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Dave's ESL Cafe's Teacher Training Forum
Re: MA TESOL or MEd
Posted By: My Name is Joe and I AM. CANADIAN. In Response To: MA TESOL or MEd (Linh)
Date: Thursday, 7 January 2010, at 4:31 p.m.
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quote
I'm an English language instructor at a university in Vietnam and I'd like to earn a masters degree overseas. Would you recommend an MA TESOL or MEd? I think briefly the difference btw the two is MA emphasizes more on linguistics/ teaching issues and Med more on edu policy or such.
--------------Are you talking about two SPECIFIC programs (about the program descriptions from a specific or two specific unversities), or in general like 'What is the difference between an M.Ed and an MA TESOL?'
Because this:
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MEd (TESOL) will give you more scope as there are more home country jobs in education than linguistics, which is actually a more challenging discipline than education. That is why an Ed.D. is not regarded as as high as a PhD.
---------------is not necessarily accurate (other than the amount of jobs in Education versus Linguistics- where the two are not actually the same).
An MA TESOL may be through a Linguistics department, or it may be through an English department, or it may be through a Faculty of Education or it may even be a stand alone program. An MA TESOL through a Faculty of Education IS a masters degree in education- it's just not called an M.Ed. My masters degree is called an MTESOL (not uncommon from Australian universities). It's from a Faculty of Education.
An M.Ed is normally in a specific area, and an M.Ed (TESOL) is quite common [it also goes by other names like M.Ed (second/ foreign language acquistion) etc]. It's the same thing as an MA TESOL (which in turn is the same thing as an MA in Applied Linguistics {when the application being studied is language teaching}). An M.Ed can also be in Educational Leadership, or Curriculum Development or any of a lot of other things.
When choosing a program, look to see what courses are required, what electives are available, what the research interests of the professors are, [and especially for off-campus programs] find out as much as you can about availability of resources online through the university's library system (for free). Don't worry so much about the name of the program- worry about what YOU want out of the program, and how close the program will fit.
Linguistics is not 'a more challenging discipline' than 'education'. It's like saying that music theory in a music history program (MusBac) is a more challenging discipline than literary theory in an English Literature program (BA). Also, when you are doing language teaching, that's an aspect of applied linguistics and not theoretical linguistics- the subject matter is far narrower. A masters degree in linguistics (NOT 'Applied Linguistics', but [Theroetical] Linguistics) would normally require an undergraduate degree in linguistics.
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