Okay, so, I seem to come here when I am thinking big questions about my future (probably what this was created for). Recently, I transferred to a new school so I could pursue French and I am super excited!! Currently, I am on the path to get P-12 certification at the bachelor’s level in both Spanish and French, but realize that since my long-term goal is that of a French professor (and K-12 teaching is never a prerequisite for this), it would make more sense for me to pursue graduate school straight out of the BA.
On the one hand, getting the certification to teach secondary is never a bad thing, but can be very time consuming and would stack on 1 1/2 years to my degree plan, as well as take time away from other opportunities. I’ve always had a passion for working with this age group, and enjoyed teaching Arabic to 7-10 graders this summer. I could, for instance, do the MA in French Linguistics and Pedagogy at Middlebury Language Schools for four summers while teaching full time in a public/private school. I am interested in second language acquisition and pedagogy, where the high school teaching could really help me observe this. Doing this allows me to keep my teacher scholarship, which is extra funding.
On the flipside, I have most of my requirements out of the way for general education, a French major lacks only five more classes, and a Spanish minor could be completed this semester. So, I could likely complete my B.A. in French this year, as long as my senior seminar in French can be arranged with other classes. I am most interested in the M.A./PhD program in French Linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington, which considers all accepted students for graduate assistantships/tuition remission, and is easily paired with a minor in Second Language Studies. This could help me get an understanding of college-level pedagogy and the ability to research SLA. While this program doesn’t currently require a GRE, I haven’t gotten to do any related research/publications yet, which may hurt chances here.