career in language learning

June 12, 2008 11:12 AM

After a long period of soul-searching (and trying many different jobs), I've decided on a career path in language learning.

After spending a year teaching abroad, and afterwards working in educational publishing and test development in the states, I've decided that I would like to work in language learning and language policy.

I have an almost academic interest in questions of linguistics (I have a double major in anthropology and english lit, and almost completed a linguistics major) and have a passion for learning languages and international travel.

I'm learning Russian and will be attending Moscow State for classes in advanced Russian in the fall of this year. I plan to also learn Arabic and Chinese in the near future.

I wouldn't want to focus purely on ESL, but rather on the theory and pedagogy of language acquisition in general. Additionally, I would like to be involved more specifically with online courseware, language learning software, and the intersection of classroom instruction with software.

Ideally I'd like to be able to do the following:

1. work for governments and non-governmental organizations in the U.S. and abroad in an educational policy role

and

2. have the opportunity to consult for large corporations to assist in developing language learning software and curricula

I have strong computer skills and have taken some programming classes, but I do not have any real work experience with programming, which may be an issue if I'd like to oversee these kinds of projects. How much of a problem would that be?

I've been thinking that this would require a mix of an education MA and an applied linguistics MA - is that correct? I don't quite know where to begin.

Also, any recommendations for good schools for this kind of thing (U.S., but I’d also consider the U.K. or Singapore) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

posted by mammary16 to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Georgetown offers an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language in their applied linguistics graduate program. Since you already have some Linguistics coursework behind you, you're probably in a good position to evaluate whether it would meet your goals.

Also, speaking as a developer, I don't think you need to be a programmer in order to successfully guide the development of language learning software. It seems like you're more interested in L2 than programming, so maybe you'd do better to become familiar with things like usability and user interface design than the nitty-gritty of implementing software. You'd certainly want to be working with someone who does have experience in software development, but it doesn't need to be you.
posted by wam at 12:42 PM on June 12, 2008

You may want to consider an MA in second language acquisition rather than applied linguistics. That might be a little more academic than you are looking for though, but it would be worth considering.
posted by NormandyJack at 10:26 AM on June 13, 2008

I think that a TESL MA might be okay, but there are a lot of Applied Linguistics programs have general L2 acquisition programs too.
posted by k8t at 2:58 AM on June 14, 2008