Undergraduate / My limitations. Motivation Essay for FLTA Program [2]

application essay for FLTA Program

Hey guys! Could you revise my essay to FLTA Program?
My deadline is next friday. You will help me a lot to get this scholarship.

Since childhood I was told by many people what my limitations were. Their justification was the socioeconomic status of our family; my mother, and almost science education teacher and my father, an animal caretaker with who I had an estranged relationship. By the time I was ten, a long lasting summer rain deteriorated our home to the point we had to leave it. Thankfully, an aunt, a polite vice director and an uncle, an extrovert retired councilman invited us to stay with them. Such experience meant a moment of self-awareness about the lack of importance of material things and brought two of my most important role models. Both inspired me to be selfless and have empathy for people, no matter what their background was. In respond to their generosity, I always tried to have good grades and do run errands. By doing errands, I overcame my shyness talking with older people who advised me to value knowledge and share it; thanks to their lessons, I became much of a listener and observer which help me to convert my introversion into introspection.

This quality allowed me to saw a bigger picture on the use of English language, my favorite subject since primary school, while others said it was unnecessary because we were not living in an English speaking country, we used it to operate digital devices at home, play video games and understand signs in movies. It enhance my ability to read in my native language when watching subtitled movies. Compare song lyrics between the original and their translated versions was a really fun game. Since a long time, English turned out something I could own and share.

At secondary school, my curiosity lend me to point in to extra-curricular activities like theater, which took us to perform on the Province Theater Fest in three times; the Biology Club where we were the first of secondary level on our province to participate on the National Biology Olympics; the Student Body, to which I was candidate to president, I did not win for a few votes however I still collaborating as a delegate of my class until my senior year. Also, I attempted French, though our French teacher was not a trained one, she spend time in France working on the embassy bringing many stories about being abroad. Next year, our ESL Teacher came from Holland and had a great English but a rough Spanish. Nevertheless, she organized conversation sessions with people from Australia, New Zealand and EE.UU who came for tourism in our little town. These experiences gave us an insight on how our ways of living were different or very much alike among cultures. I decided I wanted to be an interpreter or a translator to connect people's cultures through language.

Unfortunately, I could not afford college. The only option was the English teaching training course at the local High Education Institute. Enrollments on the course were not open for a year due to administration issues. Despite I was not convince to become a teacher and people often told me I would not get my degree in that career, I wanted to keep my attention focus on something else than my parents' separation and a forced sabbatical year was not the ideal setting. I took dance lessons of argentine folklore, latin ballroom and oriental dances to keep myself busy. After sometime I was asked to help beginners in the dance studios and suddenly I was offered to instruct a latin ballroom workshop and co direct a theater group at the county cultural center. This meant to work with people of different ages, levels and ways of learning. My time as a dance instructor and co-director improved my creativeness, patience and problem solving methods with heterogeneous groups. It made myself aware of my potential teaching skills encouraging me to pursue an ESL teaching career.

The day I started the teaching practice, the unexpected deaths of my father and aunt due to cardiac related diseases put me on an emotional state that I did not know how to give the lesson, it was too late to notify my absence and I could lose the chance to keep practicing. My partners hearten me to continue with the lesson, so I did it. During the summer I decided not to drop my studies. A successful practice on kindergarten, primary and secondary levels simultaneously and my first job at a rural primary school took place over the following year. While at work, I found multiple cases of kids with special educational needs as pathologies affecting their linguistic skills and learning acquisition for which I was not prepare on the teaching training course. Even it was their first time on ESL lessons. The other teachers overestimated their capacities to learn a new language; a challenge was in front of me after hearing their sayings which remind those times someone told what my limits were. The previous experiences I had aid me to use creativeness on lesson planning, respect their pace of learning, redesign activities according to their background, debate on their own development in class, immerse them into a cross cultural environment and motivate their efforts as individuals resulting in a positive feedback at the end of academic year. Sometimes it was hard without a mentor and no access to specific tools to fulfill all their needs, but may this granted me the chance to see beyond our limits.

By applying, I aspire to acquire new techniques and methodologies to strengthen my adaptability strategies to the students' backgrounds, especially those with especial educational needs in my community. With this aim in mind, I would like to tutor students groups from the English teaching training course who cannot afford a specialized practice at language labs and offer material needed to design their practice lessons. Furthermore, I hope to share this cultural exchange adventure to incite the community to get involved in cross cultural activities; in addition, this may help to lighten their close-minded stereotypes on American culture. I do not consider myself the best qualify applicant but I will certain represent my northwest Argentinian culture; moreover, I will perform according to the guidelines of the program and harness the offers of professional growing. The global goal is to achieve the understanding of a new culture, share my native language and its backgrounds, and to expand the idea of what is being an ESL teacher.