Re: Distance/On-line MATESOL at Deakin U in Australia

[MTBman]

Does anyone have any firsthand knowledge about the Deakin University MATESOL program in Australia?  Any info would be greatly appreciated.  It looks good, but I'm not sure what the tuition is and how students are assessed.   I've heard and read that it is a flexible program, but I am not sure what that means.  And how good is Deakin University?  How does it compare to say Macquarie and others?  It is a rigorous, respectable program?  I'm looking for a good and flexible program, but I can't pay an arm and two legs for a MATESOL program, especially a distance one.  Thanks.  MTBman

[Flame Trees]

Bumping this because I'm also interested in finding out about that course.

How good is Deakin university in general?  Well, I went there ... it was decent.  Doesn't seem to have the same 'cachet' on your resume that, say, Melbourne Uni has (only Australian employers - or maybe just Victorian - would really care about that anyway), but it wasn't a low quality education.  All of my tutors/lecturers were good at their jobs, worked hard, and knew their subjects well.

[naturegirl321]

I just finished their MPET; granted not an MA TEFL, but I already had one so didn't want to repeat it.  I only had to take 4 courses due to transferring credits and such.

Tuiton was about 2 to 2.5 mil a class. I was assessed through two 3,000 words research essays per class.  It's hard to keep under the limit.

My take on it:
My profs were fantastic, many of the people in my classes had been out of school for 10 or 20 years, and they took that into account. 
I was sent free books which were a compilation of articles and extracts from pertainant literature for 2 of my classes.
The assignments were very flexible, because they wanted you to tailor them to your work situation.  For some reason there were a lot of nurses in my classes.
Price is decent, espeically if you compare to ones in the US.
The library is great. THey shipped books from Australia for me to use.
They also have infoworld where you can access tons of journals and articles

Downside: I finished my course in May, had to wait until July to petition for graduation and will have to wait unti October to get my degree.

All in all, I recommend it.

[Morticae]

I was under the impression that degrees obtained via distance learning were not accepted in several countries.