I'm really expecting a lot from studying in Korea. SOP for applying to a scholarship (KGSP)

Hello !
I'm supposed to write a statement of purpose to apply for a scholarship in korea (KGSP) . and this SOP should include : goal of study - title or subject of research - detailed study plan . And also future plan after studying in korea .

I hope you correct me .
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Teaching English in Korea

I had tendency towards english literature after i started studying at university , i fell in love with literary woks especially novels , that's why i have chosen to study english literature in the master program , so that i will be able to analyse novels and know their historical background and changes literature had through history as well as knowing new novelists that i haven't known about yet and to be able to read more literature works .

I plan to conduct a research about how politics changes literature in the 19th centery , because k believe that politics had great impact on litrary work .

I'm really expecting a lot from studying i korea and i'm sure that i will learn so many things while being their as well as developing my english skills and knowledge about english literature because i know that korean universities always rank among the firsts in the world .

After finishing my masters in korea , i plan to , if i had a chance, teach english language to koreans and help korean students to improve their english . If i didn't have a chance to teach in korea i would come back to my home country and be an english teacher , because teaching is the only thing i would love to do .

you don't need a space before a comma or a period. Also, there are some grammatical errors. Some sentences are too long to read. You should be careful of your paragraph and how to construct a sentence.

@MH_tw
Alright :) i will try to correct it . Thank you so much :) :)

Amel, please read the other KGSP scholarship example essays in this forum. Your essay is nowhere near the kind of quality that the KGSP committee will consider for a grant. It is too short, does not really contain detailed and relevant information of any kind, and sadly, does not impress the reader at all. It is almost as if you did not even try to impress the reader. You need to focus on the prompt requirements and the delivery of your essay. For your benefit, I will ask you to post the actual prompt requirements here. You sound like you are supposed to be writing a self introduction letter. The other parts of the essay that you mentioned, are separate essays that are written on an individual basis. Those are not bunched into just one essay. Each description that you gave corresponds to a specific essay requirement that follows a different format and set of guide questions. Do yourself a favor and allow us to help you develop a better essay. Post the prompt requirements here and I will tell you which parts of this essay you can use and how to develop it further in order to create a higher quality scholarship letter.

Amel, let me start by drawing your attention to the fact that scholarship is very competitive adventure and no one has ever won it on a platter of gold. It really involves a lot of work and sustained improvement on the part of an applicant in all ramifications. You may not necessarily have to be the best before you begin to apply for scholarships. However, you must be ready to work, learn, improve, and persevere.

Your draft shows that you really need a lot of work in terms of English grammar. It is obviously a very difficult task and unrealistic to engage you in learning sessions here. But the fastest way you can improve within the context of your membership in EF is to critically study other essays posted and reviewed in this forum. Observe how sentences are constructed, paragraphs are developed, ideas are correlated, and the connections between paragraphs. Then try drafting an essay in your own words to follow the pattern you observed. It may really be difficult at the outset but it is a good way to start; considering the low standard of the essay you posted.

The essay you posted here will surely not earn 10 seconds of a reviewer's time before being sent to piles of waste papers. So, for you to compete successfully in scholarships, you have to step up your writing skills. If you really do not have basic foundation in English Language, I suggest an immediate acquisition of learning materials that can enhance your English Language; be it oral or written.

I hope to see a great improvement in your next post.

@okorobiadimma14 @ Holt @ MH_tw

Thank you so much for you remarks :) i have written another one , tell me what you think of this one :

Amel, I am not sure that you are applying for the right scholarship program. Do you know that one of the requirements of this program is that you have to be fluent in speaking the Korean language Hangul? It will be taught to you over the span of one year, covering the first part of the 3 year scholarship program. There is a logical disconnection in the process because you are an English major, who is looking to gain a masters degree in English Literature by applying for a scholarship to a Korean University. The KGSP program require the students to prove Korean language proficiency via the TOPIK test. So I am not really convinced that this is the right scholarship for an English masters degree student. You will also have to spend a number of years in Korea after graduation practicing what you have learned before you can return to your home country.

So, while you may be able to enroll in a relevant masters program, your idea of becoming a proficient English teacher will not be fulfilled in the best manner because you will not be learning how to improve your English language skills. That is due to the fact that you will be surrounded by Korean culture, society, traditions, and language. So your expectations regarding your mastery of the English language, culture, and literature will be under served by studying in Korea.

Please reconsider your application. I do not believe that this is the right program for you to apply to because your masters degree intention is highly English language based and English language intensive. As such, it will be best served by a scholarship program based either in the UK, Australia, Canada, America, and any other English language based educational system country because the scholarships offered by those countries are English language based and will better suit your study goals and objectives.

@Holt
Thank you for the advice :)
I'm really aware of all what you have said , but i have my reasons for choosing korea over other countries . Besides , learning the korean language and knowing their culture is one of the things that i really want to experience as i have passion for learning languages since i was young , that's why i thought this would be my chance of having the two ( studying english literature and learning a challenging new language at the same time ) :) . I hope you got me :)

By the way , you didn't tell me how did find what i wrote :p

Well, since you know what you are getting into, I wish you the best. It is not my place to ask why. As long as the program will work for your intentions then go for it. However, before you go for it you will need to expand the research though. Thoroughly explain why your research will work best if you study the effects of 19th century politics on literature in Korea. This has nothing to do with my previous statement about your application. It is all because normally, this would be done in a country that is the heart of literature like the UK or The U.S.A. so for the sake of the reviewer, you need to justify how Korea can offer you an opportunity to do this intensive research within their educational system that the other English speaking countries cannot. Your study plan really needs to be more detailed.

No worries about your post study plan though. That is exactly what the reviewer wants to read. However, the goal of your study and how you plan to do the research really needs more representation. I believe you have about 2 pages for this essay right? I suggest you use as much of the page allotment as you can to create a stronger presentation.

By the way, I know this is a draft copy but, when you work on your revisions, please make sure that you spell the words properly and that you follow all the grammar rules in writing. You have a few problem points that can be dealt with later on. Once the content of your essay is finalized.

I believe you should type "English" instead of "english"
Also, use the capital "i" to refer to yourself. I agree with the previous feedbacks; you need to elaborate more as well as improve your grammar and spelling, not to mention that as far as I'm concerned, Korean's universities are not listed as number one in the world. Try to search for the university rank websites.

@Holt
How about this :
( i'm going to write only the part that talks about the research :) )
I plan to conduct a research on translated korean literature in relation to English literature , and possibilities of using them as tools for teaching English literature to Koreans . Recently, some of translated Korean novels have been widely read in some parts of the world such as the novel of Shin Kyung-sook "please look after my mother" which had quiet fame among readers . So I plan to , in order to conduct this research , analyse a couple of translated Korean novels and see what kind of relations they have to the English literature and try to find out whether or not these novels can be used in teaching English literature. And in order to collect the data i need for my research , i will interview some korean teachers of Korean literature as well as teachers of English literature in order to know how can such novels ,according to them , be helpful in teaching literature of English . In addition to this , i will do some surveys among students of both English and Korean literature in order to know their opinions regarding this topic . And I will find other sources that would help in conducting this research .

This is a good study plan. However, you really need to work on your problems with capitalizing the proper nouns. Always capitalize the name of a person, place, or thing. In this instance, you also need to capitalize the pronoun "I" in reference to yourself. So capitalize the words "Korea" and "English". Your presentation of the capitalized nouns are not consistent in your essay. Which shows haphazard writing and comes across as disrespectful to the reader. These are all basic rules of grammar writing that should have been applied to your essay even in its draft stages.

There is also the problem of you using the the word "and" at the start of your sentences. That is a direct violation of written grammar rules as the word "and" cannot be used to start a sentence since it is a conjunction. A word that is used to connect words or a thought process. Since you are starting a new sentence, it is not connecting any word or thought and as such, should not be used to start a new sentence. Did you see how I used the word "and" to connect 2 thoughts in the previous sentence? That is an example of how to use "and" properly in a sentence.

@Holt
Okay :) i will consider this while writing the final essay :) .
Thank you so much for your advice i really appreciate it :) you really helped me a lot .
Thank you so much :)

@amelhope
Please be reminded that before a comma, you don't need a space. You'll need it only after the comma.
. . . how can such novels ,according to them , be helpful in . . . (wrong)
. . . how can such novels, according to them, be helpful in . . . (correct)

Having certain goals is what differentiates a person from person

i fell in love with literary woks worksespecially novels
because k believe that politics had great impact on litrary work .
not sure what the k means here
And use of capital letters wherever required

@sinchana2017
It's the "I" it was a typing mistake :p and the same thing for "woks" i meant works .
Thank you :)

Hello~ I'm also applying to this scholarship! I can give you some advice if you don't mind...

You can change this
After finishing my masters in korea ...

Into this
After finishing my master program in Korea, If I have a chance I plan to teach English to Koreans and help them improve their English skills.

Hope it helps :)

Hello again!
I edited some things on my essay, so this is the final one. Please tell me what you think about it :).

To major in English, one does not have only to know how to read, write and speak correctly, but having knowledge about English literarure and understanding different forms of literary works is also of great importance. I realized this after I have studies two years at university, and this is my last year. The pervous two years were enough for me to know that the best major to choose for my studies is English literature.

The passion for reading have become a part of me and day by day, I realized that literature is very important for an English learner. It helps enriching one's vocabulary as well as enhancing creativity and more importantly, it introduces the English culture to the learner, because after I have read a couple of books and analysing them, I had the chance to know more about the English culture. I could know also the relation between some literary works and society as well as politics which i found very interesting.

I plan to conduct a research about translated Korean literature in relation to the English literature, and possibilities of using them as tools for teaching English literature to Koreans. Recently, some of translated korean novels have been widely read in some parts of the world such as the novel of Shin Kyung-sook "please look after my mom" which had quiet fame among readers. So I plan, in order to do this research, to analyse a couple of translated Korean novels and see what kind of relations they have with the English literature, and Try to find out whether or not these novels can be used in teaching English literature. In order to collect the data I need for my research, I will interview some teachers of korean literatue as well as teachers of English literature in order to know how can such novels, according to them, be helpful in teaching the English literature. In addition to this, I will do some surveys among students of both Korean and English literature so that I can know their opinions regarding this topic, and I will find other resources that would help in conducting this research.

As a study plan, I will do my best to get higher grades and reach higher levels in learning korean. I plan to get in touch with more koreans in order to improve my korean, and I will try to attend any cultural events that would be held their in order to know more about korea. I plan also to make a lot of Korean friend and chat with them using only Korean so that I will improve my korean skills especially pronounciation.

While studying my masters in Korea, I have planned to do a lot. First of all, I will work hard to be among the best. As korean universities gained very good reputation arround the world, I am expecting to learn and benefit a lot from studying there. One of the things I plan to do at university is to create an English club where weekly meetings can be held in which we can make presentations, workshops, monologues...etc. The aim of this club will be to improve student's English skills and help each other in a real exchange of ideas. Since we will be studying English literature, we can also hold meetings where we analyse specific literary works. I believe that such clubs would, if students interacted with it, be very successful and would help students to do very well in their studies, because English literature is a very difticult major to study, but very interesting as well.

Aftet finishing my studies in Korea, I plan to find a job as a teacher. Actually, in the past I had never thought of becoming a teacher; however, when I studied at a private school of English, my thoughts about teaching had changed completely, thanks to the great teachers I had their, who taught me a planty of things and made me realize how great a teachet can be, and how he can be a guide and a source of motivation and encouragement for his students . So I want to be a teacher of English in Korea helping Korean students to improve their skills and guide them to achieve their goala. If I didn't have the chance to do so in Korea, I would come back to my home country and try to find a job as a teacher. In both cases, I will do my best and more to be a great teacher.

The problem regarding capitalization of proper nouns still exists in this essay. It is almost as if you did not even read the previous advice given to you regarding this problem in this essay. You cannot present an unprofessionally written essay to the reviewer. You have to understand that you are being judged by the reviewer based upon your writing skills in this letter. You have to show a level of writing skills that show you know the grammar rules and can write in a respectful, academic manner. That is not reflected in this essay because you have failed to properly represent the proper nouns such as the name of the country itself, which can be taken as a direct insult by the reviewer because Koreans have such high respect for their country and would never make that mistake in writing the name of their country. Then, there is the title of the book in Korean. Though it is a translation of the Hangul title, you still have to write the title in capital letters. In paragraph 3, you wrote "... and Try" when the proper way to write it is "... and try". You do not not capitalize a word in the middle of a sentence unless it is a proper noun. These are amateur mistakes that you should have already caught by now. Apply the necessary corrections and the essay will be ready to use

@Holt
I did read all the advice that were given to me here, the problem is that I have used my mobile to type this essay and not my PC :) I will ofcourse

consider all this. Be sure of that :) :) so thank you so so much for helping me :)
I just want to know what you think about the idras I have develped here .
Thank you so much :)

Dear @amelhope,

I think it's still raw. Maybe you can research on good sample, and try to imitate it first.
You can use thesaurus also to find sophisticated verb to rephrase same word.

Keep it up, Amel!

Cheers,
@sehatdinati

Well, the ideas are not raw at all. This is not an essay meant for an English test so the words and vocabulary that you used are acceptable. You need not prove a high level of English writing skill at this point, rather you need to be able to express yourself and your ideas clearly, in English. The idea behind your research in intriguing. It is something that I have not come across yet and I hope the reviewer will also not have come across a similar application yet. The essay has potential. If you had typed the revision on the PC or laptop instead of a tablet or mobile phone, things would have come across better as better formatted. When you make the revisions, and if you want to receive additional feedback (if any), just post the revised essay here. Remember, use a real computer, no androids for the revision :-) That is what messes your work up.

@Holt
Okay :) thank you sooooo much for your help, I really appreciate it . :)