The Department of World Languages and Cultures’ French and Spanish adolescence education programs have recently achieved National Recognition status through the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), currently being replaced by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP).
In addition, some high quality assessments designed and implemented by Kate Douglass, program coordinator for French and Spanish adolescence education, have been selected for use as examples for ACTFL reviewer training. They will be used as a model for other programs across the country to follow.
In order to maintain accreditation, the French and Spanish adolescence education programs have to submit regular reports consisting of assessments, data, rubrics and narratives to an accrediting body. According to Dr. Douglass, achieving National Recognition status means that one’s program is fully accredited, which, in the field of foreign language teacher preparation, can be quite difficult to achieve.
“It is a very big honor for our program to be one of the few programs in the nation to have achieved this status,” said Douglass.
According to the Department of World Languages and Cultures’ website, the Adolescence Education Certification Program focuses on providing courses for foreign language teaching methods and a field assignment to teach in secondary education.
