Is There a Doctor in the Class?

While there has been a continuous professional dialogue on various aspects of the TESOL master's programs in the United States, similar attention has not been afforded the TESOL doctoral programs. This in large part has been a result of the master's degree serving as a terminal degree for most ESL instructors and many directors and teacher trainers. Since the 1960s, when master's degrees in TESOL were rare, the TESOL profession has gained world-wide respect as the discipline continues to define and assert itself in local school districts and institutions of higher education. Master's programs have proliferated over the past two decades with over 165 now being offered in the United States alone. Currently only twenty-nine colleges and universities listed in the Directory of Professional Preparation Pro-grams in TESOL in the United States and Canada 1995-1997 offer doctoral degrees in TESOL or related fields.

What are the characteristics of these doctoral programs? Where are they located both geographically and institutionally? In what disciplines do they offer degrees? What courses does a typical curriculum include and most importantly in what areas can these programs better meet the needs of TESOL practitioners? A recent study of these programs sought to shed light on these questions.

Of the twenty-nine doctorate-granting institutions listed, eleven were located in the Northeast region of the United States; nine were in the West, five in the Midwest, and four in the South and Puerto Rico. Within those universities, the degree programs were housed in seventeen different academic departments with the most frequent placement being in the Depart-ment of Linguistics, followed by the Departments of English and Education. Eighteen institutions granted Ph.D. degrees and six awarded Ed.D. degrees, indicating the research emphasis of the majority of the programs. Three institutions provided a choice of either a Ph.D. or Ed.D. and two offered a Doctorate of Arts degree. Within the departments, degrees were granted in a wide range of disciplines with the greatest number in Linguistics followed closely by Education/ Curriculum and Instruction. Only three departments offered a degree major specifically in TESOL though several of the various other degrees offered TESOL/ESL as a concentration option. The standard admissions requirements included a master's degree with acceptable GPAs, letters of recommendation, the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) or in two cases the Miller's Analogy Test (MAT), and the TOEFL for non-native English speaking applicants. Only two programs specifically listed teaching experience as a prerequisite for admissions.

For degree completion, twenty-seven of the twenty-nine programs required comprehensive exams and one required a qualifying paper; nineteen demanded knowledge of a foreign language, and twenty-three required a dissertation/thesis. Only six required practice teaching experience. The length of time for degree completion ranged from two to seven years with an average of 4.02 years of study. Interestingly, 45% of the graduates were non-native English speakers.

While there was a great variety in course nomenclature, for purposes of clarity, similar course titles were grouped together under common headings. Of the twenty-five different course types identified in the curriculum of the various universities, the one most frequently offered was first and/or second Language Acquisition. The second most prominent course was Teaching Methods with over three-fourths of the programs listing courses specifically in TESOL Methodology/Teaching ESL. Others in the top five headings included Research Methodology focusing on research designs of both quantitative and qualitative methods, Linguistics, and Testing and Assessment.

Heading the list of least frequently provided courses was ESL Administration with only four programs listing courses in any aspect of program administration, design, or evaluation. Courses in Language Policy and Planning were similarly scarce, and only eight offered courses in technology media or allowed electives in technology. A typical program profile incorporating the most common characteristics of all the doctoral programs would be a Ph.D. degree program in Linguistics administered by the Department of Linguistics at a university in the Northeast. Students would be predominantly native-English speakers who would be required to have knowledge of a foreign language, pass comprehensive exams, conduct a research study and author a dissertation in order to complete a degree in approximately four years. The curriculum would include courses in second language acquisition and TESOL Methods with no student teaching required.

Fortunately, there are several combinations of location, degree, discipline, concentration, curriculum, and program requirements from which students may choose a program. But a review of the current programs does raise questions as to how well they serve the needs of the ESL practitioners who are teaching in all types of educational settings and directing programs around the world.

The TESOL profession has conducted a long campaign to establish ESL as a legitimate academic discipline. To this end it has established standards for ESL and teacher training programs with the latest being the standards for the Intensive English Programs. To a large extent the profession has overcome the notion that any native English speaker could intuitively teach ESL as evidenced by the now routine requirement of a master's degree for adult education, community college and university level ESL instruction, and teaching abroad. For the thousands of teachers who have obtained master's degrees in recent years, it would be a natural next step in their professional development and in the struggle to constantly enhance the status of the TESOL profession for more practitioners to seek a doctoral degree.

Many obstacles such as lack of time, financial resources, professional incentives and encouragement hinder aspirations for a doctorate, but there are additional negative factors influencing that decision that are within the control of TESOL faculties, university administrators, and even the prospective students themselves. One could start by looking at the doctoral curriculum.

An obvious group of candidates for doctoral study would be the ESL program directors in the U.S. and abroad. "Doctorate in ESL or related field preferred" is commonly seen in job announcements for ESL director positions, yet only four universities listed doctoral courses in ESL program design and implementation, program evaluation, or administrative leadership. Despite the importance of language policy and planning to TESOL local and world-wide issues, just five programs provided study in this area. Leaders in second language teaching need the knowledge and skills to infuse technology into the language curriculum and to manage the technology that is becoming an increasingly important part of the language learning process. While the role of English as the de facto language of the Internet means that the ESL/EFL field will continue to grow in prominence, it also suggests a need to study the impact the power of English and technology might have on languages in non-English speaking societies (Murray, 1996). In what ways do our doctoral programs assist students in gaining the expertise to use computer technology in language teaching? The answer does not appear to be in the curriculum of most TESOL doctoral programs. Few programs offered courses in the educational uses of technology and of those only four included courses specifically in technology for language teaching. Looking at recent TESOL journals, it is obvious that an area of great concern to the profession is the apparent dichotomy between classroom teaching and research. TESOL professionals have warned that too many classroom teachers view research as the domain of the university research community and fail to see its relevance to their own teaching (Kaplan, 1998). Stronger teacher-researcher ties through collaborations between university faculty and classroom teachers have been urged. The solution argued by the teacher-researcher movement is to recognize teachers as researchers with the advantages of insider perspective and applicability (Crookes, 1998). Perhaps the simplest way to ensure connections between university research and classroom practice is for more classroom teachers to join the university research community as doctoral students. The crucial questions on teaching practices and the language learning process will not be answered until ESL teachers assume a more prominent role in the research process. TESOL doctoral programs face the challenge of facilitating that outcome.

As TESOL continues to mature, more positions will demand a doctorate, therefore making it incumbent upon universities to analyze the needs not only of traditional doctoral students seeking a university teaching or research position, but also the needs of classroom teachers from a wide array of instructional settings.