Scholarship / GKS-U PERSONAL STATEMENT - DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. [4]

Hello, I hope you can help me in improving my essay for the GKS UNDERGRADUATE scholarship.
The writing must included :
- reason in applying for the program
- family background
- academic background
- achievement or experience that gives a big impact in my life

Thankyou in advanced!

Teaching is not only just about giving the material and tell the student about how 1+1=2. It is not only about giving lecture. For it is also about moving one's heart and touching one's soul from the way we teach. It always amaze me how the teachers work in leaving a big part in someone's life. It is not an easy path in becoming one. Thus, it become a challenge for someone who's willing on going through that path. It became a challenge, for me.

My name is vauline. I was bornt as the eldest sister in my family. I had a younger brother which is in 2nd grade of senior highschool, a mother and also a father that has passed away 5 years ago. After the leaving of my father, my mother acts as the backbone for our family, which requires her to go to work far away to another country in order to support me and my brother. Leaving us with our grandparents who took us under their care along this passed 5 years. Living with a grandmother, who was once a teacher, really gives a whole new insight about the world of education. Not only act as the lecturer in the house, she also gives a big supporting role in my academic background.

Many things I achieved along my 3 years of becoming a senior highschool student. Interested in literature and art, I often followed a speech competition, singing competition, whether it's using Indonesian or foreign language such as English. Being a final candidate for the national singing competition and winning for almost all the English speech competition i've ever joint, never make me thing that I would be interested in teaching. Until a spark of moment happened in my life.

It was 1 month passed after I graduated from highschool. A teacher of mine, name Miss Nicky suddenly contacted me. She ask do I had any interested in helping her with teaching in her English courses. I was both happy and confused at the same time. Even having an excellent academic background does not make someone becoming an excellent teacher. But then again, I'd thinked that this would be a great opportunity for me to learnt some new experiences, that makes me to accepted her offer.

1st day as a teacher, and it was not as easy as I thought. One thing that I realized is that the student that I teached, does not accepted me as her teacher. She was a 2nd grade student. She would often avoid my question, pretending not to hear any of the material, and worst, she even ask me when do the teacher change back to the previous teacher (Miss Nicky). I was faced with many obstacle and challenges in my 1 month of teaching. I often do a research about "how to be a good teacher", compiling the material that I had to teaches, leveling up my knowledge so that the student does not doubted me, and receiving many new insight from many people who also going through the same path. I learnt a lot. Even when I managed to built a bond with my student, and how I've finally found my "teaching" style is, everyday is always a new learning experience. There's no stop in studying things when you decided to be a teacher.

Unfortunately, from where I came from, being a teacher is not considered as something special. Not only it is underappreciated, a teacher has also lost it's value, result in many high potential people often thinked twice when becoming a teacher. even when a teacher wants to give a protest, the society would shut them up with "then why becoming a teacher if you are not sincere in giving the knowledge" sentences. Knowing that my goal is not only to "teach", I'm also willing to change the perspective of the society about the world of education is.

That is why I chose Korea. A country that takes education and teaching experiences to a whole another level. The teaching curriculum provided by almost every university of this major is also modern which is equivalent to the international level, result in producing many skilled and competent teachers. Simple, yet matters, Korea is also one of the country that valued it teachers the most. As someone who wish to enroll in a world of education, Korea will be the perfect place to take my next study. Not only developing the knowledge that I will received, becoming a bridge that will help in advancing education for both of my country, Indonesia and Korea is also one of my main goals. Thus, GKS will be the one that will enable me in becoming that bridge.

Scholarship / Special teaching - GKS UNDERGRADUATE PERSONAL STATEMENT [4]

Hello, i wish for applying this year GKS. It will be a huge helped to me for you to checked my essay. Thank you in advanced.

Personal Statement

A certain experienced has made "teaching" become something special for me. For it is not just about giving material and telling the students about how 1+1=2. It is also about moving one's heart and touching one's soul. Thus, many teacher from where I came from forgot about this sole purpose in teaching. Not only it is considered as a last resort in a career path, the value of a teacher is also underappreciated, that's causing many potential human resources to think twice before becoming a teacher. It saddens me as someone who took teaching seriously.

Even if that kind of perspective has been running for a long time, still, my dreams in becoming a teacher to contribute in the education world won't change. With that being said, learning in a country that valued it education like Korea, would be my very first big step in achieving my goals. Not only it has many top universities in Asia, Korea is also a country that takes a "teacher" as something valuable and honorable job. With being one of a top country that has the best education system, it will definitely give an amazing learning experienced. And by this point, GKS is the only thing that can help me in pursuing this goal. Not only helping in achieving my dreams, it would also help the development of education from where I came from by supporting someone who pursuits in education world.

Aside from achieving my dream, ofcourse seeing the financial support that the GKS has offered is also one of my main reason to apply for this program. I was born in a family with two sibling, me as the older sister. A brother, a mother, and a father that has passed away 5 years ago. With such condition, my mother doesn't have any choice but to act as both father and mother that makes her went to work far away across the country to support me and my brother. As for where I'm staying now, our grandparents took care of us. Seeing how hard my mother worked, I can't help myself but to make her proud by trying my best in my studies.

Starting my education background in elementary school. I have always love studying English. That makes English as my favorite subject. My parents can not afford in giving me a private tutor to study English, so I learnt it by myself. Aside from studying at school, I went to the school library just to find a book with English translation for myself to read. Even though I can't understand it at that time.

Continuing to junior high, English still holds as my favorite subject. Different from my elementary school, my junior high school takes English lesson as something serious. They often offer a student to follow a competition. An English competition. There are times where I followed my 1st competition. It was English speech competition. I remember it was an elementary school English teacher that teach and trained me during the competition. It was a really amazing experience where I had to practice and write my first speech for 2 weeks nonstop. And with that, I win my first English speech competition in a whole province. Along my junior years, I followed many English competition and win almost all of it, which makes me sure that maybe, English is my passion.

That's when, in my senior years, i started to learnt deeply about English. Not only grammatically, but i also intended to boost my public speaking skill. Since winning some of the competition that include public speaking as a main component, i started to take this skill seriously. I often look for my English teacher to help me increasing my skills. But unfortunately, many of my English teacher moved to another school because, as i mentioned in the beginning of my essay, many people took this profession as something undemanding. That makes the teacher had to look for it's values by moving from one place to another.

In a beginning of my essay, I've told that teaching holds a special place in me. Well, it all begin when an English teacher in my junior high school started to contacted me. Her name is Miss Nicky. She asked me about helping her with teaching some of her private english course student. It was an English online class. I was happy and shocked at the same time. I mean, yes I would love to try it but I've never teach before, then why the sudden invite. Miss Nicky said that I'm capable of helping her with teaching some of her students. After explaining this and that, i said yes to her offered and she ask me to joint in one of a class, immediately. It was another surprising moment. However, i joint, and that is the first time that i met someone as a teacher.

Miss Nicky started to introduced me to the student. She was in 2nd grade of elementary school. I started on introducing myself with a really bright smile which is really awkward because the student won't even smile at me. I already felt the pressured. Miss Nicky continuing the class with some intro of what the lesson is about. It was English lesson, so everything needs to be in English. I observe how the meeting works. Like using the whiteboard on zoom, watching video from YouTube, typing on notepad to gave the notes for the students. It was a fun class.

As i was only observing on my first day, I also saw how the interaction between Miss Nicky and her student. At the beginning of the meeting she would ask a simple question such as "how are you today?", "have you eaten yet?", "have you taken a shower?". And she would continue by giving the student a little word to think about what are they gonna learn today. It was a simple interaction. But yet, i felt really comfortable. It was a little bit assertive at some point, but it also gave an encouraging vibe to the student.

After the end of the meeting, Miss Nicky called and asked me about how was the meeting. Seeing how Miss Nicky interact with the student, i don't know why but it gave me a little push to try teaching. When she asked me again about the offered, i agreed to help her. She was then gave me 6 students to teach within Monday-Sunday. A little surprised but i can't complaint in my very first session on teaching.

As expected, it was not easy as Miss Nicky makes it looked. The students is all sweet and all, but delivering the lesson naturally without any stump on words, I'd say i salute all the teacher in a world. Even sometimes I had to deal with their acting and it really test my patient. Not to mention that i had to prepared the study lessons, the materials, what activity that should we do. It was exhausting both mentally and physically. But I'm not planning on stopping. I'm doing as best as i can to adapt to the situation.

And after one month of teaching, i received something so special that makes me "oh, i want to keep teaching". It was when my students started to opened up to me about their dreams and hobbies. When they sparked a little light from their tiny eyes when they were starting to learn every new topic from me. It can't be received if the teacher only focusing only on transferring the materials. It can only be achieved by building trust and relationship between you and your students. That's what makes me fall for this profession.