The New Nation - Internet Edition

Iffat A.N. Majid

Even a few years back any mention of an MA in English meant a Masters degree in English Literature. Schools and colleges everywhere had teachers teaching English language with no clue about language teaching, banking only on their instincts and memories of their own school and college days for any success in language teaching. When I first became a language teacher, I was required to write an article related to language teaching but to my chagrin I realised that despite having an MA in English I had no real substantial knowledge or the area at all. Our syllabus in those days at Dhaka University did not incorporate any course related to language. Luckily I got the opportunity to go abroad for a Masters degree in ELT. When I came back I vowed to pick up any opportunity to offer ELT programmes to language teachers and so I did. Now to my delight, I find that ELT is turning out to be one of those fields or modern day subjects that are consistently gaining in popularity. One of the best programmes being offered in this field is at Eastern University. As an MA in ELT (English Language Teaching) is exclusively a professional degree, students from Eastern University start getting job offers even before they get to complete their degree. In an era of employment crisis this is a very positive sign indeed! On the other hand those students of ELT who are already practicing teachers from schools, colleges and universities, claim to have gained substantial professional development in their field, which is enabling them to move on to better jobs. The MA ELT programme at EU becomes all the more exclusive by dint of the quality of its teachers which very few private universities can really boast off. Students come in to attend classes not only from Dhaka but also from outside Dhaka as well and highly satisfied students make sure that they bring in at least some of their friends before they leave. Unfortunately many other private universities have also started opening up MA ELT programmes, which are nothing but language courses under a different cloak. There are very few private universities like EU that offer pure MA ELT degrees comparable to reputed western universities. It is therefore strongly advised that students who are really interested in how to teach a foreign language and learning things by doing, a good survey of the syllabuses should be done before taking admission into any MA ELT programme.