波士顿大学

The Bilingual Education program prepares students to become teachers of English as a second language (ESL) at the elementary or middle/high school level through a comprehensive course of study which includes a strong arts and sciences component with emphasis on linguistics, culture, and a minor in a foreign language or other appropriate area selected in consultation with the academic advisor; professional education courses combining theory and practice; and specialization courses focusing on first- and second-language acquisition, literary instruction and assessment, and curriculum development. The program provides students the opportunity to apply the theoretical concepts learned during their coursework in supervised field placements in elementary, middle, or high school ESL, Dual Language, or Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) classrooms.

The program of study is carefully designed to enable students to meet both the BU Hub capacities and the requirements that enable Boston University to recommend students to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for teaching licenses at the Initial Level as teachers of English as a Second Language. Fulfillment of licensure requirements in the program can lead to licensure in states with which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has reciprocity.

Students completing requirements for licensure in Elementary Education, English Education, or History Education, who wish to meet requirements for licensure as a teacher of English as a Second Language can do so by completing requirement specified below, in the section labeled “Add-On ESL licensure.”

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to: Set specific, measurable, and realistic objectives for a lesson; Develop lesson and unit plans in which objectives, assessment plans, and lesson activities are well aligned with one another; Design lessons and unit plans that are informed by key aspects of theory and research on English learner (EL) education; Use key linguistic and academic standards (including the Common Core State Standards, Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, and WIDA English Language Standards) to determine appropriate goals for their English learners according to their English proficiency and grade levels; Plan and execute lesson activities that are informed by key second-language research and teaching methods; Employ a variety of language and literacy assessments to identify ELs’ needs and to determine progress toward specific goals; Provide explicit ELD (English language development) instruction as preplanned lessons and as impromptu “focus on form” mini-lessons; Make plan lessons that integrate technology to make linguistic input comprehensible to English learners; Collaborate effectively with general education teachers to provide linguistic scaffolding to English learners in the context of general education classrooms; Choose pedagogical materials that are culturally relevant for their students; Identify the support services to which English learners are legally entitled and will be able to advocate for their rights when such services are not adequately provided; Critically reflect on their instruction and identify concrete strategies to improve their teaching; Employ a variety of methods to effectively communicate and collaborate with ELs’ parents as partners in their children’s education.