Southeast's TESOL program prepares students to teach English around the world

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages is a master’s program that Southeast Missouri State University offers to prepare students interested in improving their proficiency of the English language so that they can teach the language in different areas of education in the United States or around the world.

“‘Basically, the students they will read along to a lot of original English in American texts and by doing this they will improve first their reading proficiency and second their overall speaking proficiency in native language for them,” Dr. Irina Ustinova, director of MATESOL Marketing and ESOL certification, said.

Within the program, students will learn how to develop their own style of teaching, study in a diverse classroom setting, gain a better understanding of the difficulties faced in the English language teaching profession, grasp the skills of applying theory into their practice and will conduct research under detailed supervision.

On Tuesday, Feb.14, Ustinova led her 2 p.m. TL 601, research in TESOL class by teaching them how to conduct primary research in the field of TESOL.

Veronika Slobodian, an international student from Ukraine, decided to choose her research topic on the importance of reading to develop language skills of students for whom English is not a native language.

“So I want to investigate the influence of reading on psycho language learning and to see how it can help you develop English proficiency, how you should use the different books written by different writers to improve your English skills,” Slobodian said.

Alex Fedorchenko, an international student from Ukraine, said in Ukraine there aren’t any native English speakers, because most people either speak in Russian or in Ukrainian. English can be used sometimes, however, it is not used in their daily lives.

“Here when we (Fedorchenko and other Ukrainian students in the class) came we had lots of practice and it really helped,” Fedorchenko said. “It helps for our own development and for our development as future English teachers because we always need to speak. We need to communicate with a great amount of students and people all around the wo