Osman Topac
Statement of Purpose
December 15, 1999
I would like to enter the Ph.D. program at the ????????? University in TESOL Education. This continues my original purpose for coming to United States, for which the MA, which I will receive in March, was a first step. My ultimate goal is to become one of the few professors in TESOL methodology in Turkey.
My undergraduate work at Gazi University in Ankara, Turkey, in the Department of English Language Teaching, focused totally on the teaching methodology of the English language. To that end, my coursework included language and literature classes, as well as linguistics, applied linguistics, and CAL. In my final year at the university, I also started conducting micro-seminars for a publishing company specializing in English-language textbooks. Simultaneously, my year-long practicum in a sixth-grade, English-language private school as an English-language reading-comprehension teacher intensified my interest in pursuing a degree in the U. S. Therefore, I applied for and was awarded a grant from the Turkish Ministry of Education to pursue graduate studies in the United States.
During my first four quarters in the MA program at the Ohio State University, I have had the opportunity to read recent research, to write academic papers, to pursue my special interests in Computer Assisted Learning, and to gain insight into the expectations of the field. In addition, I have gained experience by interacting with the American culture, with my friends, and with my professors. Most important, since I had achieved a high degree of computer literacy as a self-taught computer specialist in Turkey, I have been able to help my colleagues as a computer technology consultant. These computer skills enabled me to work as webmaster for the Women's Studies Library at the Ohio State University.
My interest in English Teaching is broad. As an undergraduate and graduate student, I explored English Teaching with all aspects. CALL, developing foreign language teaching materials, task-based language teaching, syllabus design, and socio-cultural aspects of foreign language teaching are some of the topics of my interest.
Recently, the Turkish Ministry of Education has recognized that private school students had an unfair advantage on the job market because of their English skills. Accordingly, the ministry has taken steps to democratize instruction by implementing English in the public schools starting in the third grade. Therefore my ultimate goal is to become one of the members of the team shaping English Language teaching in Turkey. Studying second-language acquisition and modern-language teaching methodologies on the Ph.D. level are the key to attaining that goal and for preparing myself to do research and conduct relevant work in my chosen field.