LTS News - Spring 2008
From Linguistics News Spring 2008
LTS Terminal Projects Lead to Future OpportunitiesBecause of the accelerated pace and the applied nature of the Language Teaching Specialization M.A. program, our students complete a terminal project instead of a traditional thesis. These projects usually take the form of a materials or teaching portfolio, a course design, or action research. Students select topics that match their particular interests and/or future plans in the field of language learning and teaching. Many find their terminal projects instrumental in landing jobs or opening other doors after graduation.
Bruno Kamps performed a needs analysis and designed a course for his 2006 project Safer Hispanic Construction Workers through English for Specific Purposes. Three weeks after he graduated from the program, Linguistics got a call from a local construction company seeking an English instructor for their non-English speaking employees. Bruno arrived at Ramjack of Oregon for an interview with his terminal project in hand and was hired on the spot. He is now there teaching his third cycle of language classes, which focus on low level general English skills with some attention to language specific to construction work. Bruno’s students have been teaching him, too, especially in the area of construction vocabulary: “crib” for “beam,” for example, and a more graphic term for “port-a-potty” used by the workers. Because of the uniqueness of this teaching situation, Bruno has developed many materials and activities to meet the needs of his students. His chants and raps for practicing vocabulary and grammar proved so successful that he has presented them as a workshop (“Energizing Rap Dialogues for Workplace ESP”) at teaching conferences in Puerto Vallarta and New York. According to Bruno, who also teaches ESL at the American English Institute, Ramjack is where he recognized a transformation in himself “from a student, who needs permission, to a professional trainer, who gives recommendations.”
 Bomi Oh's Students Emiko Yamada’s 2006 terminal project Teacher Training Workshops for In-Service Japanese Teachers of English: Implementing CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) in English Classes in Japan proved highly useful after graduation. She was hired to develop curriculum and train teachers at Westgate Corporation, a company providing English programs to 55 university campuses around Japan. Not only pleased to have gotten a job where she is able to apply much of what she studied in her LTS courses, she was particularly thankful for the work she had done in curriculum development: As part of the rigorous application process for this position, she had to design five courses.
Norman Kerr focused on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) for his 2007 project Preparing University Students for Self-Directed Study: An Online Chinese Course. He is now teaching English at Chinese Culture University in Taiwan. He explains, “The terminal project was a factor in getting this job, particularly because of my CALL focus. Also they consider the terminal project the same as a thesis here in Taiwan, which is good because this university now only hires teachers who are either published or have a masters degree that included a thesis.” Next term, Norman will be taking over management of their e-learning program.
A few of our students go on to Ph.D. programs. Heeyoung Jung completed the action research project Pronunciation Difficulties of English and Japanese Learners of Korean in Terms of Prosodic Features in 2007 and has been accepted by the Department of East Asian Languages at University of Hawaii, where she will be focusing on Korean linguistics. Mi Gyu Kang, who wrote CALL to Improve EAP (English for Academic Purposes) Reading Comprehension Skills for Korean Undergraduates in Technical Fields in 2006, entered a doctoral program in secondary education at the University of Illinois.
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