Korean Job Discussion Forums

[agoodmouse]

Anyone else in this program? I just got accepted to its online program and will start my classes in October.

[Joe666]

agoodmouse - Haven't been accepted once in my entire miserable existance. However, I am a native Masshole who grew up in the Hub. Grew up might be a stretch and I am so bored right now (national testing for the next three days), that I might just post for the hell of it all day. UMass is a damn good school. I am also biased as hell on this one. But honestly, good school. A biochemist/professor recieved the Nobel Prize in Genetics/Molecular Biology a few years back. He discovered a new strand of RNA. Big time find! I realize this response is absolutely meaningless to you, but hey, thanks for listening!

[yeremy]

It's a good school. U Mass is often over shadowed by Harvard, MIT, BC, Northeastern and Tufts, etc, which is too bad. A lot of the professors are pretty good and the price for in-state tuition is good. The only negatives are that you are going to be in a cohort and have to finish the program in two years. However, all the faculty look pretty good and have their PhD's.

[DCJames]

There are many UMass campuses. Some are better than others.

[Joe666]

DCJames:There are many UMass campuses. Some are better than others.

Yes, this is true. Overall, the school has an excellent reputation!! Umass Amherst is really the only bastard of the bunch. Massive party school or should I rephrase the name: ZooMass.

yeremy- You seem to be pretty savvy about Bean Town. Again, I am baised on this one but you missed about 80 other collegiate institutions in the area which are top notch!

[dharma bum]

anyone know anything specifically about the online applied linguistics program?

[agoodmouse]

http://www.umb.edu/academics/cla/dept/applied_linguistics/online.html

[kerry.revell]

I just graduated from the online program the other week, and I loved it! Here's some info.

It is a two year, full-time program. In my cohort, almost everybody was currently a teacher or had been a teacher at some point before. I had never taught, which made the program harder, but I had the advantage of learning lots of practical classroom advice from my classmates before I ever stepped foot in a classroom, which is a huge plus. These classmates were from all over the world--Cape Verde Islands, Czech Republic, Japan, Portugal, Mexico, Chile, Hong Kong, and various places in the U.S.

I thought that the program gave comprehensive examination of the field with sufficient depth. We learned about program models for ESL/EFL instruction, bilingual education, sociocultural factors, theories of first and second language acquisition, classroom practices that built on those theories, and more. My only complaint is that there were not more electives available, particularly a class on the structure of the English language. I don't know if they are planning on expanding their course offerings or not.

I only have two words of caution. One is that the program is probably most useful for people teaching in a U.S. K-12 context, but you can apply what you learn to any teaching context. Although the classes are designed to teach teachers for all contexts, a lot of the readings focused on K-12 work.

The second is that the program has a liberal bent with a focus on culturally sensitive instruction, multiculturalism, and giving a voice to the oppressed. Readings reflective of this included words by Freire and Antonia Darder. Some people agree with this, and others do not. However, you will not be penalized if you think differently. In fact, I believe that a person will learn more from a program that has a different ideological bent than one's own because it forces you to re-examine your own ideas.

The professors were great, and the work was challenging and plentiful. You will be very busy in this program, but the work is well worth it! I hope that this has been useful

Kerry