The 21st-century classroom is diverse, inclusive, and equitable. You can help students succeed in today’s ever-changing landscape. Strengthen your professional practice by adding an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Endorsement that will help you serve your students, their families, and their communities as a whole. Engage with English learners in supportive, sustainable ways. 

Serve your students, their families, and communities by understanding how to effectively engage with English learners in humanizing and holistic ways. Tailored for your busy schedule, afternoon and evening courses are offered all four academic terms. Completing the ESOL endorsement prepares you to serve in roles such as ESOL Teachers, ESOL Specialists, and other education professionals, paraprofessionals, and consultants in the field.

You will be guided through the following six areas that are built upon the standards established by the professional organization TESOL (Teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages):

1. Know your learners by tactfully probing, learning about, and building upon your students’ family-provided and perhaps also previous-schooling-provided memories and experiences
2. Create conditions for language learning
3. Design high-quality lessons for language development
4. Adapt lesson delivery as needed
5. Monitor and assess student language development
6. Engage and collaborate within a community of practice (TESOL, 2018) 

Drawing from the most current research in the field, gain insights into the historical and legal foundations that underpin and inform our work with English learners.

Program benefits

• Gain a greater understanding of how identity, history, and culture affect the teaching and learning process
• Identify cultural and linguistic factors affecting student engagement, development, and learning
• Translate theory learned in the classroom to your field experience
• Develop strategies for assessment, curriculum development, and instruction to help all students learn
• Understand the ways systemic oppression and privilege are expressed in educational settings
• Establish ways to foster strong relationships with students, their families, and their communities
• Enjoy convenient, hybrid scheduling for working professionals, including face-to-face and online learning environments where students learn individually and in groups
• Experience incredible value: Learn from committed teachers who have scholarly expertise and advanced degrees—and do so in convenient locations and at an accessible price

The Added Secondary endorsement program allows you to earn a second endorsement that can be included on your Oregon teaching license. Upon completing the program’s requirements of satisfying prerequisite content-area knowledge courses, passing the appropriate NES test, taking a content-area teaching methods course, and completing a 90-hour practicum, the COE will recommend that the Teachers Standards and Practices Commission add the endorsement to your teaching license.

The Added Secondary endorsement program's methods courses take place on campus. The winter practicum may take place in person or remotely.

The Added Secondary endorsement program is designed for individuals who hold a valid Oregon teaching license issued by the state’s Teacher Standards and Practices Commission to add an endorsement to their license. Currently, individuals can add an endorsement in one of the following content areas: Advanced Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, English Language Arts, Foundational Mathematics, Foundational Science, Foundational Social Studies, Integrated Science, Music, Physics, Social Studies, World Language: Chinese, World Language: French, World Language: German, and World Language: Spanish World Language: Russian, World Language: Japanese.

Teachers who are eligible to apply: This program has limited capacity. Priority will be given to Oregon Licensed teachers who are PSU College of Education graduates. Next level priority will be given to those teaching in their own classrooms and do not need PSU to find them a placement. All candidates must be able to attend methods class on PSU’s campus one evening per week in the fall term.