In July, 2008, the British Council in Buenos Aires called me to let me know that I had been awarded the Hornby Scholarship for Argentina to undertake an MA in ELT at an English university, in my case, The University of Warwick. That has been the best call of my life.
My life has greatly changed in two planes. Academically, this masters has enabled me to be a more reflective and critical teacher and teacher trainer thanks to the core and optional modules my programme offered. It was a demanding and challenging year with countless learning experiences in an environment where social-mediated learning was cornerstone in every seminar. The Centre of Applied Linguistics at Warwick allowed me to revisit teaching conceptions, explore and try out new approaches, develop material, and experience research surrounded by other fellow teachers from countries such as South Africa, Greece, China, and Madagascar among others. One of the assets of this MA programme was my tutors’ teaching. Their quality is hard to surpass. They showed me what it really means to work collaboratively, to be an example of congruent teaching, to be affective and critical at the same time, to be supportive as well as passionate about what we all have decided to go for, ELT. Also, as part of the Hornby programme, I had the wonderful opportunity of participating at the IATEFL Conference in Cardiff together with other fellow scholars and with the invaluable support of the British Council staff based in London and Manchester.
Personally, it has helped me to speak culturally. This new dimension couldn’t have been possible without my course mates, fellow scholars and flatmates. In my case, I decided to live on campus, something that I highly recommend as students live in an international environment where all cultures are important and where everybody learns a great deal about this international community. I could have never imagined that when in doubt I can now contact my colleagues and friends from Denmark, Latvia or Mexico.
All in all, I encourage every teacher to apply for this scholarship. There’s nothing to lose. On the contrary, there’s too much to gain and profit from.
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