First of all, a warm welcome to the academic life of TESOL at the University of Tasmania, Australia.

 As a new comer to this academic field, you may wonder what TESOL stands for. It is Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. You may encounter similar acronyms such as ESL (English as a Second Language), ELT (English Language Teaching), and EFL (English as a Foreign Language). The main idea underlying these related concepts is that English has become an applied linguistic superhighway which travels on various parts of the world and has attracted passengers whose first language is not English.

The TESOL programs at the University of Tasmania have the following aims:

1. Providing graduates in other academic disciplines an opportunity to explore TESOL as a new career pathway.
2. Providing students a flexible discourse of learning with a learner-centred emphasis.
3. Treating reflective learning as an important part of the learning process.
4. Encouraging students to develop a pathway from coursework to research.
5. Promoting international understanding and collaboration in teaching and research.

The following activities reflect our achievements:

• Organising the following international conferences: Language and Learning: Theory into Practice (Malaysia 1989), Language Education (Vietnam 1990), Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory into Research (Tasmania 2005).
• Publishing research journals in applied linguistics and TESOL: Language, Society and Culture (1995 – current), Working Papers in Language and Linguistics (1975 – 1988)
• Participating in conferences by our students.

If you would like further information, please kindly let me know.

Till then, take care!

Thao Lê

Postgraduate TESOL Coordinator