Curriculum
May 19, 2023 2026-09-20 18:38Curriculum
Ed.D. in TESOL Curriculum
The Doctor of Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Ed.D. in TESOL) combines 16 courses with a three-term dissertation for a total of 76 units. Each course is nine weeks long and carries four units.
Coursework is organized across four areas: applied linguistics, language teaching, professional development, and research methods. Together, these areas develop the theoretical, practical, leadership, and research foundations students need before progressing to the dissertation.
Dr. Rod Ellis, Designer of the Anaheim University Online Doctor of Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program
Every course is nine weeks long and carries four units; a new course begins every ten weeks. Two four-day intensive seminars, held once a year and typically in July or August, are required for graduation, and their tuition is included in the total program price.
Four Areas of Study
The curriculum progresses through four connected areas, from the disciplinary foundations of TESOL to professional practice and the research methods that support doctoral study.
1. Studies in Applied Linguistics
This area is broad-based. It aims to provide students with the disciplinary knowledge that forms TESOL. It addresses the linguistic, psycholinguistic, psychological and sociolinguistic foundations of language teaching. On completing the courses in this area, students will have developed a clear understanding of theories of language learning, and of the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of different language teaching approaches, instructional materials, and language testing.
This course investigates research that has investigated the effects of form-focused instruction on L2 acquisition. It draws on theory and research in the field of second language acquisition and examines a number of options for conducting form-focused instruction. Students will be expected to use their knowledge of existing research to prepare a research proposal for a study using their own learners or a group of learners with whom they are familiar.
This course will familiarize participants with research investigating interlanguage pragmatics and examine how instruction can effectively develop L2 pragmatic competence. Students will be required to prepare a set of teaching materials for teaching ONE speech act (e.g., requests or compliments). They will also be asked to try out and evaluate their materials on their own students or students with whom they are familiar.
This course reviews research that has investigated a number of key individual learner factors (e.g., language aptitude, motivation, learner beliefs) and how these impact on language teaching. The course also considers how individual differences in classroom learners can be accommodated instructionally. There will be an opportunity for students to analyze qualitative data in order to investigate individual learner factors. Students will be required to carry out a qualitative study of two language learners – one successful and one unsuccessful learner.
The aim of this course is to introduce participants to concepts and issues in sociolinguistics which are relevant to their lives as prospective or practicing language teachers. The course combines topics from two theoretical and research fields: (1) sociolinguistics, which examines the relationship between language and society, sometimes focusing more on learning about linguistic matters and sometimes more on learning about social structures (the latter often referred to as the ‘sociology of language’); (2) language teaching, which includes the examination of what happens in the classroom with teachers and learners, and also how these practices relate to the broader socio-political context in which the teaching and learning take place.
This course will define ‘discourse’ and introduce students to a range of models for describing and critically evaluating authentic oral and written discourse.
This course will develop students’ critical understanding of different types of language tests, their theoretical underpinnings, their design, and the uses to which they can be put.
The purpose of these Special Topic courses is to allow the student to work in a community of practice with other candidates and advisors and completes a range of activities, which help them work towards their dissertation.
2. Aspects of Language Teaching
This area is more practice-oriented. It examines the principles that inform the design and evaluation of courses in language teaching. It provides students with an opportunity to engage in projects directly related to TESOL and thereby to develop the skills required of leaders in the field.
The aim of this course is to present theoretical and empirical aspects of curriculum development. Participants will look at tensions between different philosophical approaches to education, and at how different philosophical approaches play out in practice.
This course takes the view that technology can be both tool and tutor in language education. The role of technology in language education is examined as an aspect of curriculum design, that is, the starting point is needs analysis and resulting curriculum, rather than technology. The course will describe the characteristics of various applications such as email, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and webpages. It will help participants evaluate the role of information technology in language teaching and learning. Participants will explore the use of technology in different educational settings, and how to integrate it in course design. Students will be required to develop a unit of work for an ELT class, integrating technology and to prepare a research proposal to investigate an aspect of technology in language education.
The course aims to help the participants to gain knowledge and to develop the awareness & skills required by an expert practitioner of materials development for language learning & teaching. It intends in particular to help them to become principled and effective materials evaluators, adapters, writers, users & researchers. In addition, it aims to make use of materials development to deepen the participants’ understanding of second language acquisition, of language use & of principled pedagogy as well as contributing to the further development of analytical, critical & creative thinking skills.
The purpose of these Special Topic courses is to allow the student to work in a community of practice with other candidates and advisors and completes a range of activities, which help them work towards their dissertation.
3. Professional Development
This area seeks to lay the ground for students’ ongoing professional development. It focuses narrowly on two key domains of professional activity in TESOL – ELT management and teacher education.
There is an ongoing dearth of books, articles and other publications on leadership in education, and an even greater scarcity of publications on language education leadership (abbreviated in this course as ‘LEL’). Consequently, courses like this often end up having to choose between out-of-date LEL publications, or using texts written by and from the corporate, for-profit world. However, education, including language teaching and learning, is a markedly different endeavor from making and selling, for example, cars or other commercial commodities. Therefore, the literature from the for-profit world is often not applicable to and not appropriate for language education. This course is designed to address those limitations and deficiencies by drawing on, to the greatest extent possible, leadership literature from education, and wherever possible, language education. This course also makes a significant distinction between management and leadership, rejecting the interchangeable use of those two terms. As the literature on leadership and on management has grown exponentially in recent years, the two areas can still be considered to overlap with each other, but the two areas are now also distinctive and identifiably different. This course will, therefore, focus as much as possible on leadership in language education.
This course will examine the socio-cultural perspectives on the following: how teachers learn to teach a second language; the nature of language; how second languages are taught and learned; social, cultural, and historical influences on the second language teaching profession; the spectrum and roles of second language teachers’ professional development.
4. Research Methods for Language Teachers
While students will have been introduced to a range of research relevant to TESOL in the other areas of the Ed.D., this area seeks to develop the knowledge and skills needed to design research studies and to collect and analyze data. It provides a platform for the students’ work on their dissertation.
This course will define qualitative research and differentiate it from quantitative research, describe the evolution of qualitative research, provide a framework for doing qualitative research, present the ‘ground rules’ for doing qualitative research, and demonstrate the centrality of the writing process to qualitative research.
This course will enable students to design and evaluate quantitative studies of language learning and teaching and will equip them with the statistical tools for analyzing data.
This course will assist students in preparing and critiquing a research proposal.
Dissertation
Enrolment opens once all coursework is complete and the Comprehensive Examination has been passed. The research and writing are completed over three terms.
Enrolment opens once all coursework is complete and the Comprehensive Examination has been passed. The research and writing are completed over three terms.
The Dissertation is the culminating component of the Ed.D. program. The dissertation demonstrates your ability to conduct appropriate research in the field of TESOL and to interpret and apply the results of this research. The dissertation should report an original piece of research and make a significant contribution to the field. All students will be required to complete a dissertation. Students will be able to enroll for dissertation credits once all course work has been successfully completed and students have taken and passed the Comprehensive Examination. The dissertation research and writing will be completed over 3 terms for a total of 12 units.
Program Requirements
The Comprehensive Exam is administered after the student has successfully completed his/her coursework, and before s/he continues to the Dissertation Proposal Writing Course. The student must pass the Comprehensive Exam with a minimum score of 80% in order to continue to the Dissertation phase of the program. Students who fail the Comprehensive Exam will be enrolled in a Study Term and assigned a professor to mentor them through the process of studying and synthesizing their coursework.
A 4-day intensive online seminar is held once per year and Ed.D. in TESOL students are required to attend two 4-day sessions during their program. Attendance at two residential sessions is a requirement for graduation from the Ed.D. program. The residential sessions taught by TESOL faculty are held over four days, typically in July or August. The tuition for the online intensive seminars is included in the total program price.
Complete the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Social-Behavioral-Educational (SBE) Foundations certificate, which is a web-based human research protection education program.
The Defense will be conducted in an online classroom. It will normally last between 1 and 2 hours. You will open with a brief presentation of the dissertation, followed by an interactive discussion where you will be expected to address any points or questions raised by the three examiners.
The Ed.D. in TESOL degree program will take under four years to complete. Under no circumstances may the Ed.D. in TESOL program be completed in less than two years from the date of initial enrollment.
