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May 05, 2020

New master’s program combines global education and teaching English to speakers of other languages

By Nick Wesman ’20G 

A new master’s degree program at Providence College aims to prepare students for national demographic shifts and increased global connectivity.

The program, Global Education and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), is projected to begin in fall 2020 and will feature courses centered in three areas:

• global education, citizenship, and social change; 
• bilingualism and principles of TESOL: theory and practice; and
• global mobility, institutional policy, and the commodification of international education.

TESOL and global education are fields that have seen an increase in career opportunities due to new demographic trends domestically and the global interconnectedness of the education world.

“This new master’s program could attract students interested in working in higher-education institution global centers and education abroad offices, now seeking a growing number of qualified scholar-practitioners that can perform operational duties, student advising, program development, trans-disciplinary bridge building with academic departments, and risk mitigation,” said the new program’s director, Dr. Nuria Alonso García, professor and chair of the global studies and director of the Master of Education in Urban Teaching Program.

“Also, the global English language job market is changing, and while the new program offers a non-licensure TESOL, the professional opportunities are still plentiful, particularly for those who want to pursue a career teaching English as a foreign language in a university, adult, or community program or at a language school abroad and in the United States ” said Alonso García.

This new program is the result of fruitful, extensive collaborations among Alonso García; Dr. Joe Stanley, dean of global education; and Dr. Brian McCadden, assistant to the provost for graduate programs and director of the Master’s in Higher Education Program.

The global education and TESOL program consists of 30 credits and is designed to be completed in a calendar year, though candidates have up to five years to complete the requirements. It features several courses already offered at PC in the applied linguistics area of TESOL, combined with newly developed courses specific for this degree.

“When I was appointed director of the Master of Education in Urban Teaching Program in 2015, I developed a set of TESOL courses that are being offered as electives for the urban teaching program or other graduate programs,” said Alonso García. “In order to elevate the outreach and impact of those TESOL courses, we thought combining them with global education could be a really unique type of field of study and research to pursue.”

“A blended master’s degree in global education and TESOL offers students the distinctive opportunity to learn through field experiences, situate their teaching in a global context, and acquire the skills and critical abilities needed to contribute to the intersecting fields of international education and TESOL,” she said.

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