Hi guys,
I am an international student at a LAC college. Initially, I took classes in psychology but I soon changed my mind. Now I want to study linguistics( concentration on applied linguistics for teaching english to non-english speaker). Problem is my school does not offer this major. It has English major, but I felt its kinda unrelated to what I want to study. Should I transfer or dual major in English and Education?
Any advice would be really appreciated.
Ps: my school’s career advisor is horrible.
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All other things being equal, I would switch to a school that could teach me what I wanted to learn.
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If your major choice is being driven by the career you want, I would reach out to some people who have that job and ask what they studied. You could probably schedule an informational interview at a school that employs ELL teachers and ask what credentials are required. It may not be linguistics.
You may need an education degreen first and foremost. If you are a non native English speaker (guessing from your post this may be the case), having a minor in English may be helpful in persuading an employer of a high level of proficiency.
If you simply love the subject and care less about the career outcome, I agree with @bjkmom that you may need to find a different school if that is possible.
You don’t need a degree in linguistics, you do need a degree in TESOL or English Education.
An issue: as an International transfer student you won’t get financial aid. If you currently have a scholarship, can you afford to drop it and can you afford to be full pay somewhere else?
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If you like your college and you have adequate financial aid to attend, I wouldn’t necessarily transfer just to major in linguistics. You don’t need to major in linguistics to teach English as a second language. You also don’t necessarily need a degree in TESOL or English education - you can get a TEFL or TESOL certification after finishing your bachelor’s in another field.
You probably do want to study English or bilingual education if you want to teach ESL in the K-12 public school system or most private or independent schools, in the United States. There are also master’s programs in TESOL that you can get especially if you want to teach English as a second language in the K-12 public school system in the United States.
Buuuut there are lots of other ways to get into it, too. Most of the people I personally know who are doing this actually started teaching English abroad after college. There are lots of programs that will send you to the far corners of the globe to teach English - the JET Programme (in Japan) is one of the oldest, but there’s also the EPIK (the equivalent in South Korea), and CIEE sponsors several as well. There’s also the Fulbright ETA program in a variety of countries.
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I agree with the poster above.
Furthermore, I would also look into linguistics as a major very thoroughly if you have not researched it. Linguistics as a field is something not many people know much about and is probably a lot different than your expectations. What exactly does a linguistics degree offer that an English/Education degree does not?
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Linguistics is the study language, not of the English language or literature. It is all about structure, origins, computational aspects, syntax, grammar etc. It is very analytical and involves a lot of writing and theory. It also has empirical and lab aspects to it. It has many related fields.
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