ESL - Certificate

ESL - Certificate

The Certificate of Proficiency in English as a Second Language at Mission College serves students who are non-native speakers of English as a second language. The program prepares students of all ages and backgrounds who want to improve English to earn a college degree, improve their employment opportunities, and participate in their local communities. The program provides students with the skills needed to achieve their academic, career, and lifelong-learning goals. Courses provide instruction in English as a second language at six different proficiency levels from high-beginning to advanced. The certificate is earned upon completion of the advanced level courses of ESL 970LS (Listening/Speaking), ESL 970GW (Grammar/Writing), and ESL 970RV (Reading/Vocabulary).

ESL Course Offerings

The English as a Second Language Department offers a total of 15 core and 10 elective lecture courses that span six levels of language proficiency, from high-beginning to advanced, to one level below transfer. These courses teach the English language skills of writing, reading, listening, speaking, grammar, and pronunciation.

Courses are usually offered twice a week, Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday, in day or night sessions. Each course has a number of set 'units', ranging from three to five units. Each unit represents the number of hours in class time each week over the course of a 16-week semester. For example, a three unit course meets for an hour and a half twice a week. There are two online courses of Listening and Culture at the high-beginning and low-intermediate levels.

Many of our listening/speaking and pronunciation courses offer practice in our fully-equipped, state-of-the-art multimedia ESL Language Laboratory. There is an ESL Open Lab, where students can practice ESL language skills independently with the assistance from a lab instructor.

Program Learning Outcomes:

• Students will identify and use the grammatical elements of collegelevel Standard English to write an essay using academic vocabulary.
• Students will read a novel at the adult level and respond orally and in writing to fictional elements such as character, plot, and theme.
• Students will write an outline for and answer detailed questions about academic lectures and news broadcasts and summarize lectures, literary and non-literary works orally and in writing.
• Students will participate in a group discussion using appropriate social and linguistic forms to join an ongoing discussion, add information, disagree, agree, and summarize in both academic and professional settings on a variety of concrete and abstract topics.
• Students will produce speech which is intelligible and accurately articulated.

To earn this certificate, students must complete the minimum required courses with a grade of C (or P) or better.

Core Curriculumn Courses (Required):

Career/Transfer Opportunities:

Many ESL students continue to study at Mission College in Career Technical Education, certificate programs and transfer majors. Popular courses of study are accounting, business, graphic arts and/or design, nurse assistant, child development, hospitality management, and the flagship LVN to RN program.  

* Federal Financial aid may not apply to this certificate program. Consult the Financial Aid Office for more information.