Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Minor

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is a six-course minor that provides essential training for the challenging task of teaching the English language at home or abroad in private language schools, community centers or bilingual programs, and in other contexts that do not require state certification. A minor in TESOL incorporates important pedagogical training that prepares students to teach English with both cultural and linguistic sensitivity. This minor opens doors to opportunities to travel, live, and work around the globe. Students who are interested in TESOL might also be interested in studying linguistics, including areas such as dialectology and forensic linguistics.  While completion of a TESOL minor does not certify students to teach English as a second or foreign language, it does offer undergraduate students numerous professional and volunteer opportunities. TESOL can be combined with any number of majors or minors and enhances students' applications for fellowships such as the Fulbright. The coursework also provides general background for related graduate study and equips students to serve as English language teachers in the United States and in other countries.

As an increasingly interdisciplinary field, Linguistics is closely related to many other academic fields including Autism Studies, Classical and Modern Languages, Communication Studies, Computer Science, Criminal Justice, Education, English, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and TESOL.  Students of Linguistics often pursue careers as clinical psychologists, educators, information technology specialists, lawyers, linguists, marketing and advertising consultants, social workers, speech pathologists, speech therapists, teachers, translators and interpreters.