The Master of Arts with a TESOL Emphasis
The English Department at the Mississippi State University is proud to offer an emphasis in TESOL under the department’s Master of Art Degree in English.
Information about the program requirements of the M.A. in English can be found on the English M.A. website. Students interested in this emphasis should contact Dr. Lara Dodds for information about graduate school admissions and Dr. Lyn Fogle for information on the TESOL Master’s Degree emphasis.
Thesis and Non-Thesis Options:
Requirements for the Non-Thesis Program
- Students who chose to take the non-thesis route to completing their Master’s degree must complete 33 hours of course work.
- For the TESOL emphasis student this would require six seminar classes
at the 8000 level
- EN 8103 and five electives
- and five split level
TESOL courses
- EN 6403 Introduction to Linguistics (offered fall and spring),
- EN 6433 Approaches to TESOL (spring),
- EN 6443 English Syntax (spring),
- EN 6453 Methods in TESOL (fall), and
- EN 6463 Studies in Second Language Acquisition (fall and spring).
- All students must pass the M.A. comprehensive exam prior to graduation.
- All students must also demonstrate fluency in a second language. This can be accomplished by the completion of 12 lower level credit hours in a foreign language (with a 3.0 average in all classes) or through the successful completion of a language ability translation test. Mississippi State utilizes the WebCAPE foreign language placement exam, which is administered by the Language Media Center of the Foreign Languages Department.
Requirements for the Thesis Program
- Students who chose to take the thesis route to completing their Master’s degree must complete 24 hours of course work and complete a thesis.
- For the TESOL emphasis student this would require four seminar classes
at the 8000 level
- EN 8103 and three electives and
- four split level
TESOL courses
- EN 6403 Introduction to Linguistics (offered fall and spring),
- EN 6433 Approaches to TESOL (spring),
- EN 6463 Studies in Second Language Acquisition (fall and spring) and
- EN 6443 English Syntax (spring) or EN 6453 Methods in TESOL (fall).
- It is highly suggested that TESOL emphasis students take five split level TESOL courses (EN 6403, 6433, 6443, 6453, and 6463) in order to complete their TESOL Certificate.
- It is also important to note that students that opt for the thesis route must still pass the M.A. comprehensive exam which focuses solely on literature. It is therefore highly recommended that students who opt for the thesis route consider enrolling in additional seminar courses.
- All students must also demonstrate fluency in a second language. This can be accomplished by the completion of 12 lower level credit hours in a foreign language (with a 3.0 average in all classes) or through the successful completion of a language ability translation test. Mississippi State utilizes the WebCAPE foreign language placement exam, which is administered by the Language Media Center of the Foreign Languages Department.
