Applied Linguistics & Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

Welcome to the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and AL (Applied Linguistics) Programs at Teachers College, Columbia University. The TESOL and AL Programs are interested in questions related to the nature of language as a biological, physical, or psychological phenomenon, as well as to questions concerning how language is used by native speakers and language learners as an interactional, social, or cultural phenomenon. The TESOL and AL Programs are also deeply concerned with how first and second languages are learned, taught, and assessed in a wide range of real-world or laboratory contexts.

Dr. Jim Purpura, programs coordinator, discusses TESOL and AL programs.

The TESOL Program offers a general Master's Degree (M.A.) in TESOL as well as an M.A. in TESOL with K-12 Certification for teaching in the New York State public schools. It also offers an articulated Master of Education (Ed.M.) and a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in TESOL.

The AL Program offers an M.A., an Ed.M., and an Ed.D. in Applied Linguistics.

The TESOL and AL Programs also offer two certificate programs: one in TESOL and one in the teaching of Chinese to speakers of other languages (TCSOL).

Aside from the academic program, the TESOL and AL Programs at TC offer students a range of experiences for intellectual and professional development. The TESOL and AL Programs sponsor a lab school, the Community Language Program (CLP), where approximately 1,200 students in the neighboring communities study English as a Second Language or one of the foreign language offerings (French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Arabic). These programs are operated by students in the TESOL and AL Programs giving them opportunities for teaching, curriculum development, assessment, program evaluation, program administration, and TESOL and AL research.

The TESOL and AL programs also sponsor Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, an online web journal, where students, serving as editors and as journal referees, have the opportunity to learn firsthand about publishing articles in a refereed journal.

The TESOL-AL Roundtable is a student-run organization sponsoring a range of exciting activities such as academic presentations by recent graduates from the doctoral program, invited talks by scholars from around the New York City area, and other informal discussions on a range of topics and professional concerns.

The Programs offer students, graduates, and friends of TC, an annual APPLE (Applied Linguistics and Language Education) Lecture Series featuring a day of talks by preeminent scholars in the field.