Master of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Guidebook

1.  Plan of study.  

It is in the student's best interest to file an official interactive plan of study (iPOS) with the Graduate College at the earliest possible date, but at the very latest when they reach 50% (5 courses; 15 credit hours) of their program. The iPOS lists the courses to be completed, and the committee consists of the current MTESOL director as the chair (Dr. Matthew Prior) and the previous director as the member (Dr. Aya Matsuda). 
The iPOS also indicates the language selected for the Graduate Foreign Language Examination. Students must demonstrate or provide evidence of competent knowledge of a natural language other than modern English. See Language Requirements for details on how to satisfy this requirement. Please note that this does not automatically update in the iPOS. MTESOL students on the Tempe campus should contact Samantha Franze, and MTESOL Online students should contact Kira Assad when they have completed their requirement. 

Graduate College requires that the student be registered for at least one graduate credit in fall and spring semester, or at any time that the student utilizes university facilities or a professor's time. This includes registering for at least one graduate credit during the semester that the student applies for graduation, works on incomplete work or takes an exam. See the Graduate College Policy Manual for more information on Continuing Registration. 

2.  Required courses.  

• LIN 501 Approaches to Research (3 credit hours)
• LIN 510 Linguistics* (3)
• LIN 520 Second Language Acquisition Theory (3)
• LIN 521 Methods of Teaching English as a Second Language (3)
• LIN 584 MTESOL Practicum Internship (3) 
• Electives+ (12): 6 credit hours of graduate credit in the English department (either LIN or APL courses); 6 credit hours of graduate credit can consist of other LIN or APL courses, or with prior approval, ENG courses or courses outside the English department (e.g., education, school of international letters and cultures, speech and hearing science, psychology).
• LIN 597 MTESOL Capstone^ (3)

Also, students must demonstrate or provide evidence of competent knowledge of a natural language other than modern English. See the Language Requirements webpage for details on how to satisfy this requirement. International students whose native language is not English will have this requirement waived once the Plan of Study (iPOS) has been approved with a full committee.

*Credit can only be earned for LIN 510 Linguistics or BLE 537 Linguistics for Educators. Note that MTESOL students are required to take LIN 510. Students who have taken or plan to take BLE 537 should consult their graduate advisor.

^MTESOL On-Ground: Please note that LIN 597 MTESOL Capstone will be offered only in fall starting the 2021-2022 academic year. Students planning to graduate in spring or summer should take the capstone in the previous fall. MTESOL Online: LIN 597 MTESOL Capstone should be taken in the final semester of the program. It is offered only in session B of spring, summer and fall semesters.

+Beginning Spring 2024, 6 credit hours of electives must be either LIN or APL courses and 6 credit hours can consist of other LIN or APL courses, or with prior approval, ENG courses or courses outside the English department. Those admitted before Spring 2024 still have the option to complete 3 credit hours of either LIN or APL courses and 9 credit hours of other LIN or APL courses, or with prior approval, ENG courses or courses outside the English department.

The MTESOL program on the Tempe campus is designed to be completed in 3 semesters of full-time study plus a summer course. For example, as the following table shows, a student who starts the program in Fall 2023 could finish the program in Fall 2024, a student who starts the program in Spring 2024 could finish the program in Spring 2025, and so on:

This is only an example. The courses can be taken in any order except for LIN 584 Internship and LIN 597 Capstone. LIN 584 Internship cannot be taken in the first semester and is encouraged to be taken later in the program. LIN 597 Capstone should be taken in the final semester or as close to the end of the program.

The MTESOL program through ASU Online offers courses in 7.5 week sessions (session A and session B) within each 15 week long semester (session C). For example:

Please see the MTESOL Online Degree Details tab for a Typical Course Rotation. 

3.  Elective courses.  

Beginning Spring 2024, 6 credit hours of elective courses must be taken from the English department (e.g., LIN 511 Phonetics and Phonology, LIN 513 Semantics, LIN 514 Syntax, LIN 515 American English, LIN 516 Pragmatics/Discourse Analysis, LIN 517 History of the English language, LIN 522 Grammar for TESL, LIN 523 Language testing and assessment, LIN 524 Curriculum design and materials development, LIN 584 MTESOL practicum internship(b), LIN 590 Reading and conference(c), LIN 591 Special topics(d), ENG 504 Cross-cultural studies, ENG 507 Methods and issues in teaching composition, ENG 525 Teaching second language writing, ENG 557 Computer-assisted language learning).  

An additional 6 graduate credit hours of elective courses can consist of other LIN or APL courses, or with prior approval, ENG/FMS courses, or courses outside the English department (e.g., education, school of international letters and cultures, speech and hearing science, psychology). Potentially suitable choices can be found by searching the ASU course catalog. For outside the department electives, the course catalog can be used to search for courses in bilingual education (e.g., BLE 511 Introduction to language minority education, BLE 520 ESL for children, BLE 522 Literacy/biliteracy development, BLE 533 Literacy in secondary BLE/ESL, BLE 535 Sociolinguistic issues in bilingual education, BLE 537 Language structure acquisition, BLE 541 Nature of bilingualism/second language acquisition, BLE 561 Parent involvement in language) and international letters and cultures (SLC 510 Computer-assisted language learning praxis, SLC 515 Second language acquisition, SLC 598 Special topics(d)).

Note that those admitted before Spring 2024 still have the option to complete 3 credit hours of either LIN or APL courses and 9 credit hours of other LIN or APL courses, or with prior approval, ENG courses or courses outside the English department.

Please note that some of these courses are only offered in-person on the Tempe campus for MTESOL in-person students and some courses are only offered online through ASU Online for MTESOL Online students. See the Degree Details tabs for more information. 

(b) The internship involves practical teaching or teaching-related experience. It is a required course, so students must take it one time (for 3 credits); but students also have the choice of taking it more than one time because the internship can be taken for a total of up to 9 credits. If a student takes the internship more than one time (i.e., for more than 3 credits), the additional time(s)/credit(s) will count as electives and should be taken separate from the required 3 credits.

(c) This is an independent study course, and can be taken for a total of up to 6 credits (e.g., taken for 3 credits twice). The student chooses a topic to study, finds a professor who is willing to supervise the work, and arranges with the professor a plan for the student to do the work. This course is only available to MTESOL Tempe campus students.  

(d) The topic of this course changes every semester. (For example, recent topics in LIN 591 include “English for Specific Purposes,” “Teaching English as an International Language” and “Native Speakerism in TESOL”, and in SLC 598 include “Issues in syntax” and “sociolinguistics”.)

4.  Pre-Admission Credits.  

With the approval of the program director, students may include a maximum of 12 graduate level credit hours with grades of B or better, provided they are courses appropriate to the program and are not more than three years old. MTESOL required courses that have been taken during a student’s undergraduate studies may be transferred only if those courses were taken within the last 12 units of the undergraduate degree and were not used towards that degree. Credit for pre-admission credit is given when the student files the plan of study, and final approval of transfer courses comes from the Graduate College. If you have pre-admission credits you want evaluated, please contact your graduate advisor. 

5.  Graduate Capstone Seminar (LIN597). 

This course will provide students with a culminating experience in which they bring together all the knowledge they have learned in prior courses in a way that is meaningful and relevant to their professional goals. For example, the course may involve writing a research paper, designing a curriculum (e.g., teaching materials, lesson plans, assessment tools), or developing a professional portfolio. 

6.  Language requirement. 

Please note: Students should fulfill their language requirement early in the program so it does not delay graduation.

International students whose native language is not English will have this requirement waived once the Plan of Study (iPOS) has been approved with a full committee.
U.S students who are bilingual must still demonstrate a reading knowledge in the second language. To waive the language requirement, documentation or proof in the form of a certificate, a class or indication of bilingual work in a job will be required.

Students must demonstrate evidence of a competent knowledge of a natural language other than modern English by being able to prove an intermediate reading knowledge in that language. This requirement may be met by:

• The School of International Letters and Cultures offers online courses (iCourse for in-person students and oCourse for fully online students) in GER 550 German for Reading Knowledge, FRE 550 French for Reading Knowledge, SPA 550 Spanish for Reading Knowledge, and ITA 550 Italian for Reading Knowledge that can satisfy the requirement with a grade of B or better and count as elective credit in the program.
• Demonstrating comparable proficiency by taking a translation language exam. All students taking the Graduate Foreign Language Exam through the School of International Letters and Cultures will be charged a $100 fee. For more information about the exam, see the Foreign Language Requirement webpage.
• In-person students in Linguistics/TESOL: Earning a “B” (3.00) or higher in both ENG 530 Old English and ENG 531 Old English Literature or their equivalent. Literature and WRL students: Earning a "B" (3.00) or higher in ENG 530 Old English or an equivalent, such as Old Norse. Note: these courses are currently not available online.
• Earning a “B” (3.00) or higher in a 400- or 500-level course in an appropriate (approved) language. Any course in which all class meetings are conducted in the approved language will satisfy this requirement; courses conducted in English will not. The class must have been completed within six years of the semester for which the student has been admitted to the program.
• Holding a bachelor’s degree in an approved foreign language.
• Having fulfilled a foreign language requirement towards a previously awarded master's degree that has been completed within six years of the semester for which the student has been admitted to the program.
• For languages which the School of International Letters and Cultures does not offer or does not offer above the 200 level, two years (4 semesters) of successfully completed college level coursework at least at the 100 and 200 level with a C or better would fulfill the requirement. The coursework must have been successfully completed no more than six years prior to admission to the degree program.
• For questions on alternate ways to fulfill the language requirement, contact enggrad@asu.edu
   

7.  Internships and professional development.  

The LIN 584 MTESOL Practicum Internship is a required, supervised independent-study (self-driven) academic course for 3 credit hours. Students in the course are expected to complete 150 hours of TESOL practicum internship work in order to earn the required credit hours. LIN 584 is a course in which students are expected to apply their MTESOL academic knowledge and training and technical TESOL skills, and so the course cannot be taken at the beginning of the MTESOL program and is recommended to be taken after LIN 521 Methods of teaching English as a second language.

Note to MTESOL Online students: Although the course is offered in session A, the TESOL practicum internship work and academic coursework is completed over 15 weeks of the semester (approximately 10 hours of onsite internship work per week), in order to accommodate different practicum internship experiences and student work schedules.

As an experiential-learning MTESOL Practicum Internship, LIN 584 provides a real-world context (both within and outside of the US) for English language teaching, observation, tutoring, curriculum design, and/or materials development. Along with completing 150 hours of TESOL practicum internship work, MTESOL students in LIN 584 are expected to complete graded and supervised academic coursework through (a) a required course textbook, (b) weekly group reflection work, (c) a professional TESOL e-portfolio, and (d) a final academic paper. There are also mandatory virtual meetings with the course instructor throughout the semester.

Please note that all LIN 584 MTESOL Practicum Internship work sites must have a clear TESOL focus, and unlike other academic courses in the MTESOL program, LIN 584 requires the completion of specialized course registration and (practicum internship approval) legal paperwork for ASU and the department of English at least 3 months in advance of the start of the course.

Questions about the internship and to start the LIN 584 MTESOL Practicum Internship approval and paperwork process, contact the Director of Internships and Career Exploration and course instructor Ruby Macksoud.

Besides LIN 584, other language teaching opportunities may be available on campus. If a student has excellent proficiency in a foreign language, they may be able to apply for a teaching assistantship in SILC. Also, ASU’s Global Launch occasionally sends out advertisements for positions.   

Professional development also occurs through conferences, and each spring, there is an ASU linguistics/TESOL graduate student symposium. At this annual conference, an average of 20 linguistics and MTESOL students give presentations on their work. This is an excellent opportunity for MTESOL students to hear what their classmates are working on and to share their own work in an informal setting. Larger conferences such as AZ-TESOL also meet regularly and attending these can be beneficial to a student’s career.

Students may also be interested in non-teaching professional experience, and on-campus employment opportunities may be available. This may include openings in the Center for Asian Studies, the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, SILC’s Latin American Studies, and the Summer Programs Institute. 

Students are also encouraged to join the Graduate Scholars of English (GSEA). GSEA organizes professional development workshops on topics that may be related to MTESOL studies.

8.  Graduation deadlines.  

All students are required to apply for graduation on their MYASU homepage. The deadline for application for graduation is roughly two months before the end of the semester. Check the Academic Calendar for dates.

9.  Commonly used web sites and email addresses

• Department of English Professional Development
• Graduate College Policy Manual
• MyASU
• ASU Career and Professional Development Services
• ASU Counseling Services
• Student Accessibility and Inclusive Learning Services (SAILS)
• Free Application for Federal Student Aid
• ASU's Financial Aid Web site
• Graduation Information
• ASU Libraries
• Registrar forms
• Other ASU Forms
• Student Health
• Testing Services
• Global Launch
• FAQs

10.  MTESOL program checklist.  

Students can use the following checklist to keep track of the important components of the MTESOL program:

• Fill out the interactive plan of study on your MyASU homepage by the time 15 credits are completed.
  • List all courses for your degree. Only list courses relevant to your degree to equal 30 credit hours.
  • Email your graduate advisor (online students Kira Assad and immersion students Samantha Franze) to expedite the process after submitting your iPOS letting them know it has been submitted.
  • Wait for approval. If there are any issues, the iPOS will be sent back to you and you will be notified by email of what needs to be changed.
• Coursework (Completion of 30 credit hours):
  • Required Courses (18 credits)
    • LIN 501 Approaches to Research
    • LIN 510 Linguistics
    • LIN 520 Second Language Acquisition Theory 
    • LIN 521 Methods of teaching English as a second language 
    • LIN 584 MTESOL Practicum Internship
    • LIN 597 MTESOL Capstone 
  • Electives (12 credits)
• Foreign Language Requirement: Either a Language course or the Language Examination (for native speakers of English).
• Graduation: Apply for graduation online on your MYASU homepage.