One of the things you soon start to realise is that you have to do a lot of reading on the programme! It can be expensive if you want to buy all the books, so it's a good idea to find out about the books first so that you only buy the ones that will be the most useful for you to have your own copy. You can find full course descriptors on http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/crd/tesol/programmes/MEd-Contact.html   (these are pdf files)

Useful books for general study:

Cottrell, S 2003 The Study Skills Handbook Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Essential books

TESOL Methodology

Carter, R. and Nunan, D 2001. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harmer, J. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. (3rd edition) Harlow: Longman.

Hedge, T. 2000. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Richards, J.C. and Renandya, W.A. 2002. Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The TESOL Curriculum

Brown, J.D. 1995,  The Elements of Language Curriculum. Heinle and Heinle,

Richards J. 2001, Curriculum Development. Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press,

TESOL and the Learner

Ellis, R.  1994 The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Mitchell, R. and Myles, F. 2004 Second Language Learning Theories. (2^nd ed) London: Edward Arnold

Language Education Research Methods

McDonough, J. and S. McDonough. 1997. Research Methods for English Language Teachers. London: Arnold.

Text and Discourse for TESOL 

Cutting, J. 2007. Pragmatics and Discourse (2^nd edition). Routledge: London.

The Evaluation and Design of TESOL Materials

McGrath, I. 2002  Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Tomlinson, B.  (ed) 1998  Materials Development in Language Teaching.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.