Help tens of thousands of young teachers receive UK PhD scholarships

PHOTO: NVCC

Lots of activities for colleagues

Master Do Nguyen Dang Khoa (31 years old), currently a university lecturer in Ho Chi Minh City and administrator of the non-profit online forum "People of TESOL" (tentatively translated: English Teacher Community), will begin his PhD journey this September at Warwick University (UK). According to the UK's best university rankings in 2025 by The Guardian , this school is ranked 8th, after world- famous names such as Oxford and Cambridge.

What is special is that this journey will be fully covered from tuition fees to living expenses, along with a one-time research and training grant worth 5,000 GBP (175 million VND) under the international scholarship program of the principal from Warwick University. This is an achievement after many months of applying and competing with hundreds of other doctoral applications worldwide, according to the male master.

"I feel lucky because thanks to society, I have been able to study for free since my undergraduate degree," the former excellent graduate of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education confided. Previously, at the master's level, the male lecturer also received a full scholarship from the Hornby Educational Trust to study at Warwick University and continued to graduate with excellent grades with a perfect thesis score.

For both his bachelor's and master's degrees, Mr. Khoa chose to major in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages ​​(TESOL). For his doctorate, the young teacher will pursue a major in English teaching and applied linguistics, with a focus on teacher training and capacity development - a job he is still doing in various roles, with the highlight being the "People of TESOL" forum he founded in 2021 and currently attracting more than 26,000 members.

PHOTO: NVCC

Mr. Khoa said that since his high school years, he loved learning English and felt enthusiastic every time he could teach lessons to his classmates, gradually forming a passion for teaching. At that time, he especially loved the math lessons of his teacher, "because many other classes took 2 hours to learn, but she only needed 15 minutes to teach, but everyone understood the lesson".

“I wanted to be someone who could teach that well and concisely,” he said.

However, Mr. Khoa's perspective has changed. Instead of becoming a good explainer, he now hopes to be a person who helps students do it, and do it well. "English is a skill and learning English is like learning to swim. Therefore, how to help people speak English and use it in life is important. This is much more difficult than just explaining the lesson well," he shared.

This desire has become the driving force behind the young man from Ho Chi Minh City to create many activities to help teachers develop their pedagogical expertise, because he believes that "helping a student can change a person, but helping teachers prepare to teach those students has an even greater impact." Activities include the non-judgmental communication project, online seminars "Voices" on research, teaching, scholarship applications, etc.

In addition to the free activities mentioned above, the "People of TESOL" forum, considered a learning community, also attracts a large number of teachers to participate in sharing their perspectives, thereby creating a great source of professional and emotional support for English teachers. "A special feature of the forum is that people will transform knowledge from complex research into more 'readable' content, especially useful for general teachers," said Mr. Khoa.

PHOTO: NVCC

The secret to getting a PhD scholarship

Having twice received full scholarships to study in the UK for free, Master Dang Khoa shared that he did not need the support of consulting and guidance services to be successful. Because the most important thing to conquer the scholarship is the candidate's profile and experience, and no service can do this for the candidate. "Opportunities come from yourself," he said.

As for doctoral scholarships, Mr. Khoa advises that candidates need to have three important factors: a wide enough network of relationships, good enough scientific publication ability, and a doctoral research topic that is "strong" enough compared to other applications. In particular, the network of relationships will help candidates find scholarships and supervisors that are suitable for them, and at the same time understand the "taste" of the supervisors to convince them to agree to accept their guidance.

As for the doctoral research topic, candidates need to prove that their work can meet the research gap and has the necessary complexity at the doctoral level. For example, Mr. Khoa said that he not only studied the case in Vietnam but also compared it with the reality in the UK to find the difference, in addition, the model he studied has not had any new work in the past 10 years.

"Topics about someone's 'opinion' on a certain issue are often difficult to compete for," Khoa added. "In addition, you should submit them a few months before the deadline because there is a possibility that the instructor has already accepted enough research students or there are other unexpected risks."

The most important and time-consuming factor is the ability to research and publish scientific articles, according to the male lecturer. To demonstrate this, candidates should have 1-2 articles as first author and have published at least 3-4 articles. In addition, candidates should also list what they have done related to research, such as attending training courses, being a teaching assistant or organizing projects... and clearly state what they have learned through each of those activities, according to Mr. Khoa.

PHOTO: NVCC

"Many schools may say they don't need you to have scientific publications, but scholarships are a competition. We need to show the council that we have experience and research knowledge so that people don't worry about our quality," said Khoa. "Don't ignore small factors, because they can make up for your profile when compared to people with better research abilities."

In addition to teaching, Mr. Khoa is also a teacher trainer for a number of educational organizations, a speaking examiner for an international English exam of Cambridge Assessment English, and a researcher on English teaching. Taking on many roles like that is not a pressure but on the contrary, it is the motivation for the male lecturer to maintain his "fire of passion for the profession".

"In the teaching process, I always find ways for students to reflect on themselves and find ways to not depend on me. Because making students look forward to your lectures is a good thing, but it would be better if we could make students not have to wait for class but still want to seek knowledge on their own," Mr. Khoa confided.

“That's what I want to do, and will continue to do in the future,” he said.