Him students,
I hope you are well.
I need a help, I finished my Master in TESOL(teaching English as A second Language), I would like to apply for PHD in TESOL in Education, I tried to contact many staff, but they ignored me, my scholarship will expired soon and I will lose it.
so please if any body can help me to have a chat with any of the education supervisors or to contact them by email, I will be so thankful.
by the way, my proposal is about Interaction problems in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms in Saudi Arabia

This is hilarious.

hi Salwa
I dont know how to help you; what do you mean "by your scholarship will expire soon"?
How about contacting a representative from your country instead?
And ask them if they can sponsor you for a phd in TESOL etc.etc.
Perhaps they can give you better advice about your research theme.
satchi

Hi Satchi,
thank you so much for your reply, I am sponsored but I could not get a phd offer letter from a UK university.
so if you know any of the TESOL supervisors who can help me please inform me.

Hi Teek and Eskobastion,
this is hilarious???????
what do you mean, please if you can not help, please........

Take a look here, as Glasgow are involved with TESOL: http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/languagecentre/staff/ York is a good bet too, so get in touch with them using the contacts on this page: http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/educ/gsp/matesol.htm And then there's Lancaster as well. Take a look here for the e-mail you need: http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/study/masters/contact.htm The numbers for the important staff you need to talk to are on the pages so if they don't respond to your e-mails, ring them directly.

By the sounds of it, you have your funding, so they'll be very interested. I'm not being funny or anything, but you've got a Master's so you must be very bright and determined to succeed. Use your initiative and have more faith in yourself . Good luck (up):-)

Hi Salwa,
The best way to solve your problem is to get one of your supervisors to help you out. Words from them carry heavy weight and high chances for you to be accepted. Meanwhile, you might as well talk with those in your department, I am sure you can find someone to guide you. Remember, don’t go like a lone ranger [in fact, even he had some red indian guy to assist him, I guess], apply with good words from your present supervisor or anyone who has taught you.

Hallo Salwa,

I'm not sure from your post whether you've formally applied to universities and been rejected or just not had replies to e-mails asking if the person was interested. If you've not actually been filling the forms in and applying then you must do that. I remember when I applied that some institutions did not want you to approach staff directly as they felt that stopped them having a fair admissions process.

Also has a native speaker of English proofread your application materials? There are some serious grammar errors in your post (although I know we are all careless on the internet, so it may not be a good example of your abilities) and so I wonder, given your topic, if you are being rejected because of concerns about your English. British universities are now being monitored on numbers of home and international studies successfully completing PhDs within four years and as a result, many are now unwilling to accept students, who they think might struggle to meet that goal. (Research has shown that inadequate English abilities are a major cause of students not completing in time.)

Would your scholarship allow you to apply for either a research training MA in your field or even a postgraduate foundation course that offers intensive English training as a precursor to the PhD? Both might be easier to gain entry to, and would allow you to arrange meetings in person with prospective supervisors and develop a proposal with their help. I'd also second what others have said about getting help from your MA institution - is doing a phd there not a possibility?

Hi bewildered,
thanks a lot, I am really sorry for all my mistakes, I have written it in a hurry.
I applied in two universities but my proposal was rejected for it was not a cademically strong ( I do not know why) to be honest, I do not have any idea of how to prepare a PhD proposal, I asked many people for help, but they have just sent me some links of websites show only instructions to prepare it, but really I feel that I am lost and need serious help.
I kept reading and rewrote my proposal now, and I would like to apply again, I am really disappointed.
I contacted somestaff but they ignored my email.
but I am really sure that if I talk to them directly, they will help me.

sorry for this long post, and thank you for understanding my situation, I felt that good people are still alive.

hi Salwa
From what I have read: you have funding but no phd offer letter, is this correct?
Perhaps you need to improve your research proposal; after writing it, have someone check it for you.
There should be help from your present university (where you did your masters if you are still there); for example the Student Center should have some advisors for writing cvs, letter of motivation etc.
You need to send in a proposal that is academically and gramatically correct (with the research question clearly outlined and justified).
For example, your title "Interaction problems in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms in Saudi Arabia" , you need to say how you are going to go about it (assuming you want to do your phd in UK). Perhaps you might need to rephrase your title.
Good luck
satchi

I have just had my PhD Proposal accepted by the research committee - I had to go through a lot or writing and rewriting over the last five months (part time to get to this stage).  I submitted a rough outline which was circulated throughout the uni I applied to (I already had my MSc from them so they knew my academic abilities although it was 5 years ago so many of the staff had changed) and was picked up by my supervisors as an area they would be interested in supervising but it was not academic enough (too much like a consultancy project). I then had to write a formal proposal which was originally ripped to pieces by my supervisors (words like "Yuk" "get rid of this" "don't like this" are still imprinted on my mind).  I then submitted it to the research committee where it was rejected for i) aims being too MPhil and not PHD enough and ii) not enough detail on methodology.  I then met with the independent scrutiniser to get guidance on what he wanted (not that it was much help - he just wanted it improving!). I then redrafted and redrafted (I think there were 26 versions) and it got accepted.  When I had doubts about whether I could do a PhD if I couldn't do a research proposal, I remembered that my MSc research proposal got me my worst mark but the actual research helped get me the distinction.

My point is that you need to seek guidance and you need to read and when you think you have read, enough read some more (my original submission was a rough idea based on a book and a couple of articles, my final submission was 1200 word and two and a half pages of references) and yes by the end it was academic enough. I had help form a couple of people (other than my supervisors) who read through things and made suggestions but at the end of the day YOU have to write it.

Keep reading and writing and ask for guidance from the universities