The things that I consider before choosing the university of my future study. Australia Scholarship

How did you choose your proposed course and institution*? - Essay for Australia Awards Scholarship

My road to TESOL

I am planning on taking a master degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). It is suitable perfectly with my background which is English language teaching and English literature. There are some things that I did to find out the details of universities that I am going to choose. I collected the information about the universities mainly from visiting their website on the Internet and other websites such as scholarship and alumni blogs. Furthermore, I visited an education fair near my hometown to gain more information related to my study. I also gathered useful input from my friends and lecturers who are currently pursuing their study in Australia.

Here are the things that I consider before choosing the university of my future study. First, the duration should be at least one and a half years since I want to deepen my knowledge about the field that I am learning, and longer study period will help me sharpen my English. Second, the institution should provide the courses that I am willing to learn which are more practical rather than research based since that is not my specialty about English teaching practices. More specifically, I am looking for the courses such as second language acquisition, language curriculum design, teaching methodologies, grammar, writing and pronunciation teaching, technology in English learning and psycholinguistics. In addition, if the program provides courses related to psychology, teaching English for students who have special needs or autistic children and teaching internship will be a greater benefit.

After I listed the universities that participate in Australia Award Scholarship which provide TESOL program, I screened them with the criteria that I previously set. In the end, I found two most universities which are the closest to the criteria; Queensland University of Technology and Flinders University.

To @holt
My comment "I believe I didn't write that, are you sure you are referring the right thing?" on my last thread was actually addressed to someone else, not you, but it seemed that you didn't read the tag that I used. Don't misunderstand me, you've been a great help since I joined EF.

Hi Dany. Actually, the response did not appear with ba tag on my end which is why I responded to it. There must've been a system glitch on our end. No worries. I'm glad to always be of help. As for this essay, I've got a number of suggestions for you. Let's start with how you chose the universities you would be interested in attending. The criteria you set right now is more commonplace than personal. Don't go for the obvious, always aim for a personal list of reasons for your criteria in order to show a keen interest in Australian universities. Next, please double check your capitalization requirements for the formal classes you wish to attend as those must be capitalized as a proper noun representation. Finally, the prompt asks you to present one university choice , not two. So you have to justify just one university choice with the complete criteria that you used to choose this particular university. Personal, rather than common reason are again, more impressive in that discussion.

You can start meeting the word count by removing the long form meaning of TESOL. That brings your word count down to 2302 characters immediately. Since the reviewer is already familiar with TESOL and its long form meaning, you don't need to repeat it in the essay. Instead of saying "Here are my considerations...First..." You can shorten it further by saying "I chose my universities based upon...the duration of ... ", that automatically becomes 2248 characters. Remove the term "Second" and you get 2240 words. Now, to totally bring down the word count, in the next paragraph remove the first complete sentence plus the word "Then," which gives you a total word count of 2068. Remove the term "On the other hand" and you get 2049 words. Say "It has done partnership with Indonesian universities" so the word count goes down even further to 2032. If you use just the first 2 universities in the list instead of all 2, you finally come down to 1987 words. Well below the minimum while preserving the message and information of your essay.

Alright @Holt
How about this?

(...)

My considerations are based on things such as the duration which should be at least one and a half years since I want to deepen my knowledge in English teaching and sharpen my English. I am looking for the universities that provide Second Language Acquisition, Language Curriculum Design, Teaching Methodologies, Teaching Grammar, Writing and Pronunciation and Technology in English Learning courses. In addition, if the program provides courses related to psychology, teaching English for students who have special needs or autistic children and teaching internship will be a greater benefit.

I found two universities which are the closest to the criteria; Queensland University of Technology and Flinders University. Queensland University of Technology by far is the only university that offers courses that focus on teaching or dealing with children who are autistic and children with special needs. Its location in Brisbane which is not too cold is perfect since I cannot be exposed to cold weather due to my health issue. Flinders University has at least two courses related to psychology in language teaching. It also has done lots of partnerships with many Indonesian big universities such as Gadjah Mada University and University of Indonesia. Its location which is not too crowded is perfect for my study and it supports me to explore more of the local culture.

As I reviewed this essay, something struck me. It is the fact that you have chosen two universities but do not indicate which of the two universities will be your priority in terms of attendance. Which university do you prefer to attend? Surely there is one university that serves as your first choice and another that comes out as you second choice or back up university. I suggest that you make references to such within the last paragraph of the essay just so the reviewer will know that such a preference exists for you. Otherwise, you may end up in a university that you did not expect to end up in. Meaning you end up in your second choice because you did not really signify that you had a first choice university during the application stage. Just add that information to the essay. The overall work is great. It doesn't require changes, just an addition of information.

Hi @Holt

Actually in the application form we are required to input our preferences, the first and the second choice of university, so I would assume that would be clear enough to show them that I prefer the university that I mentioned first (Queensland University of Technology). Also, if I am accepted, I would be asked to finalize my choice and they will register me to the university.

Thanks for telling me this Dany. You did not indicate this in your essay instructions s naturally, I assumed that it had to be said. Since the university is very clear about how you will be choosing your academic institution to attend, I do not see why this essay cannot be considered finalized yet. I believe that with that clarification, you have managed to write the most acceptable essay possible for the prompt requirements. I have done a final read through of the essay and believe that nothing more should be done to the essay. It carries your voice quite clearly. All you have to do is one final read through as well. Make sure you are satisfied with the final version of the essay and, if satisfied, prepare the essay for submission. Good luck with your application.

Hi @Holt, sorry I forgot about that ^_^
Yeah I surely am satisfied with this. I've put it to the online application from.
I just need to finish the other essays. Thanks a million.