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Head of Department: Jerome L. Packard
2090-A Foreign Languages Building
707 South Mathews Avenue, Rm. 2090-A
Urbana, IL 61801
(217) 244-1432
E-mail: ealc@uiuc.edu
Graduate Degree Programs
The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures offers academic
programs in the languages and the humanistic cultures of China, Japan,
and Korea, and of the East Asian region, leading to the Master of
Arts in Asian Studies and the Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages
and Cultures.
Admission
Applicants to the graduate program must submit an application for
admission, full transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate work
completed, Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores (verbal, quantitative,
and analytical), and three letters of reference completed by teachers,
advisers, or recent employers. Applicants are expected to have a strong
background in at least one East Asian language; normally, this means
a minimum of two years of formal study. Students whose native language
is not English must take the Test of English as a Foreign Language
(TOEFL) and must score at least 610 on the paper-based TOEFL (253
on the computer-based test) to be eligible for admission with full
standing. Admission is possible only for the fall semester.
Graduate Teaching Experience
Although teaching is not a general Graduate College requirement, experience
in teaching is considered an important part of the graduate experience
in this program. Therefore, applicants are requested to include information
on teaching background as part of the application, and students can
normally be expected to teach at least one semester as part of their
graduate experience.
Master of Arts
Candidates must complete 32 hours of graduate-level courses, including
EALC 500–Proseminar in East Asian Languages and Cultures, two
500-level courses in the major field including at least one research
seminar, and at least two other courses at the 500 level in East Asian
studies or related courses that satisfy distribution requirements.
Candidates must also demonstrate a knowledge of one East Asian language
at the fourth-year level by satisfactory completion of appropriate
(400-level) coursework or examination and passage of a written examination
covering material studied while in residence. No thesis is required.
Doctor of Philosophy
Applicants to the Ph.D. program normally must hold a master’s
degree in East Asian studies or a related discipline with an East
Asian concentration. Candidates for the Ph.D. may specialize in culture
(e.g., religion, literature, history), language acquisition, or language
pedagogy, with a major concentration in China, Japan, or Korea.
The Ph.D. requires a total of 96 gh, or 64 gh if the student
has earned a masters degree in EALC at the University of Illinois
or its equivalent at a comparable institution. The 64 required gh
include: EALC 500–Proseminar in East Asian Languages and Cultures;
24 additional gh at the 500 level, 8 of which must be research
seminars; and 36 additional graduate hours, any number of which
may be dissertation research (EALC 599) units. This yields a total
of 64 graduate level hours, which must be completed with a minimum
GPA of 3.5. At least 16 of the gh, outside of EALC 599, must
be in the major field, defined by culture and discipline (e.g., Chinese
history, Japanese literature, Korean language pedagogy).
The above requirements also include two courses on a second East Asian
culture and two courses in a second discipline, as well as fulfillment
of the language requirement. The Ph.D. language requirement involves
mastery of one East Asian language (reading and oral-aural) and a
basic reading ability in a second East Asian language. The requirement
for the second language may be fulfilled either by passing the appropriate
third-year (300-level) course in the language, or by examination.
In addition, Ph.D. students whose primary focus is Japan are required
to take one year of classical Japanese, and those whose primary focus
is China are required to take one year of classical Chinese. Language
courses at the 400 and 500 level carry graduate credit and may be
counted toward degree requirements, as long as they are not also used
to fulfill the language requirement.
Other general requirements are: a formal review of progress, including
an evaluation of research capability, at the end of the first year
in the program; a written and oral preliminary examination in the
major and two minor fields (after completion of coursework); presentation
of a dissertation proposal (often as part of the preliminary exam);
and completion and defense of the dissertation.
Financial Aid
The Department makes every effort to assist graduate students in securing
financial aid. Financial aid packages usually combine some form of
fellowships with teaching or research assistantships in a manner that
allows for both teaching experience and timely completion of the degree.
In recent years, the vast majority of EALC graduate students have
received some form of financial support. Financial aid for graduate
students in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures may
include: University Fellowships, Foreign Language and Area Studies
(FLAS) Fellowships, University Dissertation Completion Fellowships,
Minority Academic Partnership Plan (MAPP) Fellowships, teaching assistantships,
and research assistantships. All awards of financial aid are made
following competitive application. |
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