Attach a one-page statement concerning your previous academic work in your proposed or allied fields of study including course work other educational experiences, teaching or other relevant employment, publications, and your plans for graduate study and a professional career.
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Statement of Purpose
Lee Eunmee
The main purpose of my application is to bridge the gap between the English language and the
Korean students who study it as a foreign language. To this end, I found Florida State University
most appropriate to train myself in the scientific research and practice of English education.
As a student and instructor of homegrown English in South Korea,
I have more than 20 years of experience from which so many educational cues
for a better instruction of English could be taken.
The Korean system for English teaching has a severe drawback:
overemphasis on grammar and written tests. Innumerable trials have been taken to address the chronic problem to no avail.
Most Korean students of English, who were exposed to official classes at their 3rd grades, still feel uncomfortable at
their command of English even after they graduate colleges. As stated above, greater focus on written expressions coupled
with memorization of words, phrases, and sentence structures have taken the students from their opportunities to practice
spoken English. This asymmetry more often than not leads to a significant communication barrier when they went abroad for
further studies, particularly to the United States.
I have practiced English more than 20 years and taught it at elementary and middle schools for several years in Korea.
I came to grasp along the way some valuable knack of teaching the foreign language that could be put to practical use in
helping the Korean students get a better handle of their ¡°semi-official¡± language English! I have found some useful textbooks
and aids for EFL teaching out there, but failed to identify study materials customized for Koreans.
My completion of a 6-month, intensive TESOL certificate course offered by Georgetown University in a joint program with
Sungkyunkwan University in Korea will help devise a unique instructional strategy. Courses such as Methodology of Language
Teaching, Material Use and Development have taken me to a world of scientific study of English; Practicum and Conversation
have armed me with a better down-to-earth skill in handling English; and Theories of Language Acquisition gave me a reservoir
of ideas and discussions to be tapped later to come up with new methodologies adaptable to the ever-changing world of words.
Teaching English in a multilingual and multicultural setting at Florida State University will expand my educational horizon
in a world where diverse interactions between languages and cultures ever-growingly count. When I worked in late 1980s with
Bayer, a German pharmaceutical company, we communicated with offshore English both from my colleagues and me, a good opportunity
to experience firsthand the English language in a multilingual and multicultural environment. In early ¡¯90s I had edited an English
magazine as a study aid for students, which had put much emphasis on comparative analyses of cultural backgrounds to English learning.
Against this backdrop I published last year a book for parents to guide them to a right and efficient teaching their children English.
Up until coming to the United States in last year accompanying my husband, who is a current student of the Department of Communication
at FSU, I had pursued a master¡¯s course in English education at Yonsei University in capital city of Seoul, Korea. Application for
FSU could be an extension of my pursuit of academic accomplishment in English education.
Combined with these experiences, a possible learning opportunity at FSU will no doubt lead to an elevated level of my educational
leadership in English teaching.