The TESOL Minor is a program of study for undergraduate students at Penn State. It includes an introduction to the study of language use, culture, and social interaction from a variety of perspectives and to the role that English plays in globalization. It also provides students with practical knowledge and skills that will qualify them for basic teaching positions in a variety of language programs for linguistically and culturally diverse adult learners of English in the United States and around the world.
Students who obtain a minor in TESOL may find teaching positions in private language institutes or as private language tutors in the United States and abroad and well as through organizations such as the Peace Corps and the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program. Please contact Penn State Undergraduate Research and Fellowships Mentoring Office for more information about these and other programs.
Requirements for the Minor
The minor consists of 18 credit hours. A grade of C or better is required in every course used to satisfy the requirements for the minor.
Prescribed courses (12 credits)
APLNG 200 (GH, IL) Introduction to Language, Culture, and Social Interaction
APLNG 210 (GH, IL) Global English
APLNG 484 Discourse-Functional Grammar
APLNG 493 (IL) Methods for Teaching ESL
Additional Courses (6 credits)
Students will choose 6 credits from a list of courses that include the following:
APLNG 083S (IL, US, GS) First-year seminar in Applied Linguistics
APLNG 220N (GH, IL, GS) Multilingual Lives: Stories of Language and Culture Learning
APLNG 250 Peer Tutoring for Multilingual Writers
APLNG 410 Teaching American English Pronunciation
APLNG 412 Teaching Second Language Writing
APLNG 482Y (IL) Introduction to Applied Linguistics
APLNG 491 Theory: Second Language Acquisition
Please see the APLNG Undergraduate Course Descriptions or the University Bulletin for more information on these courses.
Admission Requirements
To apply for the TESOL minor:
- You can declare a minor AFTER you have a third-semester classification or AFTER you have been accepted to a major.
- Use LionPATH to declare a minor. Select ‘Update Academics’ to complete the process.
If you have additional questions about the program, please contact the Coordinator, Sharon Childs (ssc5@psu.edu).