Faculty Development

Letter for Adjuncts

August 17, 2004

TO: USFSP College of Education Adjuncts and New Faculty

FROM: Dr. Vivian Fueyo, Dean

SUBJECT: ESOL Infusion Requirements

We are pleased that you are part of our faculty at USF St. Petersburg, and we depend on your strong content knowledge and teaching skills to prepare teachers who strive for excellence in educating students from diverse backgrounds. One facet of student diversity is teaching pupils who are limited English proficient (LEP), and our college is committed to ensuring that our graduates are ready to support LEP students' language development and academic achievement.

As a result of this commitment, students who complete our Elementary, English, and Special Education initial certification degree programs now graduate with the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) endorsement. As of July 1, 2004, this is a requirement of all Florida teacher education institutions that grant degrees in those fields.

Previously the ESOL endorsement required 15 graduate credits of coursework or 300 clock hours of in-service in ESOL Methods, ESOL Testing, ESOL Curriculum, Applied Linguistics, and Cross-Cultural Issues for ESOL. Recently, however, institutions have been given the option to require the 5 courses or to implement an infusion approach.

An infusion approach reduces the number of ESOL Education credit hours, by incorporating content from the 5 ESOL courses into other classes and field experiences, including ESOL as a natural part of all the curriculum and instruction, not as an adjunct. This means that instead of taking 15 credits in ESOL Education, our students complete 7 hours of ESOL Education coursework. The Florida Department of Education mandates other elements of infused programs to compensate for the reduction of ESOL Education course credits. These requirements include the infusion of ESOL into most Education (& some content) courses, early & late ESOL field experiences, a formative and summative evaluation system for the 25 ESOL Performance Standards, and faculty development for those teaching ESOL-infused courses and supervising ESOL field experiences.

Because you teach a course that infuses ESOL competencies, your cooperation in implementing the infusion plan is critical. The departmental syllabus of your course has added ESOL readings and assignments that address ESOL issues. In addition, students are required to modify any assignments that focus on the development of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to meet the needs of LEP students at various levels of English proficiency.

To ensure that you are using the appropriate syllabus with the infused ESOL assignments, please contact your program area representative listed below. In addition, if you have taken any ESOL workshops through in-service or college coursework, please provide your program contact with documentation. If you have not completed ESOL faculty development (the equivalent of 60 in-service points or 3 credits), please speak with your contact to discuss a variety of options for meeting this Florida Department of Education requirement such as the ESOL TAPESTRY website, distance learning, etc

You may also refer to our ESOL infusion website at http://www.fcit.usf.edu/esol for more information on the ESOL infusion effort.

The program area representatives are:

Elementary bachelor's and master's programs--Drs. Cynthia Leung leung@stpt.usf.edu and Margaret Hewitt hewitt@stpt.usf.edu

Special Education bachelor's programs--Dr. Kim Stoddard stoddard@stpt.usf.edu
Special Education master's programs--Dr. Lyman Dukes ldukes@stpt.usf.edu

English Education (all programs)--Dr. Eve Kleiser ekleiser@bayflash.stpt.usf.edu

Foundations, Measurement, C & I, Math, Science, and Social Studies--Dr. Brett Jones bjones@bayflash.stpt.usf.edu

Any of these faculty may also be reached at (727) 553-4155.

Your cooperation in meeting the requirements for the ESOL endorsement through infusion will enable us to meet accreditation criteria for SACS, NCATE, and the Florida Department of Education. At this critical time in the expansion of our college, your help is needed in providing a cohesive, consistent curriculum. I thank you in advance for your assistance.