Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Adventurer]

Would any of you happen to know of websites that would point you to
programmes in TESOL or Linguistics with a concentration in ESL. I am interested in a graduate programme. I think this would be good for me as I am tri-lingual, have taught in a public school in the U.S., and I have experience in South Korea, and I am looking for a good site that has all the grad schools in the U.S. pertaining to ESL.


Thank you

[Fresh Prince]

I'm not sure if a website like that is available, but I've done a lot of research on a MA: TESL and a masters in applied linguistics in the U.S., as I can speak several languages and really enjoy the field. It really depends on your career goals though as the job market isn't that lucrative in the U.S..

Here's some of the things I've found:

Most of the applied linguistics programs require the GRE and a certain number of linguistics courses prior to admission. I haven't found very many private universities with applied linguistics programs, but all the states I've looked at have at least one state university that has one. Schools with names like: University of _______ , or _______ State University, would be good places to look. There are lists of public and private universities by state on wikipedia which helps.

A lot of schools only offer a PhD in theoretical linguistics instead of applied linguistics even if they they have a masters in applied linguistics program, so if you have aspirations in that direction, then that's something to check on. Also, a lot of schools only admit new students once a year.

There are a lot of schools with MA:TESL programs, some of them don't require the GRE, but a lot of them do. Make sure you check on the class offerings to make sure that you'll be able to get all the classes you need within a reasonable amount of time. I've found some advertising esl masters degrees but when I called them up, I found that required classes weren't always offered every year, and in some cases what should have been a one-year program, actually took more than two.

Another thing you might be interested in, is a masters of education: TESL. There are a lot of masters of education degrees being offered at state and private universities since a lot of states have upped their permanent teacher certification requirements to require a masters degree. The upside to these is that they are more marketable in public schools if you want to be a teacher as opposed to a university professor. The downside is that some of them are only available to currently licensed teachers, or people that have passed a state standardized test before admission to the program.

One thing to watch out for is non-accredited or self-accredited universities, that advertise MA:TESL's. I've found a large number of them, and a lot of them have legitimate sounding names like, "University of x state college."

[Kwangjuchicken]