Professional achievements of MSc TESOL students

Our postgraduate TESOL programmes attract high calibre students from around the world, both those new to teaching and those who have taught for many years.

Many of our students publish papers, give well-received conference presentations, win prizes for their teaching or take on professional roles. They do so while on their programmes and after they have completed their studies at St Andrews. Some choose to continue their studies at PhD level, pursuing their interests in a wide range of TESOL and education-related fields.

On this page, we showcase their achievements and celebrate their successes with them.

Small group of postgraduate students in an informal discussion setting

Ria Rampersad

I am from Trinidad and Tobago and after pursuing an MA in Risk, Health and Public Policy and realising that I wanted to be self-employable I decided to undertake the MSc TESOL with a specialism in Assessment and Evaluation. This degree combined my passion for writing, language and learning.

I hope to first gain some experience teaching ESL and then do a PhD in the area of formative assessment and English Language learners, from a policy perspective these are interesting and emerging themes.

See a poster presentation from Ria, on EAP for migrant children (PDF) - adapting the Trinidad and Tobago national primary school curriculum for English Language learners. Ria presented her findings at the EAP conference 2021 at the University of St Andrews.

Jennifer Cowell

I am undertaking the MSc TESOL Master’s as a conversion degree to help support my career change and originally studied history at university. I chose to study the TESOL programme at St Andrews due to its robust reputation and the exciting opportunities available to students on the programme.

Topics that I am particularly interested in include: intercultural communication, teacher training, widening participation, digital accessibility, and supporting students with Specific Learning Differences (SpLDs). I am currently assisting with research within the International Education Institute regarding lecture recording technology and the preferences exhibited by students and lecturers.

See Jennifer's poster presentation at the EAP conference 2021 at the University of St Andrews:

Inclusive learning practices – EAP students with SpLDs (PowerPoint)

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) appointed Jennifer Cowell to their Benchmark Advisory Group for Linguistics in January 2022. Find out more about the QAA's subject benchmark statements and advisory groups.

Paul Johnson

I was born and raised in Southern California. I have an M.A. in Philosophy and am working towards my MSc TESOL with a Specialism in Technology for Teaching. I have been teaching English as a Foreign Language internationally for over eight years and currently work at Woosong University, Korea. I write about education technology, language teaching, ethics, games, and gamification at an iterative process, and peer review for Computer Assisted Language Learning – Electronic Journal and Ludic Language Pedagogy.

See Paul's most recent publication, a review of Google's Workspace for Education, published in the TESOL Journal. Other publications from Paul Johnson include:

Find out more about Paul's qualifications and experience.

Yurou Song

I completed the MLitt in English Language Teaching in 2019. Studying in IE has proved to be the most important and wisest decision that I have made. I was fully supported to conduct research on Chinese TESOL teachers’ attitudes to an intelligent tutoring tool, which laid the foundation for my career.

I currently work in Shanghai, designing online NLP-integrated EFL courses for kids. Both my career passion and research interest is to prepare TESOL teachers for intelligent language teaching contexts in the future. I’m pursuing a PhD. I’m a dog lover and a Chinese painting expert.

Hanyan Yu

My name is Hanyan Yu and I am currently based in Xiamen, China, where I teach at Xiamen Ocean Vocational College. I studied for an MLitt. in English Language Teaching at St Andrews in 2009 – 2010. Since then, I have taught in Xiamen Ocean Vocational College, China and Confucius Institute at San Diego State University.

I enjoy designing and writing teaching material. I recently won first prize at regional level in the 2021 National Vocational college Mini-lecture competition.

You can find my professional profile on LinkedIn.

Daian Huang

I am Daian Huang, a PhD Education student at the University of Manchester. I completed the MSc TESOL in 2020, and I also hold a Master’s degree in Educational Studies. Back in 2013, I got my first job in the field of international education as a maths teacher of international qualifications (IA-level, IGESE and IB etc.), and I gained a keen interest in international students’ experience and development.

My current PhD project aims to provide a comprehensive investigation into transition experience of international students through the lens of students’ ecological systems and sense of agency.

Take a look at Daian's poster presentations at the EAP conference in 2020 and 2021 at the University of St Andrews:

Manjima Misra

I am a passionate writer and an aspiring educator. Currently, I am pursuing a PG Certificate in TESOL through distance learning from University of St Andrews. As a writer and educator, I traverse through novel ways of thinking, explore critical reasoning, and engage in constructive action informed by reflective perceptual power. I have an academic background in English literature- an interdisciplinary field of study which I have pursued at University of Delhi, India.

I decided to pursue postgraduate studies in TESOL as I wanted to expand my grasp over English not just as a field of study through literary analysis of texts, but also as an enabling international language that generates cross-border academic and professional growth for people, who would otherwise be limited by geographical, cultural, and economic barriers and/or divisions.

Take a look at Manjima's publications: