GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

1. Background

This proposal is to mount a Graduate Certificate in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course to be offered at a number of Melbourne University Private sites around the world. The course will allow teachers working in other discipline areas to become qualified as teachers of English as a Foreign Language. They will be able to work in Language centres and in private industry, but graduates will not be qualified for employment as TEFL teachers in Australian schools.

As Melbourne University Private expands its network of English Language Centres internationally, one of the difficulties it faces is finding sufficient staff with appropriate qualifications to staff the Centres. This is already proving to be a problem in Oman. This proposal is to mount a Graduate Certificate in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) that will enable already qualified teachers to become teachers of TEFL. The main target market will be native English speakers in the various countries (many of whom will be there with spouses working for big international companies), who wish to train as English teachers so they can gain employment. While some of the graduates of the course will teach in the Hawthorn English Language Centres, others will be able to find employment in other Language Centres and in teaching English privately or in the corporate sector.

The course will be a high quality alternative to the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) course (still often popularly referred to by its former title as the "RSA Course"). The proposed course will combine the undoubted practical strengths of CELTA with the development of a stronger understanding of the basic principles of second language teaching and learning that will produce more academically aware and independent teachers, as is appropriate for a formal graduate award course. It will be closer in content and outcomes to the Cambridge Diploma course (DELTA), although even that course does not require graduate entry.

The course will be developed by staff from the Department of Language, Literacy and Arts Education in the University of Melbourne in collaboration with MUP staff from the Hawthorn English Language Centre Melbourne. The course will be taught by staff from the University of Melbourne and/or qualified Hawthorn English Language Centre staff, and/or by appropriate staff from local Universities. The staff proposed to teach the course at any site in which the program is offered will be approved by the Discipline Head of International Communication and Languages. Only well qualified, experienced TEFL educators will be permitted to teach on the program. The resources for teaching the program at any site will be scrutinised and approved before the Centre will be permitted to offer the course.

The most readily available course for people wishing to teach English as a Foreign Language is the Cambridge CELTA course. The proposed course is at a markedly higher level than CELTA, since it is graduate entry and confined to participants who are already trained teachers, whereas that course is available to anyone who has completed secondary schooling. The CELTA course is taught over 4 5 weeks, whereas this course is a semester of full time study. The University of Melbourne courses in Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages are very highly regarded nationally, and the experience behind teaching those courses has been utilised in developing this program. There are no specific TEFL (as opposed to TESOL) courses at any of the major Australian universities, nor in the Universitas 21 universities with Education Faculties, so this course is breaking new ground in its specific TEFL focus.

2. Entry Requirements

• An undergraduate degree in education or undergraduate degree and graduate diploma in education, or equivalent, or
• An undergraduate degree and at least two years of documented teaching experience.

Applicants who are not native English speakers and whose qualifications were not gained in an institution in which English is the language of instruction will be required to sit an IELTS test. An IELTS of 7.0 with no band less than 6.0 will be required.

3. Course Structure

Students will complete the following four subjects:

Language and Language Learning 12.5 points
EFL Teaching Methodology 12.5 points
EFL Curriculum and Assessment 12.5 points
EFL Practice Teaching 12.5 points

4. EFTSU and Budgetary Consequence

Not applicable.

Graduate Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (50 points)

1. The Selection Committee will evaluate the applicant's ability to pursue successfully the course using the following additional criteria -
   
   
   • undergraduate degree in education or undergraduate degree and graduate diploma in education, or equivalent, or
   • undergraduate degree and at least two years of documented teaching experience.

   Applicants who are not native English speakers and whose qualifications were not gained in an institution in which English is the language of instruction will be required to sit an IELTS test. An IELTS of 7.0 with no band less than 6.0 will be required.

2. The Selection Committee may conduct interviews and tests and call for referee reports and employer references to elucidate any of the matters referred to above.