Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Swampfox10mm]

[Charlie Bourque]

Does anyone have experience with HKU's MA TESOL?

It's a two-year programme that requires a related undergraduate and two years of full-time experience. It takes two years to complete, part-time, and students are expected to keep teaching full-time while they attend.

[Hotpants]

Nearly everyone I know has an MA unrelated to their undergrad degree.

Like with any MA, you're probably going to need to show some evidence of prior knowledge/experience of the field, otherwise you might as well take the course at BA level.

These days, you don't necessarily need to give up work to be able to take an MA, but the paradox is that while distance learning courses are growing in number, some countries won't accept a distance MA TESOL.

Charlie - As for the HKU TESOL course, if you mean Uni of Hong Kong, how many of us in Korea are able to attend evening sessions there? It was/is part run by a British university, and even ten years ago, it was a pretty expensive course back then. Plenty of other options if you are Korea based.

[GreatUnderachiever]

[Charlie Bourque]

[GreatUnderachiever]

Western Universities are highly regarded, more so than Asian universities, surely it's better to do a distance MA course with a British or American uni then some random Asian.

OR

..is going back home to do the Master the only realistic option for future job prospect.
It would be good to get a good Korean Uni job one day.....
but after that, who knows Middle East maybe (and I know from ME forum that the acceptance of distance MA will vary depending from country to country).

[DingusKhan]

Be careful with distance-learning MAs. While I think South Korea currently accepts them (correct me if I am wrong), as mentioned before, other countries such as Taiwan and some Middle Eastern countries will not accept them. I'd hate to see you put considerable time and effort into something that limits your options if you ever want to try a new locale beyond South Korea.

As for paying for all this, some schools do offer Teaching Assistantships. This will cover your tuition plus typically give you a small stpidend. In exchange they'll have you either tutoring students, or even better, teaching entry-level English classes. This is really beneficial as it gives you the much-lauded uni teaching experience. However, some schools put priority on funding to PhD candidates over Masters.

Again I'm talking strictly North American schools; I'm not familiar with the UK structure.

[Charlie Bourque]

[Hotpants]

There are plenty of 'foreign' administered MAs that you can take in Korea. If you're looking at other Brit-run courses, a lot of the linguistics departments of the universities allow overseas study. Specifically, I know a lot of people who have done the Uni of Birmingham course in Korea. They do/did have some face-to-face tuition as part of the program, but I thought they were also on the expensive side. There are plenty of other posts on Dave's with lists of US and Aussie unis. But, yeah, totally agree that the best option is to take the course on-site full time if you're in this field for the long run. With the number of GEPIK/EPIK/SMOE cuts, I reckon it'll only be a matter of time that Korean unis start being even more selective of their MA grads. I've managed to get in to Korean unis with a distance MA, but there were a lot of queries at interviews about it, suggesting that it sounded dubious, and I was unable to move to Taiwan as I had planned because now there's a requirement for no distance MAs by the unis there.

[ttompatz]

[GreatUnderachiever]

[GreatUnderachiever]

[Michael_75]

I'm currently mid-way through an MA Applied Linguistics with TESOL at Sheffield. I have a BA in Modern Languages, which was (apparently) deemed relevant enough. They also asked for two years experience, but a lot of the students don't have any - it's possible that their degrees are more relevant though. A friend of mine did MA TESOL at Anglia Ruskin with a BSc in Computer something.

As for distance MAs, I wouldn't bother, but I guess it depends on your circumstances. While they may help you get a better job, they are never going to be as well regarded. Why spend the time and money on something that might limit you in the future? - you're only going to do it once. Plus there is real benefit in being around your tutors and classmates at all times, with libraries, additional seminars, chances to network all around you.

[Hotpants]

I totally agree with Michael. Having completed a distance MA around 5 yrs ago, I would need to take another MA if I want to move across fields at a similar level. I'm really glad I didn't spend so much money relatively on my distance MA. I also felt the shortfalls of the distance course were the lack of networking opps, the lack of peer support, and not having (much) direct access to noted professors.

As for the Open University in the UK, they are recognized for K-immi purposes, but if you wanted to go back and get a higher-level teaching post in the UK, the OU MA TESOL is not recognized by the Brit Council, so you would have to invest in a DELTA course, which adds another 1K on to your MA costs.

[GreatUnderachiever]