Applied Linguistics and TESOL MA

Overview

Develop your abilities as a teacher of English to speakers of other languages, or kickstart your TESOL career, on this flexible Master's in Applied Linguistics and TESOL.

You may already be an established TESOL practitioner (or ELT, EFL or EAP) with a minimum of three months full-time teaching experience, looking to advance your skills and become an expert in your field. If not, as long as you've completed initial ELT, TESOL or TEFL teacher training, you can still apply for this course and do an extra module to build up your practical teaching skills.

On this course, you'll apply contemporary TESOL theory to the classroom. Guided by our expert teaching team, you can apply your learning to the context of teaching you currently work in or aspire to, whether that's in the private or state sector, teaching adults, primary, secondary or higher education.

You'll use a global perspective to critique your own approaches to teaching, conduct your own research into teaching techniques, and explore lesson planning and course design.

You can study in a way that fits around your existing professional and personal commitments by choosing between full-time, part-time, campus-based or distance learning options.

When you graduate, you'll have a deeper understanding of TESOL and how best to get results as an expert practitioner. You'll be ready to pursue roles in areas such as educational management or leadership, curriculum development, editing, publishing or advertising, in the UK or overseas.

Course highlights

• Take your TESOL knowledge and teaching skills to postgraduate level
• Choose to study in a way that suits you and your professional life, from on campus or distance learning, full-time (1 year) or part-time (2 or 3 years), and a September or January start
• Reflect on your classroom practice in order to improve the way you teach
• Learn to effectively plan and design a syllabus, courses and assessment methods, and choose to build a portfolio of lesson plans supported by critical reflection
• Analyse research into how people learn languages and the implications that has for the classroom
• Explore linguistic theory, unpick the hidden systems and bias in the use of language, and conduct research into teaching techniques

Careers and opportunities

Careers this Master’s prepares you for

As a TESOL practitioner with a postgraduate qualification, you'll be ready to teach English to speakers of other languages all around the world to the highest professional standard. There are now more people who learn English as a second language than there are native speakers (ThoughtCo), so your skills will be in high demand.

When you complete the course, you'll have the specialist knowledge to stand out to employers at institutions such as universities, language schools and private schools in the UK and overseas.

Graduates of this course have gone onto areas such as:

• teaching English as a second/foreign language
• teaching ESOL in the UK
• teaching other languages, applying skills learning on this course
• educational management and/or leadership
• teacher training
• materials writing
• curriculum development
• editing
• publishing
• advertising

A second-class honours degree or equivalent, plus initial teacher training and a minimum of three months full-time, relevant, teaching experience. If you do not have relevant teaching experience, you can still apply for our campus programme, and you will study an additional non-credit bearing module The Classroom Practice of TESOL at no additional cost.