This is the ninth in a series of blog posts I’m doing in response to the number of Delta-related searches that bring visitors to my blog. Each post in this Delta Tips series will deal with a different element of the Delta, based on my experience of doing it (and surviving to tell the tale! ) 

The module 3 extended specialism essay is a very special beast. If you thought Cambridge were demanding in their criteria for Module 2 LSA’s or perversely picky in how they want you to answer Module 1 exam questions – you’d be right! But, it’s nothing compared to what they demand you fit in to a measly 4500 words for Module 3…

The brief:

In 4500 words, you have to introduce and discuss your chosen specialism (including literature review, issues that are typical of it, some comparison with a different specialism…), your needs analysis, your course design, your assessment methods (both formative and summative) and your course evaluation, and then, finally, bring your assignment to its conclusion. Each section also needs to showcase your knowledge and understanding of the theory and principles, and therefore the literature, related to it. (Therefore, Concise should become your new middle name!)

The choice of specialisms is as follows:

• Business English (BE)
• Teaching young learners/young adults (specified age group required with 5-year range e.g. 8–13, 14–19) (YL)
• English for Special Purposes (ESP)
• English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
• Teaching examination classes (EX)
• Teaching one-to-one (1to1)
• ESOL learners with literacy needs (ESOL)
• CLIL/Embedded ESOL (teaching English through subject/ work-based learning) (CLIL)
• Teaching monolingual classes (MON)
• Teaching multilingual classes (MUL)
• Teaching in an English-speaking environment (ESE)
• Teaching in a non-English-speaking environment. (NESE)
• Teaching learners online/through distance/blended learning (DL)
• Teaching English to learners with special requirements e.g. visual/hearing impairment, dyslexia, ASD (SR)2
• Language development for teachers (LDT)
• Language support (e.g. on mainstream teaching programmes, specialist skills support, such as supporting writing needs) (LS)

Starting out

Ideally, you will have thought about what you would like to specialise in before you start your course. Some centres (e.g. Leeds Met) even give you a pre-course task to focus your thinking in this respect. However, don’t be hell-bent on sticking to your initial decision – it may be that what you want to do isn’t an ideal choice. Hopefully you will discuss your choice with your tutor early on, so be open to their advice. I, for example, started out wanting to do Young Learners who need EAL support in schools in the U.K. but I had no access to such learners, no experience of teaching them and it didn’t fit comfortably into the Cambridge specialisms list either. All in all, following a very helpful tutorial, I changed my specialism to Teaching in an English-speaking environment (ESE).

Tips:

• Don’t choose a specialism that incorporates too many different Cambridge specialisms. E.g. One-to-one business English over the telephone (or Skype) is a type of teaching that absolutely exists BUT it combines Business English, Teaching one-to-one and Distance Learning which is too much to juggle effectively in 4500 words.

• Do choose a specialism you have some experience with. It’s easy to start out with lofty ideas of using Module 3 to learn about a new specialism, and perhaps if you are doing it over an extended period of time, working at the same time, with access to the type of learners you want to focus on, it may work a treat. However, if you are doing a 10-12 week intensive course and not working, then logistically it becomes a lot more difficult.

• Do find out what the drafting procedure is with your centre. (E.g. At Leeds Met, they have a series of mini-deadlines where they take in a draft of each section and comment liberally on it, as well as giving you a tutorial to discuss the feedback for each section. Some centres may take in a complete draft to look and feedback on, rather than doing it in stages.) Then, follow it!! Meet all the deadlines, take every opportunity to get feedback/guidance. This will help you fashion something that meets all the pernickety Cambridge criteria.

• Do read the Delta handbook for Module 3. (I know, it’s at the back of the handbook and, if you are doing all three modules simultaneously, you probably started out with good intentions, but then got bogged down with looking at the Module 1 section and gave up. Skip module 1, save it till later, read module 2 if you are doing module 2 and read module 3. They are shorter sections than module 1 and do contain useful information…)  The module 3 section contains criteria and a series of questions for each section, that your corresponding section is supposed to answer. (At Leeds Met, you do discovery tasks that make you get friendly with these criteria and questions by making you answer questions about them in relation to an example assignment, so you see how they can be answered/embodied. Hopefully your centre will have their own way of helping you get to grips with it all, but, either way, make sure you read the handbook!)

• Do read lots. Find out what the key texts related to your specialism are (your centre may give you guidance on this – at Leeds Met we got a lengthy reading list divided into specialisms) and get them out of a library or cheaply from Amazon marketplace.

• Do also think about issues that relate to your specialism e.g. for English-speaking Environment, issues such as intercultural competence, English as a Lingua Franca and culture shock are all relevant.

• Do use journals and professional magazines as well as books – these contain up-to-date articles and are much quicker to read than books. With ELT Journal, for example, you can do a database search and find articles that are relevant to your specialism and to individual section principles/theory: some will be oldies but goodies, some will be very up-to-date.  A mixture of both is recommended.

• Do think about your writing style. Are you using the correct way of referencing? Is your writing accessible enough? (Mine was far too academic initially!) You don’t want to include long quotes because the word count is too minimal to allow for it without other things getting lost. Paraphrasing concisely and following it with the reference in brackets is one way of referring to the literature in a word count-effective way.

• Do build your reference list as you go. Be organised about it. (You don’t want to be running around at the last minute looking for all the details of all the books and articles you referred to throughout the essay. You won’t have time…)

• Do refer back to the handbook and see if you are in fact answering those questions that they have listed. Ask someone else to compare your assignment and the questions, to see if you are answering them – you may think you are, but another set of eyes may not agree… (Of course, your tutor will also tell you if are missing important stuff. Hopefully sooner rather than later, but that depends on how the course is organised and when they look at drafts etc.)

Coming soon: Tips for the introduction section!

If you think I am wrong in anything I’ve said or that I’ve missed anything useful from this general overview/intro, then please comment and I will add whatever is missing to this post! 🙂 But more specific stuff will come when I deal with each section individually…