Job Discussion Forums

[moemanco]

Hello all, hope all is going well. Needed some advice and I thought
where better to turn then to you fine people of this world wide web with
your wealth of experience and all.

So my three years in Japan are coming to a close due to the birth of my
first baby boy and it's time to get it together.

After I finished my Business degree in Australia, where I was born and
raised, I came to Japan for a working holiday and here I am two and a
half years later thinking I've enjoyed this job so much that I think I
want to continue with it. I speak,not read or write, native Arabic and
I'm fully native in English of course. I was thinking of starting an MA
in Linguistics in the hope of it allowing me the opportunity to work
anywhere around the world at any in teaching English. I was even
thinking of this MA in Linguistics rather then an MA in TESOL because I
figure it would help me if and when I improve my Arabic to a level where
I can teach it or translate.

Does my track of thought appear to be sound thinking to you all out
there? Just need to know I'm not setting unrealistic goals.

So with this in mind I'm looking around and I realise I'm going to have
to choose between a coursework based MA or a research MA. Now I'd love
to get a Scholarship so I think I might have to do a research based MA
but I'm loosing hope of getting such a scholarship mainly because I
don't think I can work out how to go about it, so any information on
that would be really handy too.

Finally here are the two courses I'm thinking about.

Master of Applied Linguistics by research
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ling/postgrad/ma.html

Master of Applied Linguistics by Coursework
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/lcl/postgraduate_coursework/masters-appling.html

I just can't work out which one is going to be more beneficial for me in
the long run. I also don't have the first clue as to how or what I'd do
a
research for a MA of Linguistics as this is kind of a new field for me.
My B.B was in E-Commerce and Transport Logistics.

I hope I've provided enough info for you to be able to enlighten me with
your wisdom oh wise one of the web.

Moe

[Yu]

My understanding is that if you are interested in pursing a PhD it is important to do the research. And you should look into doing linguistics.
For a MA in TESOL, I was told it is a terminal degree. There is not a PhD offered in this field.
If you choose to do a coursework based MA you are also leading towards a terminal degree.

If you would like to get a PhD someday, do something research based.

[Yu]

double post

[denise]

Even with an MA in TESOL, you could still go for a PhD in Applied Linguistics.

You seem to be a bit more clear about what you want to do AFTER getting the MA. One way to find out which MA would be to look into job adverts that interest you and see what they ask for. For teaching jobs, usually an MA in TESOL, Applied Linguistics, or "equivalent" is OK--probably linguistics.

For translating work, something teaching-related might not help too much. There are a few MA programs in translating and interpreting. My grad school, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, has one. (www.miis.edu)

d

[Solar Strength]

If you want your degree to be taken seriously then you should do a dissertation.

Australia has done a great disservice to the Master degree by offering these coursework degrees that can be completed in less than a year full time.

If you plan on teaching in a university, your colleagues and the professors that hire you will not respect a coursework degree or see it as being equal to a Master of Philosphy degree.

Even the schools where you do these degrees like The University of Southern Queensland, UNE and Monash don't look at the degrees as being in the same league.

If you plan on teaching in a conversation school, then I suppose it really doesn't matter. But if you have any aspirations of being a faculty member in a university (which will require you to write and publish articles) then you will need the research skills.

Further, and as mentioned above, if you plan on ever doing a PhD then you'll need a Master of Philosphy to get accepted to doctoral programs.

Remember, there are countries/governments/schools that do not recognize Master or PhD degrees obtained by distance learning format - Argentina, UAE, Taiwan, Mexico, China.

Good luck.

[sonya]

double post

[sonya]

sorry for all the edits, I'm trying to make this post less confusing..

I'm majoring in linguistics.. so.. maybe (I don't know what my opinion is worth).. if teaching a language is what you like, I don't know, I recommend going for an MA in TESOL.

I say this because a degree in linguistics would mainly help you to teach linguistics. The applied linguistics program you're looking at looks like it would only teach you the bare bones of linguistic analysis (outside of discourse analysis, but that's really just a subfield of sociolinguistics.. it wouldn't really help with teaching English or Arabic, and I'll explain why later). But, even if it was a general linguistics program, or an applied linguistics program in Arabic or English, wouldn't help you improve your Arabic ability, but rather your theoretical understanding of it.. I don't know how it goes in Australia, but a big part of modern Linguistics is proving, or disproving, Universal Grammar -- that's to say, your research would go towards finding patterns in Arabic that show or don't show underlying similarity to other languages. For example, you would analyze things like the CV template and how it relates to optimality theory (ie: a word like samam is underlying sm, not smm).. basically.. Linguistics is a bad way to approach language teaching, I think, although, it may be useful for a teacher to know it, so as to better understand what they're teaching, but not as useful as an actual degree in what they're teaching.

Looking over the second website (the first seemed vague) you would be researching discourse analysis in, it looks like, English. In other words, you'll be researching the way different groups of people talk to each other, ie: how the genders speak, how long they pause between turns, what it means, what effects it causes, etc. You'll research which groups of society are "innovative" and which are "conservative" in things like slang and vowel shift, and the effect that has. That said, it's a really, really, really fascinating field.. there's a linguist at Georgetown University who's pretty well known in the mainstream for her work in language and gender and discourse analysis, her name is Deborah Tannen. If this sounds remotely interesting to you, I highly recommend reading some of her work. Discourse analysis in general is very eye-opening.. but I don't think it helps much in foreign language teaching, except at higher levels where you help people figure out cultural communication issues..

[Johanna]

Two points,

the MA in Applied Linguistics I am currently enrolled in at the University of Adelaide is a three semester program. Two semesters are course work, the third is a mini-dissertation. This mini-dissertation seems to whet a lot of students appetites for further study as quite a few go on to PhDs.

Discourse analysis has been part of our program and is very useful in teaching (both to lower and higher level students) but there is far more to applied linguistics - learning theories, systemic functional grammar, learning strategies, classroom research and so on - than suggested by Sonya.

Regarding scholarships, you'd be much more likely to get one for a PhD in Australia and you'd have to be here full time.

Cheers

Johanna

[Chris_Crossley]

Gaining an MA entirely by coursework need not necessarily be a dead-end. I can only talk about the UK university system rather than the Australian one, though.

Right now, since I am in China, I am undertaking an MA in Education by distance and online learning with the (UK) Open University (OU). One of the modules I am doing is called "The Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages Worldwide", which was developed jointly between the OU and Macquarie University in Sydney.

Despite the name, it is more in the applied linguistics field, it does not really tell you how to be a better TESOL practitioner, although one of the assignments that students must submit is a so-called "lesson report", which should be based on the theories taught in the course.

Students who finish the MA can go on to do the EdD degree of the OU, which means starting out with a compulsory module in educational research before starting a one-year literature review and a two-year dissertation. This is what is known as a "professional" doctorate seen as "a more appropriate vehicle than the traditional PhD", according to the publicity about the degree.

However, EdD degree programmes are springing up all over the place, and you might find that a coursework master's degree will be an asset rather than a hindrance to gaining a place on such a programme, although you would be expected to have a few years of professional experience as well as good letters of recommendation from principals and suchlike in support of your application. As you would expect, EdD degrees are normally taken part-time and may require physical attendance at a university on weekends and in the summer for an intensive period, since what you learn in the programme is meant to be directly relevant to your professional working circumstances.

Having said that, I am aiming to do the University of London MA in Applied Educational Leadership and Management programme directly after finishing my current MA, since I see this degree as being more relevant to my needs. The doctorate may come after that.

[Solar Strength]

[Chris_Crossley]

Working professionals may not necessarily have either the time or the inclination to want to take three years out to undertake a full-time doctorate in the traditional sense.

One may consider a distance-learning or e-learning degree as a "short-cut" to a higher qualification if it means not actually attending anywhere physically in the traditional sense. Both the traditional form and the distance-learning form of learning have their pros and cons just like almost anything else.

If one is in the fortunate enough position of completing a bachelor's degree and then having the time and the money (the money being the more important of the two) to go on to do a doctorate full-time, then that is all right. However, professional doctorates like the Doctor of Education (EdD) usually require applicants to have some professional experience first. Indeed, some applicants to EdD programmes (not necessarily all of them) are required already to be in positions of responsibility so that they can relate what they learn on the programme to their current job.

There is, I believe, no way that any professional in a current position of responsibility (e.g., assistant principal, principal, head of year, head of department, and so on) will simply drop everything for three years to complete a doctorate full-time, because that would mean sacrificing three years of income needed to pay for things like mortgages, bank loans, children's education, car maintenance, house repairs, holidays, spouse's extravagance (!), and so on and so on.

If one is still in one's early to mid-twenties, it is easy to scoff at people who do not do a higher degree in the conventional full-time or even part-time way, both of which require physical attendance, because they might think that it is not a "proper" way of getting a degree. However, that is a totally blinkered and prejudiced opinion, in my view.

Why should professionals be faced with an unacceptable choice of dropping one's work for three years just to get a doctorate if it also means that any chances of promotion within the hierarchy almost disappear if one is out of the picture for so long? One has to take time to think about WHY such doctorates or other higher degrees are offered in a distance-learning mode. That includes governments who do not necessarily recognise such degrees owing to the mode of study.

There are some countries' governments, it is true, that refuse, for whatever reason, to recognise distance-mode degrees, yet these are the ones who are necessarily doing themselves, not to mention the professionals, a complete and utter disservice by stereotyping such qualifications as "not proper ones". The best solution in the light of such current illogical thinking is simple: go and work in a country that does recognise their value, so don't even bother with countries that do not, considering that there are at least 200 countries in the whole world!

My personal situation is that I am here in China and have been for more than four years. This therefore means that, since I also have a wife, a daughter and a mortgage, I am undertaking an MA in Education with the UK Open University on a distance-learning basis. I also have an eye on the University of London MA in Applied Educational Leadership and Management, which is also on a distance-learning basis, since it is for working professionals right around the world.

If any country were to decide that both of these master's degrees are "not proper", because they did not involve any physical attendance anywhere (although the London MA does involve traditional written examinations and a dissertation), I would have a very easy choice: go and work for some other country instead. It is that simple.