MA TESOL UCD

smeedyova

Hi all, has anybody done this course recently? I'd like to know how many contact hours there are, etc., what is the workload like? Was it worth it?

Thanks!

Slang_Tang

I've been looking into this course, too. There are also MAs in English Language Teaching/TESOL in Trinity, University of Limerick and Queen's Belfast. Plus there are lots in different places in the UK in good universities (Edinburgh, Bristol, Warwick, Durham), so just keep in mind all your options.

smeedyova

I'm updating this as the administrators of this course have just sent out an email about a 2013 intake.

Last year I applied for this course. At the very end of July they sent out an email stating that the course would not be running. They must have known this well in advance but did not alert applicants to this fact until almost the month before the course was due to start. Very unprofessional. As best I can tell they did not advertise the course as not running on their website.

At all times they were unprofessional, stated that reading lists were confidential, etc. They did not have a course prospectus, a bad sign from the beginning...

I would never apply to the ALC at UCD again. They refuse to give out information about their courses and then cancel them at the last minute. Very unreliable. Very unprofessional.

woodstock1708

Just a follow up - I'm planning on doing the Grad Dip in TESOL at UCD this year (2013-2014), and thus far, the administration has been rock solid. Excellent communication, have already sent out a preliminary reading list (three pages, yikes) with three books highlighted to get started, and have notified us about which Saturdays we'll have class. Maybe things have changed, administration-wise.

As the course goes along, I'll post my impressions.

smeedyova

That's not the impression I have. As recently as last week they didn't know the Saturdays the course was to take place. They refused again this year to provide basic information about the course. Other universities are explicit about what their courses involve, these people seem to think that basic course information should be held back from interested candidates.

Last year they treated applicants very badly, they even admitted that they hadn't even assessed the applications, months after receiving them. They cancelled with such short notice that it was too late for people to apply for other courses.

Good luck with it. Hopefully, they will get enough people and have enough staff to actually run the course this year, but I would have a contingency plan if I were you, as they still might cancel, based on my experience anyway.

Also, you might want to check out this link for quotes from folks who have done the course before handing over your money (it doesn't read well):

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=58486654

woodstock1708

In summer 2013 I contributed to this thread about an MA in TESOL I was thinking about doing at UCD, and I said I'd report with more info after finishing up the first semester.

Firstly, I have found the primary course tutor to be very welcoming, relaxed, and knowledgeable (she is new this year); the self-access centre is an excellent resource (and the librarian is great too), though the opening hours (Mon-Thu afternoons) can be a bit limited. We've had some visiting/guest lecturers - some were good, some were too powerpoint-heavy, but overall, I think it has been good and it is what I was expecting. One of the guest lecturers, a young guy who had just finished in PhD, was fabulous; wish we could have had more classes with him.

Schedule was Mondays 5-9 pm, Wednesdays 5-7 pm and six Saturdays (if I remember correctly). They said they would be 9-5:30 but we usually started at 9:30 and were done by 4:00 pm, sometimes earlier. Honestly, the Saturday sessions were the best ones because everyone was fresh. I wish it had been just Saturdays.

It is very theory-heavy, and several people on the course said they were surprised that it wasn't more practical; there is one (big) paper where you design original teaching materials, get student feedback and observer feedback, and then write your paper based on that; the rest is straightforward research, though many of the papers were practical in the sense that you analyse a coursebook, analyse discourse in a real-life conversation, record a learner and analyse their phonological difficulties, etc.

I taught 16 contact hours a week during the course, and I found it to be a struggle, especially in the final six weeks before Christmas. Both my teaching and my coursework suffered, and those of us who were not working were really able to do a much better job on all the papers, it seemed. (There was one person working 40 hours, but she is a teaching superstar and an outlier, in my opinion.)

There were four "short" portfolio assignments (roughly 1000 words each) which everyone said took way more time to complete than should have been necessary, four longer papers (1,200-2,400 words, depending) which time-wise felt about right, and two presentations (one solo and one pair). I learned a lot from the work, but I'm not quite sure if so many assignments were truly necessary, and I said this in the feedback session. Personally I would have preferred to spent all those hours just reading widely, with four significant papers during the semester. But I think those are kinks that are getting worked out.

The course tutor asked for explicit feedback from us and has been very easy to reach throughout this first semester; I have found all dealings with her to be straightforward and productive, and besides that, she's a lovely person.

So, I'd say that at the midpoint, so far, so good! (Haven't seen my marks yet though)...

Chuckles Flower

Hi woodstock1708,

How did the rest of the course go? Would you recommend it? I'm thinking about applying for it this year and i'd love to know your thoughts on it!