Teaching Foreign Language in America

[maoyu 0]

Hi all,

My wife would like to teach Chinese in the college environment. She holds a four year degree from a university in China. We're thinking she will need to pursue at least a master’s if she wants to teach at the college level. Also, I believe it's a good idea anyway to try for further education while she is still young and without family. In my research, I have found the majority Chinese language college lecturers hold a master’s in either linguistics or education.

Does anyone out there have any experience with teaching a foreign language in the college environment and what the career path is like?

Thanks for any help,

J

[GabiandVi 34]

I don't have experience with this, but I would have said what your research seems to have revealed.

She should be able to find work with such a degree. We have even considered this as a possibility for my husband, though he did not learn Chinese until he went to university in China.

[Indy90 21]

Hi all,

My wife would like to teach Chinese in the college environment. She holds a four year degree from a university in China. We're thinking she will need to pursue at least a master’s if she wants to teach at the college level. Also, I believe it's a good idea anyway to try for further education while she is still young and without family. In my research, I have found the majority Chinese language college lecturers hold a master’s in either linguistics or education.

Does anyone out there have any experience with teaching a foreign language in the college environment and what the career path is like?

Thanks for any help,

J

Really, the best idea in my opinion would be to contact the foreign language faculty of a university to see what they look for. I know in my big state university, there are plenty of graduate assistants that get hired to teach the lower level classes and then professors teach the upper level classes/coordinate the classes that the graduate students teach. The pay for the graduate students is quite low...about $20,000 a year, but they don't work full time and get tuition waivers. The starting salary for a professor is about $50,000 and they have to produce significant research in order to stay with the university. I am not sure how competitive it is to get hired as a professor...it probably really depends on where you went to graduate school (prestige is important) and how in demand your language is.

In a big state university, I imagine that it would be hard to get full time employment with just a master's degree because of the abundance of grad students willing to teach, although smaller or private schools may be different...there may be lecture spots for people with just a master's, but they are probably very low paying.

Community college though might be a good place to look for work. In some areas she might be able to get by just on a bachelor's degree. I know someone that is teaching Vietnamese (I think) at my local community college with just a bachelor's, because there is a demand but few people willing to teach.

I don't have any data to back it up, but it seems like most of the people who have degrees in linguistics don't actually do much language teaching...they are more heavily involved in research involving their language and general linguistics teaching applicable to multiple languages. People that have studied things like Spanish literature/Russian literature/whatever language or education tend to be more heavily involved in actually teaching the language. But this may differ between universities.

[Darnell 8,478]

Most 2 year schools not have stringent 'masters level degree requirement' for this specialty subject. You should make a canvass of all in yer area, inquire, before pitching forth with pursuing a masters program.

Good Luck !