Courses/Syllabi
» ENGL 509: MULTILITERACIES FOR MULTIPROFICIENT EL’S: This course provides classroom practitioners with strategies for meaningful parental involvement in 21st century schools increasingly witnessing demographic shifts towards minority-majority students. The course provides teachers with curricular, programmatic, and contextually pertinent strategies based in emerging research in sociolinguistics and multilingual education. Course content equips practitioners with strategies to reduce language minority isolation/exclusion in rural schools particularly and enhance EL academic outcomes generally. The course aims to move beyond defunct unidirectional and deficit models of parental inclusion to bidirectional, reciprocal, parent as strength-focused programs. The course will explore a variety of strategies to reduce cultural incongruence between teachers and students, provide access to gifted/talented programs, and build advocacy for language minority learners. Course training is designed to reduce EL social isolation, promote cultural integration, and instigate school buy-in. Strategies to track the effects of such inclusive models on enhanced EL academic achievement, especially for struggling learners in our highest-need schools, form a core focus of the course. Strategies and frameworks will examine how linguistic pride in low valued heritage languages can be operationalized in a bid to enhance the self-efficacy of EL learners as well as improve parental involvement--especially from low-literacy/oral-only parent cultures. By the end of the course, parents/communities will be viewed not as marginal recipients of district mandates, but rather serve as active co-constructors of student learning. Models of community cultural wealth (familial, social, and linguistic) will ensure co-construction and joint-fostering learning paradigms as well as advocacy for language minority learners. Funds lf knowledge paradigms will provide educators with pedagogical means as well as frameworks with which to leverage cultural backgrounds and values as well as the linguistic currencies of language minority students in today's classrooms, schools and communities.
» ENGL 509: ENGLISH STRUCTURE FOR EDUCATORS: This course aims to acquaint teacher trainees from a variety of content areas with theories, knowledge, and techniques pertaining to the successful teaching of English grammatical structures. The course aims at providing teachers with effective, principles strategies of English grammar instruction targeted at newcomer populations from a variety of academic settings, content areas, and proficiency levels.
» ENGL 528: ESOL TESTS AND MEASUREMENTS: This course introduces students to the area of language tests and evaluating standardized assessment instruments. The aim is to familiarize students with the basis of assessment and the most effective way to prepare EL students to engage in standardized tests.
» ENGL 532: LITERACY AND ESOL READING: The course examines the theories of reading in a second language. Various Models for the effective Acquisition of reading/literacy skills in a second language will constitute an important element of the course as will be improving reading achievement scores for standardized state and national tests for LEP students in rural schools. Students will have to develop a project demonstrating their county’s plan to do this as a county representative.
» ENGL 533: ESOL PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT: This course introduces students to the theory and practice involved in developing and implementing ESOL programs in public schools with diverse newcomer language learners (K-12). In exploring the complexities involved in planning, developing, and implementing an ESOL program, students will be made aware of educational law, funding priorities, as well as the cultural and socio-political factors impacting programmatic and curricular decisions both at the macro level (county, statewide and national) and the micro level (school policies, plans and personnel configurations). The course affords students the opportunity to explore the complexities involved in developing and implementing innovative ESOL programs, and sensitizes students to the cultural conflicts and biases, both social and linguistic, faced by newcomer, multilingual students. To prepare teachers for the actual writing and implementing of an ESOL program where needed, students will be exposed to current program models in the United States, Canada, Eastern Europe, Romania in particular, and Australia.
» ENGL 534: LITERACY AND ESOL WRITING: The course examines the theories of writing/rhetorical expertise in a second language. Various Models for the effective Acquisition of written/rhetorical skills in a second language will constitute an important element of the course as will be improving writing achievement scores for standardized state and national tests for EL students in rural schools. Students will have to develop a project demonstrating their county’s plan to do improve their EL students’ writing potential.
» ENGL 536: PRINCIPLES OF LINGUISTICS: A detailed study of the primary-linguistic systems, including phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics. Students as in all courses will be required to apply the learned-linguistic concepts to practical- language learning problems in their rural LEP populations.
» ENGL 539: SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: Introduction to Second Language Acquisition theory and the application of second language acquisition theory to teaching practices and curricular/program models in rural counties.
» ENGL 547: CURRENT METHODS IN ESOL INSTRUCTION: This course examines the philosophy, aims and methods of teaching English as a second language in grades K-12 with a strong emphasis on theories, techniques and methods of key utility to rural ESOL programs. As likely ESOL-coordinators, students in this course will also have to learn to develop a battery of assessment techniques to assess the efficacy of teaching methods to be adopted by their respective rural counties.
» ENGL 540 (prev. 591): LITERACY AND ESOL LISTENING: This course introduces students interested in questions of language acquisition to the theories and practices relating to learning through listening in another language. Topics include models for acquiring listening skills, teaching strategies for second language literacy development through listening, evaluating listening media materials, evaluating listening development, current research on second language literacy development, and the political and social implications of second language literacy particularly as it pertains to listening.
» ENGL 541 (prev. 591): LITERACY AND ESOL SPEAKING: This course aims to acquaint students with the theories, approaches, methods, and specific techniques concerning the teaching of English as a second language. In effect, it explores the relationship between second language acquisition theory and research on the one hand, and actual classroom language learning and instruction on the other.
Note: These syllabi will provide an idea of course content, but any course requirements and assignments may change at each professor’s discretion.