Sheffield or Lanchasier for Korean/TESOL BA

I'm currently finishing up my first year of college, so even though I have plenty of time before any desicions have to be made, I'll be really thankful for any advice.

Generally, I'm hoping to study towards becoming a English Teacher for students of other languages in Korea.

Ive noticed The university of central Lancashire does a combined degree in TESOL plus a language ( which includes Korean) which sounds perfect. However I've heard many things about the university and I'm also aware of other places like Sheffiled where I could study Korean. Naturally, I plan to attend both open days and have done research of both courses.
Any extra recommendations/ advice from current students? :smile:

Reply 1

Snufkin

Universities Forum Helper

21

Do you actually need a TESOL/TEFL or any kind of teaching qualification to Teach ESL in Korea? You certainly don't need to speak Korean. Personally I would go to Sheffield, it is a much better university and you can do a TEFL / CELTA in your spare time if you really want to.

Reply 2

sophia5892

20

Original post by Idaaweko

I'm currently finishing up my first year of college, so even though I have plenty of time before any desicions have to be made, I'll be really thankful for any advice.

Generally, I'm hoping to study towards becoming a English Teacher for students of other languages in Korea.

Ive noticed The university of central Lancashire does a combined degree in TESOL plus a language ( which includes Korean) which sounds perfect. However I've heard many things about the university and I'm also aware of other places like Sheffiled where I could study Korean. Naturally, I plan to attend both open days and have done research of both courses.
Any extra recommendations/ advice from current students? :smile:

I would certainly reserve judgement until you have visited. Although Sheffield is the better university, having a degree in TESOL could be a major advantage if you know you intend to teach ESOL after your degree.

Whilst many countries will accept teachers with only a TEFL course, having a degree would put you ahead of say students like me who've just done an online TEFL course. The more highly-regarded CELTA courses are also rather expensive. It also sounds like you would also get professional experience as part of the UCLAN degree, which is another thing to make you stand out from the crowd of gap-year graduates teaching abroad.

However, this is something important to research and ask about at open days as for other purposes I believe the Sheffield degree would be more highly regarded.

It's also worth considering the level and intensity of the Korean classes. Sheffield's degree will most likely be quite intensive and aim at developing high levels of proficiency. However I've seen that on many courses where the language is more of an extra, rather than the focus, or when we're talking about more obscure languages, classes might be much less intense and you therefore might not get the level of proficiency you want from them.

For reference, the EPIK programme in Korea - guessing you're familiar with this as it's the major government TESOL programme there: https://www.epik.go.kr/contents.do?contentsNo=49&menuNo=278

As you can see, a Bachelor in Education is considering just as good as a Bachelor in an unrelated subject with a TEFL course. However, at the higher levels of the pay scale, the focus moves to applicants with teaching experience and an academic background in the field of Education.

And certainly when faced with too many applicants for positions, I believe it's likely the TESOL degree would win.
I have a couple of friends who've taught ESOL in Korea, one on EPIK and one on TALK. Both were English Language graduates - the one who did TALK had no teaching qualifications/experiences, the one who did EPIK had a CELTA and short-term experience (one summer I think!) teaching English in China. They did say that the fact their degree was in English language seemed to give them a better chance in the interview process - although they'd not studied how to teach English, they had at least studied English linguistics etc.

Sheffield or Lanchasier for Korean/TESOL BA

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