TEACHING BILINGUAL OR ESL

Bilingual and ESL teachers are in high demand in today’s schools. As a result, NTEC offers several teacher certification programs leading to a teaching license (currently, in Illinois or Wisconsin) and either a Bilingual or an ESL endorsement, including:

• Master of Science in Education Traditional Track

• Master of Science in Education Alternative Certification Track

• Bachelor’s Completion Program

Most bilingual graduate students participate in the alternative certification track because students in that track are able to work as full-time, paid teachers beginning in the second semester of the program.

While related, bilingual and ESL teachers provide different services to English Language Learners (ELLs) in K-12 schools.

The Role of a Bilingual Teacher

Many students either begin school with limited English or transfer into schools from other countries. Like any other student, these students need to learn Math, Science, History, English, Reading, and a range of other subjects; however, if they can not understand their teachers, they are not able to learn.

Bilingual teachers work with ELLs using a combination of English and the students' native language to ensure that these students do not fall behind in content-area instruction while they are learning English.

In many schools, there are levels of bilingual instruction designed to meet the needs of students. For example, first-year bilingual students might receive the majority of their instruction in their native language, while third-year bilingual students receive the majority of their instruction in English from a teacher who can reinforce instruction in the students' native language, if necessary.

The Role of an ESL Teacher

While bilingual teachers ensure that ELLs do not fall behind in content-area instruction, ESL instructors work with these students to help them learn English. As such, an ESL teacher does not need to speak the native languages of his or her students. Rather, the ESL teacher needs a repertoire of instructional strategies designed to help students transition from their native languages to English. For example, an ESL teacher understands the differences between the grammatical structure of students' native languages and English, and he or she uses strategies designed to help students recognize those differences.