TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) with Teaching Credential

Overview

The TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) with Teaching Credential program at University of San Francisco aims to develop professional practitioners with expertise in three key areas:

• Conceptual knowledge: linguistics and applied linguistics; language acquisition; language variation, first and second language acquisition, cross-linguistic differences; bilingualism/multilingualism

• Theoretical knowledge: Critical language studies and sociocultural theory, linguistic rights, linguistic hegemony, and linguistic/cultural pluralism, critical and multicultural pedagogies

• Application skills: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation skills for teaching and research, program/policy

Graduates with TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) with Teaching Credential from University of San Francisco will be able to:

• Develop awareness of classroom teaching as a complex endeavor that involves understanding of curricular knowledge, diverse learners, high leverage pedagogies, classroom community/leadership, multiple forms of assessment, and the contexts of schooling.

• Contemplate the different purposes of education and one’s own classroom teaching, and the implications for our role as teachers that foster our students’ growth as humane, competent, and empowered learners.

• Understand the connections among theories, principles, and classroom practice and critique the assumptions that underlie them.

• Understand institutional, systemic forces of racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression and how they play out in classrooms and schools.

• Develop a critically reflective teacher identity with the ability to question one’s own assumptions.