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Case Study

Neill Wylie

Dublin, Republic of Ireland

MA TESOL (DL)


Neill Wylie worked in banking in Australia before moving to South Korea to teach English. He chose to study his MA at Sunderland after deciding to pursue a career in TESOL. He has worked in a couple of universities overseas since completing the course and also undertaken a second master's degree, which has enabled him to secure his current role of Learning Developer in Open, Blended and Online education.

I had graduated with a BA in Finance and spent some time in Australia working in banking, before moving to South Korea to teach English. While in South Korea, I decided to pursue a career in TESOL, so the MA TESOL (DL) was a perfect match for my goals. The course at Sunderland had interesting subject matter, a great recruitment procedure and contact with the Programme Leader.

Distance learning can be an effective way of pursuing a degree. The best part of this course was connecting with other learners, getting high quality feedback and having the support of the lecturers. I particularly enjoyed the Corpus Linguistics module and have used components of it in my teaching ever since.

After graduating, I secured a position working at Universitat Oberrta de Catalunya for some time, working as an eLearning consultant and English teacher. I then moved to Maastricht to work as an EAP lecturer at Maastricht University where I focused on eLearning. I spent six years there and completed a second master's degree in Digital Technologies for Education (Languages), which enabled me to secure a position at TU Delft as a Learning Developer in Open, Blended and Online education.

I was very happy with the support I received from my lecturers and admin staff. This was essential and helped me along the way. The other learners were also helpful and we genuinely created a community where students felt comfortable sharing advice.”

Published 3 April 2020

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