Online Bilingual & ESL Courses for Endorsements

Are You Interested in Learning More About Bilingual/ESL Students?

The State of Illinois is experiencing a growing need for qualified teachers to work with students whose native languages are not English. If you would like to add to your existing teaching certificate a qualification to teach English langugae learners, we are ready to help you. If you are an administrator, supervisor, or counselor, we welcome you as well.

Post-baccalaureate students who are not pursuing an endorsement but who are interested in the topics of our courses are also welcome to enroll in them.

The College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers a cutting-edge, convenient online option for students seeking their Bilingual and/or ESL Teaching Endorsements. Offered through the Department of Curriculum & Instruction (C&I), we currently provide four of the five courses that meet the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) requirements for Bilingual and ESL teaching endorsements. Only individuals who already have their bachelor's degrees may enroll in the CI online courses. Each course carries 4 hours of graduate credit. The fifth online course (EIL 486: Linguistics for Language Teachers) currently is offered by the Department of Linguistics also at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. To find out more information about the fifth online course, please contact the Linguistics Department at deptling@illinois.edu.

Although we emphasize our online program here, it is also possible to craft your own endorsement program out of a mix of UIUC online and on-campus courses. If you have already begun an endorsement program elsewhere, you are welcome to use our courses to complete your requirements.

Note: New to online? We can help! There will be online training/orientation for all registered students prior to the course start dates.

Bilingual & ESL Inquiries: beslonline@illinois.edu