오미희 수료생(27기)  

Good afternoon,

Thank you so much for having me here today. I am very honored to be here standing in front of you delivering this speech. You will never know how shocked I was when I received a call from the office the other day asking me if I could do this. It was just because this was totally unexpected and unimaginable. My husband and I used to joke about me being the only student who didn’t get any kinds of scholarship from the HUFS, paying the full tuition when I started this program. As you all know, to be qualified for the scholarship, you would have to be either English teacher or went to the HUFS. However, I was neither of them. I didn’t even major in English or Education, not even close to it. I was full-time mom raising 2 boys, 9 and 2 years old, living in Daejeon when I attended the orientation held a few months ago. Some of you may have similar story with me, being a new kid on the block.

I didn’t get much sleep last night not because I got nervous about this speech but because I had to write the speech like when we all have done the same thing with the assignments back in college. I completed this speech last night because I needed some time to mull over what to talk about. Well, several things have occurred to me, things like how incredibly difficult it was to grasp the concepts of all subjects, especially reliability and validity in testing. And I thought I could say how many nights I had to stay up in order to submit the assignments on time and how many weekends I had to miss to attend the offline classes. For 16 weeks, my priority was this TESOL program. So, I heard my younger son once tell his teacher at the daycare that he got angry with me because I always studied, not playing with him, even on weekends. That much this program required me to commit my time and efforts. And I believe that this isn’t just me, but everyone in my class had done as much as or more than I did. Scary? Truth be told, it won’t be an easy journey. Never.

However, here is the thing. I can assure you that you have made the most excellent decision ever if you wanted to get the best TESOL education.

First, the faculty members and the staffs are the most amazing when it comes to helping you get through the program. If you need any help from them, just ask, even a thing that you may think is trivial. They will be there to help you.

Next and the most valuable thing, the people you will get to meet soon in and out of the classes and study with. I had the privilege to work with these wonderful groups of people in my class who already have known lots of stuffs about teaching English due to several years of their experiences in the real world. They were such great helpers and advisors in almost every manner during the whole semester. So, it is perfectly fair to say that I am standing here today because of them.

I have to say that it is never going to be easy, but it certainly is going to be worthwhile whatever your ultimate goal is if you try to make the best of this great opportunity. So, try everything. And remember. If 40 year old full-time mom can do it, you can most certainly do it. I wish you all the best of luck!!