Master of Education (M Ed) in ELT Programme

Need

There has been an immense growth in the field of education in Nepal in the last five decades. However, the quantitative growth, realized in the form of number of the institutions and the areas of disciplines, has not been able to bring about qualitative development. This is a major case in the field of teacher development and school education. In the quest of education, the public as well as the private sector have made huge investments in school education with not much satisfying results.

In the areas of English language attainment of the school students, one major cause for this situation is the lack of quality teacher education and appropriate ELT materials due to the lack of skilled and informed teacher educators and materials developers. The demand of quality ELT teachers, teacher trainers and materials writers has indicated the need to train the manpower in the country.With this background, M Ed in ELT (Two–year) programme was launched in 2004 and the programme has come a long way with visible success. With the experience we gain we make timely revisionsin the structure, course content and delivery modality.

 Purpose

The purpose of M Ed in ELT at KathmanduUniversity is to prepare EFL teachers and teacher educators and also ELT materials developers to help improve ELT education in the country. The programme is intended to produce postgraduates who are able to –

• Follow latest principles and teaching methodology in ELT.
• Undertake small-scale need oriented research in the field of ELT.
• Design and deliver teacher training courses and activities for ELT teachers required for the changing situation.
• Train pre-service trainees and in-service teachers for effective teaching of EFL.
• Develop ELT materials required for the changing situation.

Salient features of the programme

Need based: This programme has been developed on the needs of the institutes. The survey on teachers, teacher trainers and materials has been made through informal discussions with teacher education experts, teacher training organizers and materials developers such as Department of Education, NELTA and freelance individuals. This need has been further justified by the experience of running Postgraduate Diploma in Education by the School of Education of the University. This programme has not only been successful in itself, it also been able to generate demand from the individuals who felt benefited from it.

Internationally comparable:There are universities in the native and non-native English speaking countries that formally train EFL teachers, train teacher educators and materials developers. The course has been developed after a thorough survey of the Master’s Course in ELT of those universities. The intellectual challenge intended to be triggered by this course and the practical exposures are actually comparable to the ones of those universities. The postgraduates will come out with knowledge and skills sound enough to work in international arena.

Practice-based and skills oriented:While the trainees will receive adequate knowledge of contents that makes them theoretically sound, they will also undergo practical experience by literally undertaking tasks of teaching of English, teacher training and materials development in the field of ELT. When they come out from the University, they will be expected to be independent practitioners of these fields.

Conducive learning environment:A high quality team that includes in-house professionals, expatriates and visiting faculty with a sound, first-hand experience of teacher development, trainer development and materials writing will be involved to run the programme. The trainees will be provided with the facilities of resourceful library, workshops, seminars, computer facilities and interactive visits to other trainer development institutions in the country. The learning will be closely monitored by the faculty with immediate and personalized feedback.

Modeling of pedagogy: Pedagogy of each course will be based on the latest principles of teaching and learning of English. Specifically, students will be benefited through their instructors’ facilitation, assessment and overall teaching techniques. Specific facilitation techniques such as instructor-learner conferences, presentations, investigative tasks, and collaborative projects, problem-solving and group learning methods will be employed.

Course Structure of M. Ed. in ELT

M Ed in ELT is of two years split into four semesters. Students take a total of 60 credits; 48-credit taught courses and 3-credit internship and 9-credit research work. One credit is equivalent to a minimum of 16 contact hours in a semester. 

 Click on the document section to see program detail.