Find out about what you’ll study on the Master of TESOL and how the programme is structured.

On the 180-point MTESOL programme, you’ll take 12 courses worth 15 points each. Seven of these are core courses covering the areas of teaching practice, language awareness, and language learning. You can then choose a further five elective courses to complete the degree. Details of these courses can be found via the Requirements tab.

You can use the Postgraduate TESOL and Applied Linguistics Course Planner to help you select your courses.

With the approval of the programme director, you can replace one or more taught courses with a supervised 15-point research course (LALS 580 or LALS 581), a 30-point research project (LALS 582), a 60-point dissertation (LALS 583), or a 90-point thesis (LALS 584). Each of these research courses has specific entry requirements.

The MTESOL, PGDipTESOL, and PGCertTESOL make up a tiered family of qualifications. These are “staircased”, so that courses completed for a smaller qualification can count towards a larger one.

• Postgraduate Certificate in TESOL (60 points)
• Postgraduate Diploma in TESOL (120 points)
• Master of TESOL (180 points)

Or, if you’re not quite ready to commit to the MTESOL, you can enrol in the PGDipTESOL. Then, once you’re confident this is the pathway for you, you can easily move into the Master’s programme.

To get a balanced understanding of the field, you’ll take courses from three different areas: teaching practice, language awareness, and language learning.

Courses in the MTESOL programme cover a wide range of topics:

• teaching language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing
• language testing and assessment
• language for specific purposes
• computer-assisted language teaching
• discourse analysis
• formulaic language
• identity and language
• second language acquisition
• teaching pronunciation
• grammar and vocabulary
• task-based language teaching.

You can start the MTESOL or PGDipTESOL in any trimester—February, July, or November.

You’ll typically complete the MTESOL in four trimesters of full-time study, although it is possible to complete it in three trimesters of intensive study. If you’re studying the PGDipTESOL, you’ll study eight courses over two trimesters.

Studying full time, you can expect a workload of around 40 hours a week. You can estimate your workload by adding up the number of points you’ll be doing. One point is roughly equal to 10 to 12 hours of work.

You’ll be assessed in a range of ways, including through research, assignments, literature reviews, reflective blogs, and the analysis and design of lessons and classroom materials.