English Language Teaching (Ph.D.)

Program Description (for the downloadable flyer version, click here)

The Ph.D. program in ELT (English Language Teaching) aims to equip our graduates with a multidisciplinary, critical outlook on language research. Upon graduation, alumni of the ELT Ph.D. program are equipped with the skills necessary for synthesizing, critically assessing, and improving theoretical and practical findings in contemporary research on language, as well as language learning and teaching. Based on the vast fieldwork experience gained in the program, as their future academic career paths, our graduates can undertake large-scale qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research in areas of (cross-cultural) educational studies, as well as theoretical or applied linguistics.

The Ph.D. program in English Language Teaching provides wide-ranging interdisciplinary training as it enables students to enroll in two tracks:

1) Language Education Track

2) Language Studies Track

Ph.D. graduates acquire a firm theoretical and practical knowledge based on social, cultural, and individual variables of language learning to improve the practices of national English language teaching and learning by analyzing current theories and applications in ESL/EFL and/or (applied) linguistics and make significant contributions to the field of language studies or language learning/teaching studies.

The graduates of the Ph.D. program in ELT can work as academicians and researchers and advisors at higher education institutions and research centers both nationally and internationally working in diverse fields within the language sciences. The graduates may also work as teacher educators of pre-service and in-service teachers in the field of English Language Teaching.

Ph.D. Degree Requirements

The Ph.D. program in ELT requires students to enroll in either Language Education Track or Language Studies Track based on the interest areas they would like to specialize in.

In order to complete the Ph.D. program, students should take a total of 2 must courses, 5 elective courses, 4 non-credit courses and write a Ph.D. Thesis. Upon the completion of course requirements, Ph.D. candidates are required to pass a written and an oral exam in their concentration areas. The successful candidates focus on their thesis work for the rest of their candidacy period.

Regardless of the entrance year of the program, it has been decided to implement these course statuses for all students who will come to the graduation stage since the Fall semester of the 2022-2023 Academic Year.