EXPLANATION: ISD ESOL/Bilingual Concentration Master’s Degree Program

and Master’s plus K-12 ESOL Certification Option

THESIS

What’s the difference between the Master’s and the Master’s plus K-12 ESOL certification option?

Students who plan to continue their academic study (Ph.D) and/or teach in ESL and EFL programs at community colleges, university ESL language programs, and for ESL/EFL institutes, schools, companies, and government agencies, both in the U.S. and abroad, need only take the Master’s program.

Adding the K-12 ESOL certification option to the Master’s allows the student to do all of the above plus be eligible to teach in K-12 ESOL programs where public school teaching certification is required. Our program meets all State of Maryland Department of Education requirements for K-12 ESOL certification. It is an approved certification program and is reciprocal in many states. It is also valid in international K-12 schools where U.S. accredited certification is required.

Which track takes the longest to complete?

There are 10 courses plus 6 semester hours of Master’s thesis research (36 semester hours) required for the Master’s degree.

The Master’s plus K-12 ESOL certification option addstwo more courses plus one semester of student teaching to the program. These two courses (e.g., linguistics, English grammar, language learning) can be waived if the student has previously taken them either for graduate or undergraduate credit at another institution. Students in the K-12 ESOL certification track also need to have 6 semester hours of undergraduate foreign language study. And finally, the student must take the PRAXIS Core Battery Tests.

Is it possible to be in the certification track and not in the master’s program?

No.

Note: It is important that students planning to pursue the thesis track begin, with the

help of their ESOL/Bilingual program advisor, to define and develop their thesis topic as early as possible. Well before the completion of the course requirements for the thesis track, preferable before or at the mid-way point of the student’s program, the student should select a thesis advisor from the program’s graduate faculty. The student should work carefully with the advisor on the development of a thesis proposal, the selection of the thesis committee, the conducting of the research, and the writing of the thesis.