ESOL Endorsement & ESOL Certification
According to the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE), districts should refer to the Required Credentials for Professional Staff Members in the Instructional Programs of South Carolina’s Public Schools document for guidance on which certifications must be held in a given employment. To be eligible to teach multilingual learners (ML), which is categorized as a special area of certification under English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), the following are the acceptable certifications and mandatory attendant
training requirements:
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Certification in any teaching area at the appropriate grade level (e.g., Early Childhood Elementary, Middle, High School, PK-12)
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ESOL add-on certification is encouraged by the state education agency (SEA) and may be required by the local education agency (LEA).
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English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) certification
District and school professional staff members must hold appropriate credentials for the positions they occupy in order to meet accreditation standards mandated by State Board of Education Regulation 43-300. Please review your district policy for additional information about certification requirements. For additional certification questions, contact the Education Certification Office at certification@ed.sc.gov and (803) 896-0325.
Certification Endorsements
In addition to adding full fields to an existing certificate, an educator may add endorsements in specialized areas to recognize additional expertise. In order to add an endorsement, an educator must complete the specific requirements for the endorsement. Please be aware that endorsements cannot be initial fields of certification; these must be added to a pre-existing certification in a full field(s).
Note: No grade levels are associated with endorsements, only certification fields. Therefore, an endorsement does not extend an educator’s certification to teach outside their area of certification (e.g., a certified K-3 teacher may not teach grades 6-12 as they do not hold appropriate grade level certification to teach at that level).
Certification endorsements reflect the completion of specialized training in addition to an educator's certification fields. Some endorsements may be required to teach a specific course in a South Carolina public school district, while others serve as testaments to an educator's dedication to continuing professional development in a specialized area.
How to get an ESOL Endorsement & ESOL Certification in SC?
ESOL Endorsement
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Must be added to an Initial or Professional certificate
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Two pathways to obtain
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Ellevation professional development or
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Coursework, including practicum (completed through an accredited university)
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ESOL Certification Field (ML Program Specialist/ESOL Teacher PK-12)
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Full PK-12 certification field
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Added by college coursework and exam
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Is the ESOL certification endorsement worth it?
The short answer is yes. No matter what subject you teach, you probably have multilingual learners (MLs) in your classroom.
“Every teacher is a language teacher and there is a shared responsibility for the success of all our students. This makes having shared expectations and common language important”.
(WIDA - Teacher Voices: Cooperative Assessing, NCIC Immersion School, China *)
Please review your district policy for additional information about certification requirements. Many districts require educators to hold an ESOL certification or to be working towards a certification upon employment. An educator who completed the Ellevation pathway is only approved for the ESOL endorsement, not the full certification field. To receive the full ESOL certification, such educator will need to complete all coursework from an accredited university as if they did not currently hold an ESOL endorsement since the Ellevation pathway does not meet the coursework requirement to pursue full certification.
The requirements for the full ESOL certification are in the Guidelines and Requirements for Adding Certification Fields and Endorsements (pages 12-13). See the ESOL Endorsement and ESOL Certification Courses list with potential options that may offer the course requirement needed to obtain an ESOL endorsement and/or certification.