ESL Studies Certificate

The certificate in English as a Second Language Studies aims to improve the preparation of instructors in junior colleges, colleges, and private schools. This certificate differs from the College of Education's Add-On ESOL Endorsement for state certified public school teachers, although it covers two of the five required courses for an Add-On ESOL Endorsement. (Add-On means this endorsement can be added to an existing teaching certificate from the State of Florida). Our approach is to increase students’ linguistic knowledge in general and that of English in particular, so that they may better appreciate the structure of English and that of the first language(s) of their students.

The Certificate in English as a Second Language Studies may be awarded in conjunction with an academic major at the graduate and undergraduate levels, or to students holding a BA or higher degree. This certificate shows a student’s concentration in ESL studies. All courses taken in the curriculum may be applied toward other general and specific graduation requirements. ESL courses in our curriculum which were taken to fulfill other requirements at FAU may be applied to the certificate. All courses counting toward the certificate must be completed with a grade of B- or better and with an over-all average of B. The curriculum consists of the following prerequisites, which may be taken concurrently with other courses in the program, if they have not already been satisfied:

ENC 3310 Advanced Exposition (required for teaching English certification) or equivalent taken at another accredited institution (3 credits)

LIN 3010 Introduction to Linguistics or equivalent taken elsewhere (3 credits). A competency exam may be required. FOL 3880 Research and Bibliographic Methods (2-3 credits) is strongly recommended for students who have not had such a course, but it is not required.

The following list of 15 credit hours comprises the required core courses. One equivalent 3-credit course may be transferred from another accredited institution or program.

LIN 4680 Structure of English
*LIN 6720 Second Language Acquisition
LIN 4620 Bilingualism
TSL 4251 Applied Linguistics and TESOL
TSL 5345 Methods of Teaching TESOL (or ENC 6700 for English GTA's)
The last two TSL courses are also part of the College Education’s Add-On Endorsement for state certified public school teachers.

If some of the core courses have been taken elsewhere the student may meet the 15 credit minimum requirement for the ESL Studies Certificate from the following list with the advice and consent of the program head.

*LIN 6107 History of the English Language
*LIN 6385 Morphology & Syntax
LIN 4326 Contrastive Phonology
FRE/GER/SPN 4850 Structure of Modern French/German/Spanish
(*Undergraduates will take LIN 4905 DIS (variable title) for these graduate courses.)

For more information, contact the director of the program, Dr. Robert Trammell (561-297-3867; trammell@fau.edu) Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.