This MA programme is designed to encourage the acquisition and development of TESOL professional knowledge and expertise.

Transcription

1 M.A. in TESOL Programme This MA programme is designed to encourage the acquisition and development of TESOL professional knowledge and expertise. It aims at: 1. Enhancing participants' knowledge of contextual issues concerning the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages. 2. To refine and extend the participants' abilities to employ a variety of practical skills in teaching and researching English language teaching.. To extend their motivation and inform their strategies for continuous professional development. Significance Many institutions, universities, and colleges will benefit from this programme: 1. The Ministry of Higher Education. 2. The Ministry of Education. Professional and Technical Training Organizations. 4. Other Ministries and their various sectors. 5. All educational sectors, (Government and Private) in The Kingdom of Arabia. Admission Requirements B.A. in: 1. English Language and Linguistics, or 2. English Language and Literature, or. Translation, and Not less than 6 in IELTS or its equivalent. 1

2 2-List of Courses Code ELI 600 Second Language Acquisition Course Type Compulsory ELI 601 ELI 602 ELI 60 ELI 604 ELI 605 ELI 694 ELI 620 ELI 621 ELI 622 ELI 62 ELI 624 ELI 625 ELI 626 ELI 627 ELI 628 ELI 629 ELI 60 ELI 61 ELI 62 ELI 6 ELI 64 ELI 699 TESOL Methodology Curriculum Design and Development Special Topics in TESOL Teaching Practicum Testing and Assessment Research Methods in TESOL Introduction to Applied Linguistics TESOL and Modern Technology Approaches to Instruction and Learning English Language and Culture English for Specific Purposes English Grammar and Lexis Teaching Reading and Writing Teaching Listening and speaking Intensive Conversational English History of Teaching English in Arabia Professional Development of English Language Teachers Portfolio Development Discourse Analysis Thinking Skills in EFL Classes Contexts and Approaches in TESOL Master Thesis Compulsory Compulsory Compulsory Compulsory Compulsory Compulsory Compulsory 8 2

3 -Courses Description ELI 600 Second Language Acquisition This course introduces the students to the major theories and issues in second language acquisition, as well as the theories and assumptions that underlie historical and current trends in second language pedagogy in general. The course investigates the social, psychological, educational and linguistic factors that affect second language acquisition including age, motivation, language background and environment of the learner. It further introduces the students to specific terminology that is most important to the language learning field. The materials and activities introduced in class focus on the acquisition and teaching of English as a second/foreign language. Because the content of this course assumes some prior knowledge of English linguistics, the students should have completed an intensive English linguistics course under the supervision of the English Language Institute. ELI 601 TESOEL Methodology This course covers practical and valid approaches and techniques needed to teach English language vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and discourse along with the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. By the end of course, the students should be able to understand the general principles on which TESOL methodology is based and evaluate teaching and learning materials as used in classes of small and large numbers of learners. The students learn to examine the challenges for methodologists, material designers and developers as well as foreign language teachers in analyzing and choosing the suitable approaches, methods and materials for use in English language classroom.

4 ELI 602 Curriculum Design and Development This course introduces students to the key concepts of curriculum design and development. It aims to enhance their understanding of the relationship between language course design and course content. Students are helped to promote their own critical evaluation of the purpose and design of EFL teaching materials and appreciate the pedagogical reasoning behind lesson planning, materials selection, exploitation and development. The course demonstrates the principles involved in planning and designing an effective syllabus for the English language. It examines important concepts such as needs analysis, goal-setting, and content specification, and serves as an excellent introduction for teachers who want to gain a better understanding of curriculum design in order to evaluate, modify, and adapt English syllabi. ELI 60 Special Topics in TESOL This course does not deal with a specific subject but it rather covers a wide range of topics, including debatable and current issues, new theories and developments in TESOL, discoveries and important findings of potential interest to EFL industry. The course makes use of arranging discussion student groups and seminars, and it enhances the preparation of research activities that cover a variety of topics usually chosen by the course instructor. Students may also be given the chance to suggest for investigation, discussion and research. 4

5 ELI 604 Teaching Practicum Teaching Practicum introduces students to thinking about the classroom as a space for learning language and allows them to reflect on the roles of teachers, learners, and other factors in shaping the learning opportunities and tools in that space. The course is designed to expose students to current discussion in language teaching methodology and engage them in developing their understanding of language teaching as a profession through readings, discussions with the instructor and colleagues, work on course assignments and, more significantly, have training on teaching English. The course is generally designed to highlight effective instructional practices and help students expand the repertoire of specific practices that they can make use of in the classroom. ELI 605 Testing and Assessment This course examines English language assessment including proficiency and placement exams, high-stakes standardized testing, and traditional and non-traditional student assessment. The course examines testing techniques and procedures and the assessment of the four basic language skills that demonstrate language proficiency: speaking, listening, reading and writing. General principles of English language test construction and administration are emphasized. Students are provided with practical experience in preparing, correcting and analyzing language tests. 5

6 ELI 694 Research Methods in TESOL This course exposes students to a variety of research papers about English language learning and teaching; theoretical and practical issues that are normally addressed in the field. It draws a link between TESOL and current research techniques in order to achieve a better understanding of foreign language problems and find them good and practical solutions. In addition to the reading and discussion of papers, the students need to be given guidance to explore, analyze and present language data. The methods and techniques covered include formulating research problems, extensive literature review, developing research objectives, preparing the research design, collecting data, analysis of data (including statistical analysis), generalization and interpretation, and preparation of the report or presentation of results to finally write up conclusions. ELI 620 Introduction to Applied Linguistics This course explores the building blocks of language by examining the theories and ways of expressing meaning and communicating concepts. It focuses on how different languages are structured and processed and how they work to enable students to use their knowledge of the field to develop their language teaching strategies. It also explores corpus linguistics real world considerations of English language acquisition as well as social, psychological and neurobiological linguistics and their impact on enhancing or impairing the acquisition of English. 6

7 ELI 621 TESOL and Modern Technology This course explores the various technologies currently used in TESOL using a range of modern teaching approaches and techniques that mirror the wide and differential range of technologies while focusing on computer and internet related technologies. Classes use and develop computer and video activities and simulations in a problem-based learning environment and explore distance and e-learning modes and techniques to provide a wide range of teaching and learning experiences. The course encourages critical reflection informed by theory while underscoring that assessing the effectiveness of a technology is mainly assessing its use. ELI 622 TESOL for Young Learners This course focuses on young learner's TESOL theories and compares them to the approaches used currently. It also explores psychological approaches to teaching and learning English as a foreign language to young learners such as developmental psycholinguists that studies a child's ability to acquire language and systemic functional linguistics, and examines how grammar is taught to children. 7

8 ELI 62 English Language and Culture The course explores the relationship between TESOL and social context. It examines cultural issues that pertain to TESOL in both native English speaking societies and the learner society and studies the impact of cultural specific modes, like fashion music and food on material representations in text books or audio visual material. It also investigates current learner habit modes of studying and thinking and their impact on learning outcomes. ELI 624 English for Specific Purposes This course examines the impact of awareness of teaching English for special, specific and general academic, purposes. It explores how the genre evolved historically and its most important theories, concepts, controversies, practices and implementations with emphasis on English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Throughout the course, the learners should become aware of students needs and rights and will be able to recognize the specificity of the learner's situation when choosing methodology, material and assessment. 8

9 ELI 625 English Grammar and Lexis This course explores the theory and practices of teaching English vocabulary and grammar as tools towards language fluency both in speaking, reading and writing. It aims to bring to the conscious level what has been practiced subconsciously therefore it examines the current widely used methodologies in teaching English vocabulary and grammar. It studies the strategies in teaching vocabulary in isolation and in clusters and the methodologies and purposes of teaching grammar to foreign language learners. It examines how grammar is classically taught in Arabia and the purposes for the strategies used and questions whether these strategies enhance or inhibit learning by instilling a feeling of inadequacy and fear among students ELI 626 Teaching Reading and Writing This course adopts an applied theory approach. It explores the methodologies of teaching reading and writing both in theory and practice. Reading and writing are perceived as connected genres but reading precedes writing and it is employed as a plateau for internalizing both English vocabulary and English sentence structure. It emphasizes material choice to interest the learner and remove the psychological prohibitions that inhibit student's learning 9

10 ELI 627 Teaching Listening and Speaking This course aims to provide the learners with a practical teaching model that they could emulate and develop in their future career. It is structured to teach learners to apply listening and speaking theories effectively as it focuses on simultaneously using several teaching methods to improve the skills of vocabulary building, listening and speaking within a short period of time. The teacher works on expounding the student's vocabulary repertoire using a five step process. An in-class and at home daily training in listening is enforced and speaking skills are boosted by applying emersion theories that involve learners in daily and spontaneous conversations starting the second class meeting. Both speaker and audience are involved by giving simple basic rules that can be easily learned and applied to all levels and types of conversations. The methodology of the course is both teachable and transferable which will enable current MA learners to pass on their expertise to their students in the future. ELI 628 Intensive Conversational English This course investigates the theories behind the practice and other upto-date theories of conversational English with its appropriate sound and intonation patterns, compares and contrasts them using Thinking Based Learning strategies. It also requires the writing up and acting of plays and similar activities to boost the listening and speaking skills of the learners to a higher level. 11

11 ELI 629 History of Teaching English in Arabia This course aims at enabling learners to recognize the history and problems of learning English in Arabia. The course sharpens the learners' critical abilities in assessing English as a foreign language learning problems in Arabia. The learners assessment is based on reading and data collection, field study projects; using statistics, interviews and focus groups to collectively draw a picture of the history of teaching English in Arabia. It should be indicated that there documented information about the history of learning English in Arabia might be quite limited. Therefore, the data collected by the students in this course will presumably form an academic data base in the field. They are required to find and develop comprehensible data about the history of teaching English in Arabia by conducting linear studies of extended periods of time through reading, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups and shed light on the problems and solutions that can be provided for teachers and course designers in society in general. ELI 60 Professional Development of English Language Teachers This course focuses on TESOL professional teacher development through experimenting with practical strategies and through analyses of the current acquisition problems of students at different school levels, both public and private. It enhances teachers' assessment abilities by exploring various assessment criteria. 11

12 ELI 61 Portfolio Development This course has three premises. First, it explores the theories and concepts behind course portfolios. Second, it provides hands on application of course portfolios. Third, it develops the student's critical and analytical abilities by encouraging them to analyze, compare, contrast and critique various course portfolios and suggest changes or improvements to them. Students are encouraged to think of the practical aspects involved such as time and management limitations. ELI 62 Discourse Analysis This course examines the concepts and theories of discourse in applied linguistics and studies their impact on TESOL. Learners will explore not just the concept of speech discourse but discourse as a sign that produces meaning and assigns specific repeatable relation to elements within or outside the discourse. Discourse analysis and Corpus linguistics that try to derive abstract rules which govern another language are encouraged. 12

13 ELI 6 Thinking Skills in EFL Classes This course systematically integrates context learning with thinking skills learning. It aims at creating independent and effective thinkers and empowering English language learning by fusing thinking skill and context learning. The course is a mixture of theory and practice with more emphasis on the practice to develop new thinking and learning habits. It develops a mode of learning whereby the teacher is slow initially to internalize the shift but can speed up considerably later in the course when the students' learning habits shift. ELI 64 Contexts and Approaches in TESOL This is a summation course that accentuates the different approaches and methodologies to teaching various contexts in English. It emphasizes the understanding of the diverse modes of English Language learning and how the underestimation of those modes and the conditions in which they are developed can impair the learning process of English. 1

14 ELI 699 Master Thesis 8 This thesis course will be in a written format in English with a minimum of 20,000 words and a maximum of 0,000 words where the topics will be approved after a written proposal and a verbal presentation in front of three committee members from our Institute. 14

15 4-Course Layout Year One Semester One 1) ELI 600-Second Language Acquisition (Compulsory credits) 2) ELI 601-TESOL Methodology (Compulsory credits) ) ELI 694 -Research Methods in TESOL (Compulsory credits Semester Two 1) ELI 602-Curriculum Design and Development (Compulsory credits) 2) ELI 60 -Special Topics in TESOL (Compulsory credits) )ELI 605 -Testing and Assessment (Compulsory credits) 15

16 Year Two Semester Three 1) ELI 604 -Teaching Practicum (Compulsory credits) Courses ( credits each): Choose TWO courses 1) ELI 620-Introduction to Applied Linguistics 2) ELI 621-TESOL and Modern Technology ) ELI 622- Approaches to Instruction and Learning 4) ELI 62-English Language and Culture 5) ELI 624- English for Specific Purposes 6) ELI 625-English Grammar and Lexis 7) ELI 626-Teaching Reading and Writing 8) ELI 627-Teaching Listening and Speaking 9) ELI 628- Intensive Conversational English 10) ELI 629-History of Teaching English in Arabia 11) ELI 60-Professional Development of Language Teachers 12) ELI 61- Portfolio Development 1) ELI 62-Discourse Analysis 14) ELI 6- Thinking Skills in EFL Classes 15) ELI 64- Contexts and Approaches in TESOL Semester Four ELI 699-Thesis (Compulsory 8 credits) 16

17 5-Staff Members Staff Members Name Professional Status. Specialization University Year Nationality 1 Dr. Tariq Elyas Applied Linguistics & TESOL Adelaide University, AUS Dr. Abdullah A. Al-Bargi Associate Applied Linguistics Arizona State University, USA 2006 Dr. Khalid M. Alharthi Applied Linguistics Newcastle University, UK Dr. Micheal J. Burgess Applied Linguistics and Education Technology Newcastle University, UK 2014 British 5 Dr. Tahani A. Albeiz Associate Curriculum & Methods of ELT Petersburg University, USA Dr. Jumman Shami Applied Linguistics Lancaster University, UK Dr. Ibrahim Alfaki Associate ELT Nile Valley University, Sudan 2000 Sudanese 8 Dr. Turki G Alsolami Language Education Flinders University, AUS Dr. Khadijah Bawazeer English Literature Leicester University, UK Dr. Aishah Khojah Linguistics University of Sydney, AUS Dr. Nadia A. Shukri TESOL University of Leicester, UK Dr. Fatimah M. Alghamdi Applied Linguistics University of Southampton, UK