I am thinking about doing some more study to improve my teahing qualifications and knowledge, perhaps next year (DELTA)or later this year correspondance MA - does anyone have the inside track on distance MAs - or else MAs that cross-credit DELTA…and also I would be interested in any thoughts in regards to US versus UK courses. UK courses seem far more organised and coordinated, but I think as far as Taiwan is concerned US English rules…but lets not discuss that too much here.
I would also … appreciate any links or book references concerning suprasegmentals (stress, intonation etc). I brought a book from Caves called “Teaching Amercan English” by Avery and Ehrlich - which is pretty damn good.
American courses are few and far between. I assume you know that the current MOE regulations here do not recognise DL courses unless a significant period of the study was spent in the host country (I forgot the precise period) Some of the British courses work on credits allowing you to stop at Dip. level if that’s enough.
I took the Aston MSc TESOL, but other well regarded ones are Birmingham, Oxford (Brookes), Surrey, London, Edinburgh. Check out their websites for the details as some are more flexible than others. Similarly, some have more of a linguistic slant than pedagogic. The British Council here has lots of information including all the modules and standard books for the Aston course, and I believe the Leicester one.
Don’t pe pressured to sign up there though as they stand to make $$$.
I’ve got some good DL links on my home computer, and I’ll post them after work.
I took Aston too (how i know soddom!) and it’s actually an MSc, not MA and well-regarded and the first DL Masters in UK. We even get tutorial visits unlike other schools, which is quite motivating whilst doing Distance Learning. Aston is different from Edinburough, Surrey and others as it’s NOT a lockstep course. Meaning that we can choose the modules we want to take in the order we want to take them and can become specialized in whatever area we find most enticing.
Ask Soddom what his dissertation is on and you’ll see what I mean!
Many other courses are generally more traditional in the way they’re taken and the types of assignments. Surrey has deadlineas per module of about 3 months. This is useful having been on Aston as we can let things slide on this course when our only real deadline is to complete the program in 5 years.
The York MA has a young learners component if you’re interested in that.
Surrey has a TESOL management MSc and a regular.
One thing about DE mastes, you must be highly self-disciplined and have a second instinct for research. They’re very theoretical as well, and you’ll learn a new way of expressing yourself about SLA.
Oh, and you get a Cambridge cert (Celta?) upon completion of Leicester’s first module without actually having to have done a course like VIBA did. So I think it’s cheaper.