Lingua Franca

Prospective Undergraduate Spanish Teachers: Have You Heard About the new 4+1?

Nicole Sherf

Dean Joe Cambone

The SSU School of Education has undergone a transformation over the past year or so as a new dean has come on board and the undergraduate licensure programs are adopting a program format of 4+1. Last Spring, Dr. Joseph Cambone came to us from Lesley University and brought an exciting new energy and enthusiasm to the school; inspiring faculty, students and facilitating the transformation of educator preparation programming. All of the undergraduate licensure programs are creating new flow sheets with newly created education course offerings.

The Department of World Languages and Cultures is about to send their materials for approval to Curriculum Committee. Up until now, students who wanted to teach Spanish followed the program of an undergraduate degree in Spanish with the concentration in either elementary or secondary education. With the 4+1, when the program approval takes place, students who are accepted into the program will complete a four year Bachelor of Arts in Spanish with a one year Master of Education. There is some overlap between the two levels of coursework, meaning that students can take courses that “double dip” or count for both the undergraduate and the graduate degree. They end up with the same license to teach Spanish in either the elementary level (grades Prekindergarten through 6^th grade) or the secondary (5^th grade through 12^th) that they would have gotten under the current Elementary and Secondary Concentrations, but they also get a Master’s degree. Principals and Superintendents agree that they value a candidate who has that extra degree, one that will be necessary as the teacher moves along the levels of licensure.

In addition, the Methods course for teaching Spanish in the current program of studies will eventually be divided into a two semester course in which the potential for more time will be possible for processing, practicing and incorporating of the themes, theories and important documents and resources for foreign language teaching.  Be advised that the new program is more rigorous as you will be taking graduate courses as of your senior year, and, as such, the application standards are higher. A higher GPA is expected for admittance into the program as well as a variety of other benchmarks which are being discussed now in the School of Education. Students who are currently in the process of completing their Elementary or Secondary Concentration should continue to do so. If you are very new to the major and have not yet begun to take the EDU courses, please talk to Dr. Nicole Sherf, the Secondary Education Coordinator, about when and how to get involved in the new program.