Due to an influx of multilingual students over the past three years, District 225 has implemented a Multilingual Learners Department, along with recommendations for World Language teachers to acquire a Bilingual Endorsement, Christine Anderson, Multilingual Learners Assistant Director said.

The District has made graduate courses available in order to get a Bilingual Endorsement or an English Second Language (ESL) available for language teachers to better serve Multilingual Learners at South, Anderson said.

The endorsement requires 18 hours of credit, as well as 100 hours of clinical clock hours that are verified by the respective university, Spanish Teacher Gabby Mikos said.

This will allow teachers to teach specific skills to multilingual learners that will improve the rest of their learning, she added.
Once receiving the ESL Certificate, the requirement is only a few more courses to gain the Bilingual Endorsement,

Danita Fitch, Instructional Supervisor of World Languages, said. Although the extra courses are not a District-mandated requirement, most language teachers are taking them to strengthen their teaching, Fitch explained.

“A bilingual license will give [teachers] an additional benefit [because we will be] able to count those courses as bilingual courses [which] helps [the multilingual learners]” Fitch said.

Teaching multilingual learners is often more difficult.

“You have to also take into account that you’re teaching the language at the same time as you’re teaching content.” Mikos said.

In order to better service multilingual students, a bilingual teacher with the bilingual certificate is staffed in entry-level classes, Anderson said. These classes are helpful because students gain a better understanding of the content being taught, Mikos said. Teachers are now able to change things they did that were language and literacy based to make connections that apply to other courses, Mikos said.

“Being a teacher for Spanish heritage learners, we [had to adjust] how to teach [these courses because they are different] than just a traditional world language course, [so] I wish I would have gotten this endorsement a long time ago.” Mikos said.