Hello everybody!
I'm Dr. Helen Davis. I'm the Interim
Department Director
for the Education Department
at UCLA Extension, and I'm very pleased
to introduce our program.
We have a program for Teaching English
to Speakers of Other Languages,
also known as TESOL. Today we're going to
talk to you a little bit about
what people enjoy about our program, and
what you can do
with the certificate. I'm pleased to
introduce my colleague, Kris Lambert.
Hi, I'm Kris Lambert, and I'm an
instructor at UCLA Extension, and I'm
happy to be with you today to
talk to you a little bit about our TESOL program.
So we're here to talk today about an
introduction to the TESOL program
at UCLA Extension. The TESOL program
has six courses--an introductory course,
four core courses, and one practicum
portfolio course.
I'm very excited to talk with
Kris Lambert, one of
our distinguished instructors.
She will tell us a lot about the parts
that the students like the best.
In particular, I think one of the
real
strengths of our program is that we have
a short course at the beginning of the
TESOL certificate,
and the short course goes through some
critical pieces about how to observe
in a classroom,
and also about how to create
lesson plans.
Kris, tell us a little about
that first short course.
Absolutely, so the introduction
course is really a key course to the
program
because it helps all the students become
familiar with
what is expected in the entire program.
It's a two-week course, and again the
whole program is
fully online, which is fantastic because
students can work from anywhere in the
world to get 
this certificate. The two-week
introduction course
will go over what is needed for
observations, and this entire program
does require in-class observations.
So, we brainstorm about where you can
observe and
what to look for in your observation
that is critical to each core course.
The students will also be
making video lessons, and this is a key
component to
our entire instruction, and it's
fantastic to be able to share these
videos.
We take a subject, depending on whatever
course
they are in, they record themselves
teaching--this can be in front of friends,
or family, or even an audience if they
have one,
and then they have to present
that lesson
to their classmates. So this helps to
give them real-world
experience, even though they're not
in a classroom yet, and then
also the observations in each of
the courses
help them to have a critical eye about
what they need to
focus on when they are actually teaching.
So Kris, tell me a little bit about how
these observations
are happening in the time of COVID, and
whether that component of the program
has changed a little bit,
and also tell me a little bit about how
the observations happen when
it's possible to get into the classroom.
Absolutely.
So because of COVID, we've
been a little flexible,
and each core course has a list
of online observations. And those are
unique
to each core course because that
instructor needs to decide
what it is his or her students should be
looking for
specifically in an observation. So during
COVID, they will be observing
online courses that are chosen from
the instructor,
and then when our life gets back to
normal,
they will be given a chance
to actually go
into a classroom to observe, which
obviously is what we would
ideally prefer them to do, and they would
brainstorm. It's up to them because
people in this course
are taking these courses from all
over the world, so
you are responsible for kind of seeking
out where you
can observe--whether it's
the local library where there are
English courses, the local university,
the elementary school, the private school
down the street--
each student is going to be required to
seek
those observations out, and then they
will be
guided on what exactly they should be
looking for,
and they will write up a report after
they observe.
I keep hearing students tell
me that this
short course, the introduction to the
TESOL program,
is really fabulous. Can you talk
a little bit about why the students
connect so well to this class?
Absolutely. So first of all, having this
introduction course really
puts students at ease. They make a
connection
with me, the instructor in that course.
They can call me, they can have a Zoom
call with me
we can email back and forth. I
give them whatever support they need
to be successful in the program. So a lot
of times when you start a new program,
you're not really sure what to
expect, there's a lot of anxiety that
goes along with that.
So this introduction course really
alleviates that anxiety,
and they are also really
getting to know their other classmates,
so there's a whole group
of students that go through the courses
together.
So they become friends with each other,
they
network, and often even it could lead
to a job at the end through the
connections that they've made in the
program.
Thank you so much Kris. Let me tell you
a little bit more about
the required courses. There are four core
courses.
There are six total courses in the
program,
and when you do all six that's the
completion of your certificate.
The short course, the introductory, is at
the beginning,
and then you take four core courses. You
can take them in any order,
and then there is a practicum portfolio
at the end
that combines the practicum experiences
that you've had in each of the core
courses.
Kris, could you talk a little bit about
what those
core courses bring to the student
who wants to be a teacher to speakers of
other languages?
Absolutely. So again what you said was each of the
four core courses can be taken in
any order, and that is key because often
we have students who are trying to
get through this program really quickly,
and then other times we have students
who have
normal day jobs that can't execute
their program all at once and so
they'll take one class at a time, maybe
over a couple year period,
while other people are trying to get
this done quickly
within a year and even less than a year.
So each
core course is specific to
a different subject. For example, one of
them is Methods
of Teaching English as a Second Language,
and in that course
that instructor goes through all the
methods that you should be familiar with
when teaching, as well as a
guided video lesson that you will create
that incorporates what you've learned
about the methods.
One of my favorite courses is the
Cultural Perspectives and Teaching
Methods course 
because it's a course
not just about strategies for how to
present material to people who are
learning English,
it's also about the broader
context language is culturally embedded
and so there are language
pieces that have to do with cultural
values, that have to do with modes of
interacting with people,
communication, pragmatics of
communication,
and this course really gives a good
framework
of the understanding of cultural
differences
and how learning a language has to
include
that whole context.
The Introduction to Linguistics
course is
how to teach some of the logistical
parts
of language having to do with the way
that our language is constructed
in terms of grammar,
in terms of language pragmatics.
So this is really a theoretical basis to
the English language to support the
teachers who are going to be teaching
English to people who have not had
the natural experience with English.
One of my favorite courses to teach is the
Technologies course,
and this course, I've heard from so
many students
that it has helped them immensely during
this time of COVID,
where some people were teaching in the
classroom and who have now
gone to fully online teaching. The
Technologies course goes over
video recording,
assessments online,
Kahoot apps, Duolingo
apps, and just a multitude of ways to
connect with your
students in the classroom
through all the changing
technology today.
And the other important thing about this
class is it's
constantly changing and constantly being
updated,
so no two quarters are alike. Because
of our changing society,
the course is constantly being updated
with
what's going on today in our society,
with our latest apps, with our
latest technology, and it's such a fun,
creative course to be a part of.
And then finally
I'd like to tell you about the practicum
portfolio, and this course brings everything
together
that students have done in all of the
core courses,
and it's brought together in one
cohesive digital portfolio.
I have one student who actually said she
got a
job offer from what she
created in her digital practicum
portfolio,
and interestingly enough she did such a
fantastic
video editing job on her portfolio that
she got
a job offer in teaching but
that had to do with video editing, so you
never know where
these courses are going to lead you, and
she's doing that now
before she actually lands her dream job
in the classroom.
But that was all because of the
practicum portfolio, and how we work
together to put
all the core pieces together in a
digital portfolio.
Kris, this digital practicum
portfolio
draws from practicum experiences that
happen in
each of the core courses, and
can you tell me a little bit about the
kinds of projects people do?
Yes, so the practicum really caters
toward each
individual student, and the reason
why is
because we want them to actually hit
their goals with whatever job it is that
they're trying
to land, or whatever they need
to be successful in their career.
So, oftentimes we have people who are
excited to
work in the classroom, and it's almost a
digital
resume so to speak. It takes components
from each of the core courses,
again we decide together, the instructor
and the students decide,
along with the core teachers,
on what would best showcase their best
work. They combine those together,
many of them do a Prezi presentation
or some of them develop their
own website.
They also integrate their videos from
each class.
They put an introduction as well
as a
final wrap-up, and depending again
on what it is they are trying to
accomplish, that digital
portfolio will be geared toward that.
Kris, I have another question for you about the kinds of jobs that people get
with a TESOL Certificate and where
they work in the world.
So the TESOL Certificate nowadays is
really very necessary.
Some people are looking to work at
private schools
teaching English as a second language,
some people are wanting to retire
and move to Spain to teach English.
No matter what your goal is, if you are wanting to teach
English,
it's pretty important that you have the
certificate.
If you are a normal elementary school
teacher
or a secondary school teacher, many of
those students are also coming back
to get a supplementary TESOL certificate
to accompany their regular teaching
credential.
So when I ask students later on who have
actually been employed
from this if this was necessary,
I've had almost everybody tell me that
it is. Again it depends on if you're
teaching at a private school, or
if you're teaching at a public school, so
you would have to reach out
to the school that you are wanting to
work at and ask them
what is required, but it is
very important, not only for the
certificate, but also for your own
confidence as a teacher to have gone
through this program where you feel like
you can indeed
teach, and you have all of these great
ideas and great skills that
you have learned through the program.
You've talked about
students teaching in a variety of
settings.
They're teaching in schools, they're
teaching in the corporate world,
they're teaching in the community.
This might be
in the United States, might be abroad.
Kris, can people teach children and
adults with this certificate?
Absolutely. That's the great thing about
the certificate, it's for every age.
One of the questions
that we
get a lot is how is a TESOL Certificate 
different from
a certificate that allows you to teach
English language learners in the K-12
system?
In the United States, that is a part of
the credential
for teachers. So a TESOL Certificate
is in the United States, not what you
need
for the credential to teach K-12
English language learners.
Teachers in the United States who are
credentialed teachers in K-12
also benefit
from having a TESOL Certificate.
Especially in California, the TESOL
Certificate
is really valued with all of our English
language learners that are in the public
school system
and the private school system. So if you
are
a credentialed K-12 teacher, which this
is a certificate this is different than
being a
credentialed K-12 teacher, this
will certainly supplement and help
to get you hired.
Kris how is our TESOL program different
from other TESOL programs?
The TESOL program
at UCLA Extension is so unique
because it combines
so many different components of teaching
that in my experience, normal TESOL
Certificates don't.
You have the component of the
introductory class,
you have the component of the
observations,
and you also have the uniqueness of the
video
and interaction in every single course.
So the students in this program really
get to know each other, they get to know
their
instructors, and they have a unique
sense of community that I don't feel
most
programs do. We also,
the brainstorming of ideas
and just the networking that happens
in this program
is very unique and what makes this
program so successful.
One of the things that I get really
excited about with the program
is that the instructors are pretty
connected and have had regular meetings
to
talk about what do we want this program
to do,
what do we want to have
students experience from one course to the other.
I agree and I think the instructors
being connected
and also the instructors being excited
about the program
really flows over to the students.
The instructors are all
available, so instead of being a
number in a course,
you are really part of a course that is
connecting on a daily basis.
Again, I connect directly with each one
of my students, whether it's
via Zoom, over the phone,
email, all the time I have a direct
connection with each student, so you're
not just a number in a classroom which
can be sometimes
isolating when you're when you're
in an online course,
and these courses do not feel isolating
at all.
What is the difference between our TESOL
certificate and a TESL TEFL
it's called TESOL, but by getting the
certificate
you are prepared also to teach in
another country.
A TESOL certificate is Teaching English
to Speakers
of Other Languages, and it covers
speakers in all countries, so it's
designed
to give you the skills to be able to
present English and help people to learn English,
whether or not they're living here in
the United States or whether they're
living
in their home countries.
TESL and TEFL are
two subparts of of the whole of TESOL.
TESL is Teaching English
to Second Language Learners, so that
would be
people who live in the United States and
are English language learners.
TEFL is Teaching English as a Foreign Language,
so that would be people who
are perhaps living in their home country
where their home language is not English.
So TESOL combines both TESL
and TEFL into one coordinated approach.
