Although the Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL) practicum course is meant to initiate preservice teachers (PSTs) into the TESOL profession, it is not uncommon for PSTs to feel a high level of stress as they prepare to teach their first solo lesson. This article proposes the implementation of mixed-reality…

The emergence and development of online M.A./M.Ed. in TESOL programs has created new possibilities for language teachers around the world to become part of a learning community that may not have been previously available to them. Online education means anywhere/anytime learning, continued employment and continued residence. Yet, online learning…

Communities of practice have taken a firm foothold in the second language teaching profession due to their promise of enabling participants to self determine their professional development needs and, through peer mentoring, achieve their goals. This article provides a rationale as to why the model is particularly well suited to teacher…

Immigrant adults in the United States often have limited opportunities to learn English. To address this issue and to strengthen the preparation of future English language teachers, a practicum course offered in a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL) program in California was modified to engage student…

As teacher educators (TEs), we have a unique and remarkable opportunity to mentor the next generation of teachers. Over the years, our teacher candidates (TCs) have reported a sense of cognitive and affective dissonance while engaging in their culminating master's research requirement as part of a research seminar course. Cognitively, this…

This article describes the process of teaching English as a second language to members of an underprivileged local community. This initiative was developed as a result of a collaboration between a community center and a university. Three 1st-year TESOL master's candidates volunteered to design and teach curriculum to immigrant community members on…

This article looks at my reflection as a teacher during a master's degree practicum for a Second Language Studies Program. This particular practicum differs from the other common student teacher-training courses found in master's programs as it incorporated a teacher-training session on conducting action research (AR) in the classroom, a practice…

The relationship between structural linguists and applied linguists is notoriously uncomfortable; each tends to view the others' focus and methods with suspicion. Despite this uneasy relationship many TESOL-focused master's programs are housed in Linguistics Departments. This article reflects on my experience in 1 such department and makes…

Recent research on how TESOL professionals educate nonnative English-speaking students in MA programs indicates a general conviction that native-speaking and nonnative-speaking MA students should be treated equally during their studies in MA programs. Absent from this discussion and much of the literature on this topic, however, are the voices of…

This paper reports the results of a survey of California TESOL educators about issues related to nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs). A good deal of research suggests that NNESTs are as effective, if not more so, than native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and that their treatment in today's work world should be reconsidered; in…

This study analyzes the methods that teachers employ in written feedback to student writing and how the policies of the program and the teachers' embodied histories influence the strategies used. Data were gathered from 2 novice teachers as they taught their first graduate-level ESL writing course and consist of the teachers' feedback in addition…

The focus of this article is on adult literacy in adult basic education (ABE) programs with special emphasis on English as a Second Language (ESL) students. The article intends to highlight several relevant points in ABE ESL literacy instruction. It focuses on (a) the nature of adult learning, (b) the structure of ABE programs, (c) who the…