Annual Scholarship

Information about the Annual Scholarship

The Suzanne Furstner Foundation Annual Scholarship combines two of Suzanne's greatest passions: TEFL and foreign languages. Running the TEFL department at Cactus, Suzanne was often to be heard laughing and joking on the phone in Spanish with the many schools we work with across Spain and Latin America. She was also studying Italian and had enjoyed some fantastic trips to Italy. It is therefore natural that our Scholarship prize should consist of a TEFL course combined with a language course.

2009 Scholarship

• 2009 Scholarship Prize: Six Weeks in Italy - a 4-week TEFL Course with a 2-week Italian language course in Italy, including accommodation and return travel to the UK (or equivalent).
• Valid at any of our partner schools in Italy.
• Entries will be accepted from mid-June until October 1st 2009
• Please download the application form
• The 2009 Scholarship winner will be announced at the London Language Show in October 2009.
• The winner is chosen by a 3-person committee: Jenny Johnson, Head of Cactus TEFL, Judy Friedberg of Guardian Education and one other, to be announced.

The very worthy winners of the 2007 and 2008 Scholarships were Anna Prime and Georgina Newcombe respectively.

Anna wrote an online journal of her CELTA course and teaching experiences in Seville (Spain) and Georgina of her CELTA and Spanish courses in Playa del Carmen (Mexico), which you can view via the following links.

Anna's blog

Georgina's blog

Scholarship Entry Requirements

The 2009 scholarship assignment is to write between 1,000 and 1,500 words on the topic 'Six weeks in Italy', interpreted any way you chose. In addition to this candidates should complete a short language awareness task.

Assignments are subject to the following conditions and are evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Relevance to the scholarship theme
• Clear reasons why winning the scholarship would be beneficial for the winner
• Originality
• Use of clear, accurate and error-free language
• The results of the language awareness task will be taken into account in the decision
• Please note that all candidates must have a native level of English

• The award is subject to the entrant successfully fulfilling course entry criteria
• The course must be completed between Nobvember 2009 and June 2010
• The winner will be expected to give interviews to the media about winning the scholarship, write a journal of their course experiences and a post-scholarship piece for use on the Cactus Website and for other marketing purposes.

• The deadline for submission of your scholarship proposal: October 1st 2009