Personal Statement My name is May Phoo Mon, a student of English Language and a freelance teacher of English, who wants

to pursue a further study in the USA. Following are my background history of education and some practical experience, written to apply Fulbright Scholarship Program. As a daughter of a civil engineer, my childhood is rife with frequent resettlement in different regions around Myanmar, so that good education was not something that occurred in my life when I was a child. When I was 10, my parents made a decision with difficulty to settle rest of their life in Yangon, thought that settlement would be a great benefits for their childrens education. Fortunately, my parents enrolled me in a state high school with a good reputation, but I felt myself as a fish out of water as all classmates were smarter with excellent academic credentials, which made me to strive upmost to keep up with them. English classes were my nightmare, when the teacher always got each student to read a passage loudly, as I was often ridiculed by my peers for my poor pronunciation in English. However, I considered this experience as an encouragement to study hard to improve my proficiency in English, instead of regarding as despair and a humiliation. Since then, I committed myself entirely in English language learning and then achieved an advanced level and could earn a graduate diploma in applied linguistics in Singapore. With this persistent hard working, I have even become someone who is teaching others English, which was once my weakest subject. What is more, as a daughter of a secondary school teacher, I really aspired to be a well-respected, professional teacher as my mother, since I was a child. I used to listen to the stories of her working life as bed time stories and I was thus really taken up by her devotion and commitment in her work. Though discouragement of my friends due to meagre salary of teaching profession, I decided to follow my mothers footsteps, and in my opinion, the unattractive wage is nothing to nobility and a sense of satisfaction of helping others lead better life. As soon as I finished high school, I chose to attend a 3 year Bachelor course in English language as a Distance Education; because my father suddenly passed away just before high school graduation and we had difficult time. Though earned a BA course by handling the assignment at one hand and the family affairs at the other, I didnt achieve with good grades. It thus seemed my dream to be a doctorate diminished at first, but with perseverance and my familys encouragement, I attended a diploma course in TESOL from London Teacher Training College at a local learning academy called STI, which prepared me to enter a teaching field and do further study in Singapore in 2010. Thanks to financial and mental support from my brothers, who are working in Singapore, I could finished the postgraduate course in Applied Linguistics with 3 credits and 3 distinctions, from SEAMOE, RELC, which is regionally recognised prestigious linguistic study body. From 2008 to 2010, I entered English language field as a freelance teacher. While working as a study guide helping Canadian Buddhist nuns from Buddha University with learning Burmese for six months and a freelance teacher of English for primary school students from my neighbourhood for one and half year, I have experienced respectful life of being a teacher. However, there were some difficulties, partly because of limited teaching experience, mainly because different teaching styles and learning objectives of government school. In Myanmar, almost every school teachers are applying very passive learning style, encouraging students to memorize the whole textbooks, and examinations focus too much on assessing students knowledge in course book other than skills and

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comprehension. This fact might be the main reason why English language teaching standard in Myanmar is not up to mark, lagging behind faraway compared with that of neighbouring countries. Fortunately, Myanmar is now in the transition towards Democracy; the leaders of nations are emphasizing on the improvement of education, particularly English language learning and teaching and even implementing a number of developmental schemes. Hearing this news, I would like to contribute in these schemes as a part. Moreover, in my opinion, another reason that deteriorate Myanmar education standard is that teachers are lack of proper teaching knowledge and skills. Therefore, in my returning from further study in American, I would like to share the knowledge and experience as to teaching methodologies and materials with my fellow teachers. In fact, reshaping current inefficient teaching methods in Myanmar is my main goal. To materialize this, I do need to make myself knowledgeable in language teaching methodologies and fully equipped with all necessary skills at first. Thus, I hope to pursue a Master Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) or in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in America. These mentioned degrees will cater me all essentials to craft effective English language learning and teaching. Additionally, as immersed in a complete English speaking environment, my current proficiency in English will be polished and even upgraded to higher level, which will be of great use in my profession. I will use all my experience and knowledge from my overseas study in America in my future classroom.

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