MA

TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)

The MA TESOL welcomes students from all over the world to an exciting, practical, personalized degree programme.

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Key Course Details

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Pontypridd

  • Campus Code

    A

Fees

  • Home students

    £10,800*

  • International students

    £16,900*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

Most English teachers are not native speakers of English. Our graduates will work in different professional and cultural contexts. Our course leader, Dr Rhian Webb, is an internationally recognized expert on teaching English in today’s global contexts.

DESIGNED FOR

Our degree will enhance your technical, practical and key employability skills, provide you with exemptions from professional qualifications and offer value-added specialist subjects.

Career Paths

  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages 
  • Teaching English for specific purposes, for academic purposes, in relation to a specific academic discipline 
  • Curriculum management, development or design 

Course Highlights

Placement Opportunities

Optional placements with USW’s Centre for International English.

Student support and feedback

Supervised live teaching (“micro-teaching”) on students’ chosen topic, with immediate feedback from peers and staff. 

Choose your projects

The choice between a live action research project, a research dissertation, or a professional portfolio as final assessment.

Module Overview

This is a full-time, one-year course.  It runs over twelve months, and during this time students take 180 credits to qualify for an MA degree. The course is designed to cover three themes

Professional Development 

  • Intercultural Communicative Competence 
  • English teacher development 
  • Teaching in diverse contexts 

The International Classroom 

  • Teaching TESOL language skills 
  • Assessment and evaluation 
  • Micro teaching 

Research Project and Methods 

  • Planning a Research Project 
  • Research Project 

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

The course is delivered on the Treforest Campus.  We have designed a block teaching model, which means that most class time is in face-to-face immersive workshops. 

The programme will feature guest lectures. These lectures may be in the form of webinars, but students and lecturers will attend and participate together in the classroom. 

Assessment

Assessment 100% coursework based – there are no exams.

Coursework is relevant to students’ careers and plans.

Facilities

Students have access to: 

  • a dedicated TESOL collection of books and resources at the Learning Resources Centre 
  • IT facilities 

Placements

All students will be offered optional placement hours with the Centre for International English at the University of South Wales. They receive a formal record of these placement hours. 

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Typical qualification requirements:

We require a minimum 2:2 Hons degree (or equivalent), preferably in a discipline related to English/Language/Literature/TESOL; however, strong candidates from broader subject areas (such as Business) will be considered on an individual basis. We will also consider applicants with a relevant teaching qualification or with relevant industry or teaching experience. 

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.5 with a minimum of 6.0 in each component or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

 

We're here to help

Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.

 

Fees and Funding

UK Full-time Fee

£10,800

per year*
International Full-time Fee

£16,900

per year*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy.  We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

 

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Busaries Alumni Discount

ADDITIONAL COSTS

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment. 

*Obligatory

University Quality Assurance

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Careers and Employability

Careers support

The University’s Career Services offers a range of advice and guidance to students, and references to the services available to all listed at southwales.ac.uk/careers will be added to the course website by default. However, if there are other important course or subject specific initiatives run at local a level, there is an opportunity to add further details here. Whether this includes connecting with professionals, industry experts or mentors, or strategies to enhance their competitiveness and aspirations in the job market, further details will provide prospects with the confidence, encouragement, and motivation to commit to applying. 

Studying at USW

Our courses are designed with industry leaders and provide the practical skills and experiences industry demands. Our flexible courses reflect the need for life-long learning. If you value education in practice, not just in theory, then USW is for you.

How to apply

There is an online application process for this course. Please choose the application form for your preferred start date and mode of study (i.e. full-time or part-time).

International admissions

Please see our international admissions advice for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.