The courses in the ESL Endorsement Program help educators, who often only speak English, teach non-English speaking students both English and academic content during the same instructional day. Increasing numbers of English-only teachers are welcoming students who represent multiple languages into the same ESL classroom. Frequently surrounded by English-speaking adults and peers with a variety of native languages, these students need especially effective instruction to master a new language, a new culture and each state's academic standards within a relatively short time period.

Throughout the program, educators learn about strategies to effectively address these issues and help students, along with their families, become more integrated into the school and community. Research in the areas of language acquisition, cultural implications, strategies that promote cultural understanding, and teaching practices that meet the needs of English language learners, culture, and high impact teaching strategies are explored and applied in this program, which focuses on strengthening what ESL practitioners do with their students and their families each day.

In Illinois, the full ESL endorsement consists of 28 graduate credit hours in 7 courses (each course is worth 4 quarter hours).

BE501 Foundations of ESL and Bilingual Education
BE502 Assessment of ESL and Bilingual Students
BE503 Methods and Materials for Teaching English as a Second Language
BE504 Cross-Cultural Studies for Teaching Limited-English-Proficient Students
BE505 Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
ES506 Linguistics for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages
BL506 Methods and Materials for Teaching Bilingual Education (required elective for ESL endorsement candidate)

IL Endorsement students must complete a 100-hour internship.

Illinois ESL Endorsement	7 courses	Tuition cost: $4,060
Florida ESL Endorsement	6 courses	Tuition cost: $3,480
Georgia ESL Endorsement	7 courses	Tuition cost: $4,060
Louisiana ESL Endorsement	4 courses	Tuition cost: $2,320

NOTE: The above tuition figures are tuition only. Costs do not include application fee or per payment processing fees.

In order to request an approval, complete the top portion of the form ISBE 73-49 Request for Approval as a Bilingual or ESL Teacher (.PDF). There is no fee for the approval application. The approval application may either be mailed directly to Springfield or may be submitted to a Regional Office of Education. All evaluations are completed in the Springfield office.

In order to apply for an endorsement, complete the form ISBE 73-52 Application for Endorsement of Issued Certificate (.PDF). All endorsement applications must be accompanied by a $30 fee. Once an endorsement has been granted, the certificate will be reprinted to include the addition of the new endorsement(s). All middle-grade endorsements require six semester hours of middle-grade coursework in addition to the subject content requirement.

Each student will be responsible for obtaining the appropriate endorsement certificate from his/her respective State Department of Education.