Cal State San Bernardino TESOL MA

Hi,

I was at the CSUSB page for their TESOL MA through Extended Learning. It says you can earn an MA from "an accredited university." It does not say that the degree is accredited.

Any opinions out there about this? It seems to be aimed at non-native speakers, though I'm not sure that has any significance apart from marketing.

Thanks,
Kavade

 

Yeah, it's offered through the School of Education:

College of Extended Learning IEP - Master's in TESOL
College of Education - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Program

The wording "national accreditation" is a little unfortunate, but they are accredited through WASC.

Here is one thing I don't like about this program though. This is not an MA in TESOL, but an MA in Ed. with a concentration in TESOL. I am biased here, but I like to see TESOL programs offered through Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, or English Departments. Alternatively programs that offer at least a solid foundation in Linguistics (Second Language Acquisition, Syntax, Phonology, Pragmatics as a minimum). If you look at Cal State's program you see a lot of "soft" classes like 'Listening & Speaking.' There is a very real risk that you'll leave the program with no clue about Linguistics. And there are already too many ESL teachers who think they are linguists because they know what a verb is.

Not sure how you feel about Christian schools, but here is an online program that looks more solid: AZUSA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY, MA in TESOL (online), California, USA
I'm just throwing this out there, I know zero about the school or the program.