Our program in Applied Linguistics here
at the University of Melbourne is one of the longest standing in the Faculty of Arts.
Increasingly though, we've been offering it in a diverse and flexible mode,
and the program is growing with the stature and the research interests of the staff.
Hello, I'm Dr Paul Gruba, from the University of Melbourne. I coordinate the Masters of Applied Linguistics.
Applied Linguistics is the study of language in context. The course is structured around five main streams,
so one area of the streams, for example, is Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL).
We don't necessarily train teachers, but we look at the context of Teaching English as a Second Language.
This degree is very comprehensive. It covers from theoretical linguistics to applied linguistics.
My name is Wei Dai. I finished a Master of Applied Linguistics in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
We learnt some basics like phonetics and phonology, morphology...
so these are very useful research tools for conducting studies in theoretical linguistics.
Our second area, which we're very well known for, is Language Assessment and Testing.
We have some of the world's leading experts in Language Testing, and the Department, or the School,
is fortunate enough to have a language testing research centre, which is very well regarded in the field.
The third area we're interested in is in Technology.
Technology, as you know, is a growing area across the globe, and more and more people
are interested in digital media, digital studies, digital curriculum.
We also covered quantitative analysis
methods, which is very useful,
and also we have subjects on discourse analysis, which is, again, another useful research tool in Applied Linguistics.
Our fourth area is globalisation of English, or English Language.
English has become a lingua franca, and so now you're having, for example,
a Chinese person speaking to a Brazilian in English. What does that mean for globalisation?
What does it mean for the ownership of
English and the use of English globally?
Finally, a fifth area of structure is the
Modern Languages.
For example, you been teaching French, you've been teaching Spanish for a couple years,
and now you want to push your career by getting deeper into the structure of French, the context of French, the use of French globally.
I chose to do a minor thesis at the end. I would call that the highlight of my program. I think it's a really rewarding experience.
This program prepared me to become a good researcher.
Graduates from the Master of Applied Linguistics will be able to pursue a variety of career opportunities across a range of language in context uses,
including language teaching, language assessment, the study of language in technology mediated situations,
and, of course, the use of language across modern language programs.
Language is something that we use in a variety of contexts every day, so that fascination
and that research, and that use of language, provides us in Applied Linguistics with lots of job and career opportunities.
