seminars she has always been active and initiative taking part in the discussions. This would show her ability to systematize, generalize and analyze phenomena providing critical estimation.
Already at the beginning of the course Anastassia has demonstrated her interest in English and American literature. As a result she made two research works under my supervision - “Symbolism of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales” and “Beatniks in the XX century American Literature”. During the research Anastassia has processed many different sources and the works signify that the student can independently conduct scientific research and express her own reasoned ideas. Although in both her works she went a bit too deep into the research and it took her more time than given, eventually her works, proved to be specific having very interesting hypothesis.
Over time of our acquaintance Anastassia has shown to be persistent and purposeful. She has always known exactly what it is that she wants and would go for it. She has also manifested such leadership qualities as sincerity, honesty, ability to make quick and effective decisions, work in team as well as independently. In particular she demonstrated these qualities when actively engaging in organizing annual “Week of English Language, Literature and Culture”. In the frames of this week in February 2011 Anastassia together with other students held a performance dedicated to work of the band “Beatles”. The participants where her groupmates and the audience was about a half the college students and teaching stuff as well as some guests from outside.
Anastassia has always lived to the full cultural life of the city taking part in different volunteering projects. This way she broadened her range of interests and learned a skill to establish contacts with different people. She often invited interesting people, usually foreigners to tell her coursemates about the world.
Anastasiia due to her wide range of interests and eagerness to learn often took part in different workshops, seminars and cultural events as an extracurricular activities. After her graduation we still keep in touch. So I can tell that she is still working on raising her professional level as well as on overall development. She is interested in innovative educational methods implementing the skills and knowledge she gained when a student. Her will for self improvement, gaining new experience and reaching her own goals emphasizes that Anastassia has a strong motivation to study and to learn.
In case you would like to know more details about Anastassia Onufriv, please contact me on my email.
Best regards,
Oksana Tsygylyk

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@nastasi,

Here's the recommendation from an NGO where I do internship also composed for Organisational Management

Dear Eromime team,
I am pleased to recommend you Anastasiia Onufriv. Anastasiia has been a voluntary teacher of English in our social project “Social Tutor” (extracurricular teaching of major school subject to children from vulnerable families and orphans) starting from February 2013 and later in July she has joined our team as an intern. Throughout this period of time I had a pleasure to work with her and watch her professional growth in the sphere of social work.
First thing that I have noticed is that Anastassia is very active and can always
contribute with some interesting and creative ideas. It happens sometimes when brainstorming a new project plan or refreshing a project and people feel lack of ideas, she often comes up with a fresh and very interesting ideas.
After three months of active engaging in organizing different social events such as family and career forums, different kinds of workshops and lectures for youth and elderly people our interns take over management of their own projects. Anastasiia being particularly interested in school education and having shown her managerial and a team worker skills decided to take over the management of a project “Social Tutor”. Her responsibilities are: finding the volunteer tutors, organising the groups of children and finding a place for them to study, as well as organising workshops for the tutors and dealing with sponsors. With her communicative skills Anastasiia easily finds common language with the project partners when asking for sponsorship or information support.
Anastasiia can always find a way out of difficult and unexpected situations. For instance, when she had the first lesson in her project back in February 2013, she expected children 8-10 years to come with some basic knowledge of English but there came children 6-8 years old who barely knew the alphabet. But she managed to hold the lesson and these children came again bringing along their friends and classmates. Now there are ten children aged 6-9 years in her group who love coming to her lessons twice a week.
She likes working with children and has an ambitious dream to make changes in the educational system of Ukraine. For this reason she has joined our NGO and is now managing the project “Social Tutor”. She has also started working on her own project - a workshop for teachers to share innovative educational ideas and methods. So that in the future the ideas that will arise at the workshops will be proposed to our local Department of Education to be implemented in schools.
I have as well noticed that Anastassia is always willing to learn. She often attends workshops organized in our NGO as well as outside of it. In particular she shows interest in workshops and lectures concerning school education and psychology.
Of course Anastasiia’s leaving is a pity for our NGO but I believe she would be an ideal candidate for your program because apart from her personal qualities and skills I can clearly see that she is ambitious enough to make changes for better in the life of our city community and the country in the whole. The knowledge and experience received while studying at this program she would implement when working on these changes.

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help me with motivation statement for Erasmus Mundus

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