Message from Tera Reid-Olds:

I wanted to share what information I’ve gathered (via trial and error mostly!) for the LTS MA program (which I am doing concurrently with my Ph.D. because it is a 1 year MA program) or the more manageable post-bac certificate in SLAT (Second Language Acquisition and Teaching) which you can also do in any language you want to teach.

This is UO’s answer to the TESOL certificate: http://slat.uoregon.edu/ If you want to specialize in a language other than English, check out the course of study (and list of languages) here:

http://slat.uoregon.edu/course-study

You are required to take three Linguistics classes (LING 540 or 544, LING 535, LING 536) and then you take electives in the language of your choice as the graduate level. For a couple classes that may be 300-level, talk to your language-specific adviser and they can give you grad-level alternatives for the undergrad courses. Finally, there is an ‘internship’ – if you’ve already taught in your language, you don’t need to do the practicum. If you haven’t, it’s basically observing a language teaching class for a term.

I think the SLAT certificate is really useful if you aren’t certified in TESOL or T_FL, but you know you want to apply to national literature/language departments.

And the SLAT certificate requires a number of courses that can also be applied to the LTS program. If you decide to go the SLAT route and want to take it a step further, you can enroll in the LTS MA program (https://lts.uoregon.edu/apply). It is a very easy application, you waive the fee as a grad student, and you can have COLT forward your application documents (Letters of Rec, Transcripts, GRE scores) to the Linguistics department so it is minimal work apart from the Statement of Purpose.

The MA is intensive, but it is designed to be completed within a year and they have rolling admission – and as an added bonus, if you’ve taken electives that do not count towards COLT but are in an L2 or about L2 pedagogy, those can count towards the requirements for LTS (specifically electives).

I hope that this is helpful for some of you who may be looking into a language teaching certificate or MA possibility!

Best,
Tera,

April 27, 2017