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Customize your 40-credit TESOL master’s degree or 42-credit Teaching Foreign Language (TFL) master’s degree based on your interests and career goals. These programs can be completed in one year.

Bringing the world together—teaching language

Dr. Lynn Goldstein shares how our TESOL and Teaching Foreign Language programs prepare you for exciting careers in language education.

Connect with Your Advisor

Your personal enrollment advisor is ready to help you navigate the application process, customize your program to meet your goals, explore options for financing your education, and connect with current students, alumni, and faculty. Connect with your enrollment advisor.

Learning Goals

Our faculty has developed specific Learning Goals designed to help students significantly increase their understanding of language teaching pedagogy, theory, and research and assessment—all of which contribute to expanded career opportunities.

Online Options

The online MA in TESOL is a two-year, fully online, asynchronous, part-time program.

One-Year Hybrid Option

You may be able to complete your final two courses (Applied Linguistics Capstone and the Practicum Capstone) online during the summer after your second semester, thus completing the program in just one year (fall, spring, then summer).

Not only will you be able to graduate faster, but the online option means that you will be able to move to your preferred location before you graduate and practice teaching in a context that closely aligns with your career goals.

The Teaching Foreign Language one-year hybrid option is only available if you are an advanced entry student, meaning you have transferable graduate credits from another university or if you have taken 400-level language courses at Middlebury College.

Specializations

You are able to add a career-oriented specialization in an additional semester: 

Intercultural Competence

The Intercultural Competence specialization equips students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to lead and train multicultural teams, to interact with diverse stakeholders, to create effective assessments and training materials, and to meet the challenges of working and interacting in intercultural settings.

Language Studies for Professional Purposes

To address the world’s most challenging problems, we need to understand one another, and there is no better way to understand others than to speak their language. Through the specialization in Language Studies for Professional Purposes, you will greatly develop your proficiency in your target language and expand your global career opportunities.

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) or Teaching Foreign Language (TFL)

A specialization in TESOL or specialization in TFL provides broader professional expertise and additional career avenues in language education and curriculum design.

Experiential Learning Opportunities

Build valuable professional experience while you earn your degree. Copublish with faculty and hone your skills working in our numerous language programs:

Other opportunities for you to practice teaching:

B.U.I.L.D.

Founded by students in 2009, B.U.I.L.D. (Build yoUrself in Language Development) offers free beginning-level classes in many different languages. This student-run activity will help you develop teaching skills in an informal, low-pressure environment.

Options for Peace Corps Service

You can integrate Peace Corps service into your degree.

Licensure

While attending the TESOL or TFL program, you can work toward licensure through the State of Vermont’s peer review process. Students who are interested in teaching in K–12 public schools, some private schools, some international schools, and some adult schools will likely want to be licensed. It is up to you to determine whether Vermont’s teaching license is reciprocal with the state in which you wish to teach.

The peer review process can extend for several months beyond completing the TESOL/TFL program so you may not have your teaching license at graduation.

Recommended Licensure Progress Timeline

The following is a recommended timeline for working toward licensure while in the TESOL/TFL program:

  • Semester 1
  • Semester 2
    • Apply for immersive professional learning (IPL) funding from the Institute to help defray expenses associated with the licensure process
    • Take Praxis II test for teaching English Language Learners (ELL)
    • Apply for remote licensure with Vermont Board of Education
    • Participate in the Vermont Board of Education’s Peer Review Clinic
  • Semester 3
    • Complete a 13-week student teaching placement at the K–12 level (this is integrated into your Practicum Capstone course)
    • Create a portfolio documenting teaching proficiency (that is started during your Practicum Capstone course)
  • After completing our TESOL or TFL program
    • Submit your online portfolio within one year of applying for remote licensure

Discourse and Repartée

Learn more about TESOL and Teaching Foreign Language students, alumni, and faculty in our annual newsletter Discourse and Repartée. In the 2022 edition, you will find a wide range of stories:

  • Accelerated and online degree programs
  • Choosing a specialization
  • Alumni profiles
  • Faculty publications
  • and more!

Read the 2022 edition of Discourse and Repartée.

Careers and Internships

Students also gain professional experience through internships. Our program will give you the skills and expertise to set yourself apart as your language education career begins. Our alumni are teachers, program directors, curriculum developers, assessment specialists, and teacher educators in the U.S. and around the world. They work at adult education centers, universities, community colleges, K–12 schools, and other language education programs. Many of our alumni have also gone on to PhD programs at prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Oxford, and Georgetown. Learn how they are thriving in their careers.