Statement of Purpose

Statement of Purpose

¨Master´s in Bilingual and Multicultural Education¨

Ever since I first traveled abroad to Italy when I was 14 I decided as soon as I was done with college, I would find a way to live abroad. It started out as an abstract goal, but as I traveled to Argentina, France and Brazil, my dream started to seem more realistic and I realized by teaching English abroad, I would be able to satisfy my wanderlust and love for different cultures, different language and different perspectives.

When I emailed Cristina Blanco a few weeks ago telling her I´d fallen in love with living in Alcala and wondered if she had any ideas as to how I could continue living here after the summer CIEE program was over, I wasn´t expecting any sort of serendipitous response. So you can imagine I was absolutely shocked when she responded that an opportunity had opened u for me to not only live in Spain, but to work towards my Master’s degree in bilingual and multicultural education (what I´ve been dreaming of pursuing for years!) and intern in a real classroom teaching English, as well! Clearly, the stars had aligned and this was NOT an opportunity I could pass up.

I believe that not only would I benefit from the Teach and Learn Program, but that the program would benefit from me being a part of it, too, due to all of my multicultural/multilingual experiences! I have always been somewhat of a polyglot (I´ve studied Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese and Thai) and was thus inspired to live in the Italian dorm on my UW-Madison campus freshman year. Living in another language that I hadn´t previously studied was an exhilarating experience. The following year I moved into the International Co-op and lived with people from all over the world. Living in such a tight-knit community of a plethora of cultures and languages opened up my perspective and I adored it.

I became really close to one of the Brazilians who lived at the co-op and would help him with his English studies every night after dinner. When he went back to Brazil I visited him for a month and helped him with his private English classes he taught. Before switching my major to Spanish, I had been a Linguistics major, so teaching English came more naturally to me than I would have imagined. Suddenly I was teaching Brazilians of all age English grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation and it was thrilling! I’ve always loved teaching, and teaching something I knew as well as my native language was very rewarding. My experience in Brazil and all of the friends I made there influenced my decision to work hard to graduate a year early from UW-Madison so that I could move out of the country and pursue my own career in teaching English on my own!

After having studied and lived in Spain for the past month and met Spaniards and Americans alike, I believe that I would be a perfect fit for this program because of my unique personality and my adaptableness to living in another country. While other students in the summer program rarely stray from the safety of the group and are off in search of the best bar to drink at or the best internet connection so they can stay in constant touch with their family and friends in America, I am that odd girl who is taking the metro solo and getting off at random stops just to explore. Perhaps it’s because I am an only child, but I´ve always been very independent, autonomous and intrinsically curious. Give me a day in any city and I will gladly start walking up and down each street all by myself, become enraptured with the new people, new discoveries, new experiences and new perspectives gained throughout the day. In addition to this, I am generally quite tenacious and sanguine. In other words, I am willing to work very hard for what I want and I’m cheerfully confident and optimistic in the process. I tend to see challenges as an adventure rather than an obstacle. These characteristics, coupled with my bubbly, giggly, colourful personality make me a determined and self-sufficient student and a unique and fun teacher. I tend to see life from a playful perspective of a child, but with the maturity of an adult.

Living in Spain and pursuing my Master’s degree while interning as an English teacher would honestly be a serendipitous dream comes true. I believe I must have ended up in Alcala a year early for a reason and if I were to be granted such an opportunity, I know I’d take advantage of it unlike anybody the program has ever seen.