The Second Language Studies M.A. program attracts students from a variety of backgrounds and interests. They typically have some of the following qualities:

• Interest in pursuing a Ph.D. in Second Language Studies with a view to becoming a college or university professor
• Interest in the structure of languages and how they are acquired by (children and) adults
• A desire to work and live abroad, either for a year or two or long-term
• A desire to work with international or multilingual learners of English in the U.S.
• Wish to pursue classroom teaching

• Linguistics
• Any major in a language (Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, etc.)

A major in Linguistics or a specific language is not required for admission to our M.A. program in Second Language Studies. Most liberal arts majors will prepare you for our program.

The undergraduate minor in Second Language Studies, and the Certificate in TESOL and Second Language Acquisition at Indiana University, are excellent preparation for the M.A. program.

• Coursework in the M.A. in Second Language Studies seeks to prepare and professionalize students to teach English and/or other languages to adults.
• Coursework in the M.A. in Second Language Studies seeks to prepare interested students to pursue a Ph.D. in Second Language Studies or other areas of the language sciences
• Core courses ensure that students are familiar with
  • (1) major research on the acquisition of the sounds and grammatical structure of new languages by adults;
  • (2) current models of the nonnative language acquisition process;
  • (3) an understanding of how research on second language acquisition is designed and carried out; and
  • (4) research-based findings on best practices for classroom teaching of new languages.
• Options for elective courses within the Second Language Studies Department include areas such as
  • best practices for teaching languages to adults
  • psycholinguistics
  • cross-cultural discourse and pragmatics
  • child second-language acquisition
  • World Englishes
  • language revitalization
  • linguistic typology/comparative grammar

Most of our students hold Student Academic Appointments teaching English language in the Second Language Studies department or teaching multilingual sections of writing in the English department.

The M.A. in Second Language Studies is designed specifically to prepare students:

• to become classroom teachers of English or other languages
• for admission to Indiana University’s Ph.D. program in Second Language Studies with a view to becoming a college or university professor

GRE NOTE: For admission to the M.A. in Second Language Studies for Fall 2021, the GRE is optional. This is a new policy and has been officially adopted only for Fall 2021 admission. At this point, there is no decision regarding the GRE for future years.

More information about admission requirements can be found on our website: https://dsls.indiana.edu/programs/graduate.html.

Coursework needed for admission

• A strong command of at least one language in addition to English
• High proficiency in academic English writing and academic speaking in English (strong performance in most liberal arts majors should provide this background)