Student Profiles
Lisa Macwan
MA in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching
Overall, I have only positive things to say about the MA programme in general, and feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with such committed, motivating, competent and enthusiastic lecturers. I also thoroughly enjoyed the summer school experiences, and am glad that I managed to attend 3!
It feels like such a huge achievement to have successfully completed this MA under not always favourable circumstances.
Tony Fisher
MA in Applied Linguistics
Like many people, commencing study on an MA in Linguistics was for me part and parcel of a career change. I had worked in TV news for over ten years and decided that I wanted a complete change. I had a long standing interest in language, and so teaching English overseas seemed the obvious escape route. However, while teaching at a private language school may offer the opportunity to change course, it doesn’t generally offer much in the way of long terms career prospects. If you are looking for a meaningful career, you need more than just a CELTA qualification.
I am now approaching completion of the MA and have recently started teaching English at a Japanese university, but my choice of modules on the MA has not been directly related to teaching. I think that this is one of the strengths of the Nottingham English programme, in that you don’t have to decide before you begin what kind of degree you want to end up with. Nottingham offers an impressive array of modules, from medieval literature to cutting edge research technologies such as corpus analysis, and this gives you a great deal of freedom and means you can either specialize or chose modules from a variety of subject areas – you can pretty much make your degree whatever you want it to be.
Studying by distance presents its own particular challenges, the greatest of which for me is the inability to discuss ideas and concerns with fellow students, although the recent emergence of an online community of distance learners may go some way towards alleviating this. But while distance learning comes with its own difficulties, it also brings its own rewards in that it forces you to develop independent research skills – skills that will be invaluable to anyone wishing to go on to study for a PhD. But perhaps more importantly in my own case, distance learning offered an opportunity to undertake post-graduate study that simply would not have been available to me otherwise.
Christian Jones
MA in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching
I have been working as an EFL teacher for just over ten years. Much of this time has been spent in Japan but I have also worked in Thailand and the UK.I currently work at the British Council in Tokyo.
I decided to take the MA in AL-ELT to further pursue my teaching interests - namely how to teach lexis and spoken language more effectively. Having completed the course, I genuinely feel it has benefited my teaching, particularly in terms of my language awareness. I was working full time when completing the degree and although it was tough at times, I managed to finish the course in just under three years. I found the modules to be well organised and easy to follow and the tutors very helpful whenever I had questions. You need to be able to work independently and organise your time efficiently but that probably applies to any distance learning course.
Emma Dawson
MA in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching
After working for two years in The Gulf State of Qatar I returned to England to the MA Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching course by distance learning. I completed in a year whilst working part-time as a teacher trainer. The flexibility of studying by distance was great for me and I was greatly supported by the tutors of my chosen modules.
My dissertation was born out of amalgamating concepts presented in the World Englishes modules; I have enjoyed the experience and learning so much that I have now registered as a PhD student.
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