Job Discussion Forums

[Nabby Adams]

Thinking of doing the distance MA. I am not looking for the easiest or cheapest, but rather a great course that is currently good value in regards to global exchange rates. I particularily want my course to help me teach better. So I am looking for modules on teaching writing, speaking, testing, basically practial skills.

Oh, and I see that some courses have a module of the phonetics of English, do you think this is useful. I say this as I am rather weak on this area and try to avoid it really.

I'm also rather weak on grammar and linguistics so I try to avoid those too. I know I am starting to sound like a bit of a lemon, but really I do want to be the best I can be.

Any recommendations?

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Australian universities are cheaper than UK ones.

If you want to be a better teacher, then you should look for a program that offers modules/units/courses in the areas in which you are weakest, not strongest (but you need to be able to actually pass!!!).

Phonetics is very useful. Knowing how different sounds are produced will help you teach those sounds to your students. Things like Japanese students not being able to differentiate between /r/ and /l/ and /b/ and /v/ and "short" /a/ and /u/ sounds are all the kinds of things that you can teach better if you know some stuff about phonetics.

Not knowing stuff about 'grammar' could be a huge problem in many countries, even if you yourself don't end up teaching it explicitly (although if you stick around for this to become a long-term career, then likely you WILL end up teaching it explicitly- 'cutting edge teaching methodologies' sort of runs like a pendulum between teaching communicatively and teaching grammar explicitly- right now it's the 'post methods' period so they are saying that neither will likely get the job done for most learners and so we should have little mini-grammar lessons in the middle of a communicative class, in five years it may turn out to be little mini communicative lessons in the midst of a grammar class--- though I sort of doubt it. Anyway, the point is that it is very definitely the type of thing that you should know some stuff about). It isn't uncommon for English teachers who are native speakers of the language of the country in which you teach to ask English native speakers very, very specific questions about English grammar. And if you have a masters degree in teaching English language, but don't know what is to them the key to English (and this in itself shows some issues!), then that doesn't come across as too great.

[fluffyhamster]

Yes, Nabby, you do sound a bit like a lemon, about to be squeezed. But seriously, given the current economic climate (switch cliche detector on?), MAs no matter how cheap are probably going to become an investment increasingly difficult to recoup. Why not pursue a PGCE or equivalent (which might well be at least initially mostly funded at the taxpayer's expense)? You'd then be able to comparatively languish whilst getting better-paid, and not be quite so much out of pocket. (Please excuse the irony - I am just seeing if anyone fancies telling me how fantastic PGCE training and QTS is, because I'm considering doing one, but have no particular wish to be jostled through potentially swift shoddy training before being continually b*ll-busted about the quality of my teaching and made a bit of a political football generally, even if the pay is better - having (having had) to study far beyond the CELTA's limits, and Asian employers question one's professional abilities as a way of increasing profits by deducting pay, is perhaps a walk in the park in comparison. (Don't you get tired of jumping through hoops?!)).