Job Discussion Forums

[White249]

Next semester I will being starting a masters program in Adult education in TEFL at my university . I was recently told by my English professor that the program I am going to start taking is a cash cow and in disrepair and what I really should be going for is a MA in English focusing on Linguistics . I looked into getting my degree in linguistics but it will take two and half years because I will need a masters in English, All I want to really do is teach ESL ...do I really need all the theory? The TEFL program only takes a year .
-Josh

[fluffyhamster]

It does look as if there is a wider range of courses in the English side of Marshall (assuming that's where you'll be studying - going by another of your posts) than in the ATE side:
http://www.marshall.edu/english/courses/graduatecourses.pdf
http://www.marshall.edu/ate/tefl.html

That being said, I am not sure that 'ENG 576 Modern Grammar: A descriptive analysis of the structure of present-day American English, utilizing the basic theory of generative transformational grammar' would be quite my cup of tea.

Still, look on the bright side, if you can struggle through that prerequisite then they'll let you do e.g. a bit of SFL in ENG 638!

But seriously, linguistics is the basis for or at least feeds a lot into applied linguistics (i.e. teaching languages), and those who might get sniffy that linguists still need to be trained to teach languages probably couldn't teach those linguists that much, other than to smile, be polite to foreign learners "etc". (I am of the opinion that a lot of TEFL is empty pedagogical musing and methodologizing; the best and most real source for whatever (TEFL) ideas, insights, theories etc is ultimately the linguistic analysis of (the) language).

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Why don't you just do a masters in TESOL or applied linguistics at another university (one with a better program)? That way you wouldn't be doing a degree which is really in Adult Education with a sort of TEFL add-on, nor a degree in English which sort of leans towards linguistics.

[White249]

It's a bit late to switch schools at this point ...or change gears switch to English. So I think I�ll just pick up a linguistics class, so I can get a little of both..and save myself a bit of sanity.