Job Discussion Forums

[katers]

I'm a new teacher with some experience and am soon going to Krakow to teach EFL.

I'm planning to spend a few years teaching and getting some more experience, but eventually I'd like a career in TEFL. I think I'll probably end up settling in the UK (my native country) and would ideally like to do a combination of teaching English to foreigners in a private language school, and some university-based work (maybe even teaching TESOL or something).

Would you recommend that I do an MA in TEFL (there is one at Westminster Uni in London that looks brilliant) or a Delta course, or both?

Do employers favour one over the other? For university work, would I need the MA rather than the Delta?

Financial considerations aside, I'd love to do both, but unfortunately I do need to take the money side of things into account, so the price of the MA/Delta would have to be worth it.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Katy

[lozwich]

There's an MA that you can do (I think its at Bath) where the Delta is part of the course.

[sheeba]

I'm currently doing both and would say that the Diploma is very good for offering you practical classroom skills especially in the areas of Phonetics and Grammar.

My MA seems to me more like an exercise on how to put research reports together and I feel that I will become a Master in writing coherently at the end of that. I still have my dissertation to do and am hoping that I can specialise in an area that will be of use to me in class but so far I haven't done anything that matches the practicality and usefulness of the Diploma and the fact that the Diploma was a guide for me when I was struggling in class added to my positive opinion of the Diploma.

[Justin Trullinger]

I think it depends a lot on where you do either, and where you want to work. For university work, I think you'll find the masters to be much more valuable, but the type of program Loz suggests might be ideal if you really want both!

Sheeba's comments are interesting to me, as I'm also working on a masters, and would have said the opposite- mine is strongly focused on classroom action research and teaching methodology; I find it to be an incredible workout in terms of the practicality of my classroom teaching. Mine is through Aston in Birmingham- where's yours, Sheeba?


Best,
Justin

[spiral78]

I did my MA through Birmingham and I agree with Justin. We didn't get much emphasis on writing research papers - and they definitely felt no obligation to teach us how to write at the post-grad level - that was very much a secondary challenge we had to meet on our own.

Where are you doing the MA, sheeba? It sounds very different to mine, at least.

[sheeba]

I'm doing it with Sheffield Hallam. To be fair I'm still not at the dissertation stage but I do think that it depends on your own choices on what you study. To some extent(IME ) you are free on your MA to make choices as to what you specialise in. As much as that has advantages I personally feel that the structure offered in the Diploma and the necessity to pass exams including observations directly related to classroom practicalities forced and still is forcing me to thoroughly learn the fundamentals needed for a class especially in the areas of Phonetics ,L1 or general learner problems and Grammar. In my MA there is no exam(that I've noted) where I would need to be on the ball with for say the IPA or where I would need to know different contexts for the passive,conditionals blah blah blah and prove to others(in a class) that I know this. These(IMO) are the sort of things everybody should have awareness of and many MA's (I would imagine) might miss these sorts of areas out. I emphasise the word 'might'.

Of course my Research is important and I'm looking forward to trying to get stuck into mine but the Diploma's seems to help me with learning the actual skill of teaching. I guess it is different depending on what MA you do and how you do it. Maybe in a year or so I'll have a different view on this.

[Marcoregano]

Given the above discussion, TESOL-related MAs and MEds obviously vary hugely in content with some more practical and some more theoretically based. There is of course also an element of personal choice, in terms of which electives you choose.

My MEd TESOL involved very little in terms of practical teaching content - I recall doing lots of reading and research about World Englishes, Asian literature in English, code-switching and intercultural aspects of learning and teaching. In terms of improving me as an ESL teacher it did nothing - most of it had little or nothing to do with teaching - but I was interested in the subject matter. However, I should point out that if I had been teaching in a university linguistics faculty setting, my degree would have been much more relevant to my work - and at that time that is the type of work I was aiming at.

For teaching practicalities - from what I've heard - the diploma is very good - but to the point of tedium in some aspects.

[Llamalicious]

Are you aware that the DELTA is changing to a modular format?

http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/teaching-awards/delta.html

This makes it much more attractive to me as it seems to make it easier to fit around ongoing work committments.

[Kootvela]

[naturegirl321]

MA is more theory and DELTA is practical. I can't do the DELTA because it isn't offered where I live.

[denise]

[Justin Trullinger]