Job Discussion Forums

usergirl · Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 1

This is my first post and it comes out of frustration of trying to find accredited schools online or by word of mouth that offer a Master's in TEFL.
Is anyone taking such a program, or has heard of an accredited school?
I have a BA and a diploma in TEFL and have been teaching for two years in Taiwan.

JZer · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 3898 Location: Pittsburgh

My co-worker did an M.A. at the University of New England online. The school is located in Australia. It has been good enough to get him interviews at different universities in Seoul.

wildchild · Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 519 Location: Puebla 2009 - 2010

Um...does it have to be TEFL?

Why not applied ling., second lang. acquisition, applied language studies, TESOL, TESL?

Anyone of those in a search engine should give some results.

Chris_Crossley

This subject has been covered numerous times on this forum.

I am doing an MA in Education (Applied Linguistics) with the UK Open University entirely by distance-learning, and one of the three modules that I have to do is entitled The Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages Worldwide (or TESOLW, for short).

A quick search on Dave's using "TESOL", "TEFL", "TESL" and "MA" or "Masters" should yield quite a few results. I think you'll have plenty to read!

Jizzo T. Clown · Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:50 pm Post subject:

A Master's in TEFL?

Didn't know there was such a thing. Confused

naturegirl321 · Joined: 04 May 2003 Posts: 9041 Location: home sweet home

Try Funiber.org

They have one with a thesis that is 2 years and very affordable and comes from very well known universities.

EDIT: I don't recommend funiber at all!. After 11 months of waiting, my mom gets my degree today, which
1. hasn't been signed by the king of Spain like they said, and
2. was issued in January.

In Spain, they put DOB and place of birth. I was born in CA, USA, HOWEVER, according to my lovely MA, I was born in Bagua, Peru. Which, is some dinky town in the Amazons that I've never heard of let alone been to.. HOW they screwed this up is beyond me, especially since I JUST gave them a copy of my passport in July 2009.

It's not a good programme. They accuse people of plagarism and then have them pay to have their theses re-read. I fail twice, not becuase of plagarism, just because. Took 1.5 years to pass my thesis, another year to get my degree and now I have my degree, an they put your place of birth on it. And that info is wrong, so now , my degree isn't valid.

Chris_Crossley

bethan76 · Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 9 Location: UK

I'd think about what you want to do in the future before starting an MA.

I'm currently studying a taught MA in Applied Liguistics and TESOL at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, originally with a view to staying in the UK and working in universities. Increasingly they look for people with PhDs or DELTAs so I'm having to rethink my original plans.

I've found that for many overseas jobs an MA is not required. Perhaps a DELTA would be better or a combined DELTA & MA.

Be wary of who you do an online MA with (having worked for universities in the past) . Unless it's from an accredited university it won't be worth anything at all.

If you're planning to do your course whilst overseas, will you have access to academic journals/books etc. for your assignments?

Also pick your course carefully. A lot of courses are now geared towards the high influx of international students requiring MAs for their job (our Deputy Programme Director has told us this is now the norm). Consequently, myself and other native speaking teachers have found that modules sometimes teach methods and approaches which we were aware of and used, but our international colleagues find new and revolutionary.

Sorry to be so pessimistic.

By the way I googled MA TESOL and found my course. Try English Language teaching as well.

Bethan