Job Discussion Forums

[Mr_Monkey]

Something that's always troubled me about the on-face-value insistence of MAs in TESOL or a related field in Japan is the lack of a practicum in the majority of courses.

My master's was in language teaching, It looked at a broader set of teaching contexts than TESOL, but I can't really distinguish it from that course in any other way. There was an elective course involving a practicum, which would confer "TEFL Qualified" status (a British Council classification) on the successful participants, but it was an in-person program - something not available by distance learning for obvious reasons.

*edit* I should add that I didn't take the course.

So, given the absence of guided teaching practice in an MA, do you think it has made you a better teacher?

If so, how?

If not, why not?

Cheers!

[fluffyhamster]

It depends on what "TEFL Qualified" means. If that includes cert-level qualifications (CELTA etc) rather than Dips or upwards (and I doubt if the BC has made the definition exclude the majority of the minimally-qualified TEFL workforce), then most people who do an MA will have already done a cert-level qualification that confers that 'TEFL Qualified" status, which would make your question a bit moot. But as qualifications are really meant to be ever "onwards and upwards" then one would reasonably expect an MA to make one an even better teacher (with or without the practicum/"TEFL-Qualifying" component). Still, I recall posing a similar question (something like, "What exactly did you learn on an MA that you could not have gained from reading the set books and/or a little thinking, reflection, and perhaps research?") before on the forums, and not getting any answer. (I guess that could've been due to my not being a somewhat clueless teacher with just a few years of experience peddling just CELTA-based lessons, and without even a copy of Swan to guide me, hence making my question somewhat rhetorical?).

[G Cthulhu]

I think the question is too broad. There are too many variables that come in to it. Is the MA an academic Master's or an applied? Is it from X country or Y? What was the actual content?

If you do want to just look at that broad a question then I would say the only answer that can be as broadly applied in response is, "It satisfies the growing need for a Master's as the world continues to suffer from qualification inflation." Anything beyond that and all those qualifiers start to come in.

[steki47]

I just started a master's program this year and am enjoying the classes. Taking a great (but challenging) course in cognitive psychology. Really learned a lot about short- and long-term memory, retrieval systems, etc.

I am banking on having an MS in ESL Education helping to get a better teaching job. University work, maybe private HS.

To me, the real question is if any of the stuff I am learning from an American university can be applied to the Japanese way of doing things. Foreign language teaching in the West has made a huge shift to participatory, student-centered learning. Yet here in Japan, Education is still largely based on dialogue memorization and the translation method.

[Mr_Monkey]

[gaijinalways]

Hmm, that is a real thought provoker. In my own case, my Master's (in Tesl/Tefl) has changed my working conditions and my teaching philosophy. As some have noted in other threads, I'm not one to promote the teaching of gramar-based curriculi (though a question for another thread is; what kind of program does that imply, i.e. what grammar, how much or how often, what percentage of class time to devote to it, student and course design features that influence grammtical usage, etc.) . It's not that I never teach or have students not spend time on grammatical/structural issues, but rather I budget less time and priorities to it. There are a lot of other linguistic factors that I consider to be far more important. I think my Master's highlighted and served to remind me of that, as well as exposing me to some teaching ideas, which broaden what I might consider doing in the future ( of course, some of that is just the influence of more experience).

[fluffyhamster]

I suppose I should've checked what the BC definition was, but now that you mention it Mr_M, the TEFLI versus TEFLQ division does ring a bell (I think it is an absolute joke however to lump PGCEs - in what exactly? Politicized BS, staff-room navigation, and tea-drinking? - in with ELT-specific qualifications. And even English Lit majors probably aren't quite up to the task of teaching the spoken language, or the written either in sufficient detail for that matter!). I'm pretty sure though that in the past one could teach EAP (and indeed one may still be able to in some places), regardless of what the BC decreed or advised (and as for teacher training, one of my CELTA trainers was a real expert in the use of scissors and glue sticks). I guess eventually cert holders will have their brains removed and pickled in jars, and be allowed only to do the TEFL equivalent of stock shelves, flip burgers and scrub toilets until such time as they can afford (to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds, what with inflation etc) to have their brains reimplanted and their critical thinking reactivated by quite possibly the mere fantasy of "better" jobs and more money (fuelled in part by the very fees they paid, one suspects). Anyway, please excuse me whilst I go flick these chips off my shoulders and into the McMac frier. (I'll get my coat too whilst I'm at it!).

[gaijinalways]

Fluffy,

You don't have to worry, the chip on your shoulder is pretty small. I think a lot of it has been 'chipped' off, must be all those enlightened students you've been rubbing shoulders with .

[G Cthulhu]

[Mr_Monkey]

[fluffyhamster]

If others' experiences are anything like yours (going by your OP), I wonder how many will be replying at any length and in the affirmative to your question, Mr_Monkey. It would be interesting to know what it is that you felt was missing on your MA, though (other than the "practicum").

I mean, I would actually question whether a practicum is really necessary at the post-TEFLI level (my argument is always that more rather than less academic stuff is needed, especially when one considers how little there is at the TEFLI level - far too much time gets wasted with observing half-baked lessons with flawed content and/or premises and thus, unsurprisingly, flawed execution, so why waste yet more time at the TEFLQ level too?).

Mind you, when I say 'academic stuff', I am more talking linguistic facts (i.e. empirical data, with just enough terminology to organize it reasonably clearly), of which there is a hell of a lot one could be looking at, than theory per se; and if one turns out to have problems applying theory, then to me that indicates that one has (literally) bought into, swallowed a bit too much of, some rather half-baked and ultimately quite "inapplicable" stuff. (A lot of SLA and derived research and so-called methodology brings me out in a right old rash). But facts divorced from theory aren't academically respectable enough nowadays, it would seem (or perhaps the fear is that one will apply them in a personally-appealing way - the impertinence! - which could in turn result in a more common [common-sense] and standard way of teaching things than not - oh, the horror! The poor students will find that far too dictatorial, demanding, boring, etc etc!). A lot depends though on quite where one studies, and there are some centers of empirical excellence - Birmingham springs to mind - though that doesn't come cheap, and can still get cluttered up with mandatory courses in SLA theory etc. Best thing might be a course primarily in Modern English Language or somesuch (Nottingham?).

[Shimokitazawa]

[Mr_Monkey]

Ummm... no.

You haven't "answered the question in a way I don't like"; you've manifestly failed to answer it at all. I suspect you're answering the question you wish I'd asked. However, I didn't ask "does an MA make a better teacher?"; I asked whether and in what way you feel your MA made you a better teacher.

With that, and the thread having been thoroughly derailed by attempts to one-up and show off, I shall leave you to argue with yourself.

Good day.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Too many insults, too many personal asides, too many instances of addressing the messenger and not the message along with some other inappropriate comments have resulted in this thread being locked.

It would be a very bad decision to start a similar thread any time soon.