English/Spanish Certificate Program
Get credit for how much you study!
The certificate program is a 6-month commitment to work on English or Spanish, both in classes and independently. Enrollment is possible at any time, but everyone is on the same 6-month schedule for official beginning and ending dates:
Session A: September 1st to February 28th
Session B: March 1st to August 31st
Participants can work on the skills they choose, such as: pronunciation, grammar, writing, workplace vocabulary, spelling, reading, and more.
Participants decide when and how they practice: Sign up for classes that fit your schedule, arrange for free private tutoring from our language teachers, or work with our staff to plan independent projects and practice that can be submitted for hours of credit.
Evaluations of participants’ language proficiency levels will be given at the beginning and end of each 6-month study period.
All participants attend an awards ceremony just for them! Certificates will be awarded for:
- Copper level achievement—completion of 90 hours of approved practice in six months,
- Bronze level—115 practice hours in six months,
- Silver level—140 practice hours in six months,
- Gold level—165 practice hours in six months, or
- Platinum level—190 or more practice hours in six months.
Certificate Program Goals
The purpose of this program is to help staff at The University of Iowa be more successful and satisfied at work by helping them with their English or Spanish and with understanding cultural differences that affect work. The University of Iowa cares about its staff and their work. Our instructors know that making changes can be hard, and that it takes time. They help participants find books and materials, and teach them about how English and Spanish work, but participants must do the learning and the studying!
This program has been designed to meet two needs:
- It is a way to encourage employees to get a certain amount of English or Spanish practice/classes completed within a certain period of time. Research has shown that on average it takes 90-180 hours of instruction/practice in order for students to improve one level in their language proficiency (for example, from intermediate to high-intermediate or low-advanced proficiency). Also, the more instruction/practice hours completed in a short period of time, the more students improve. (See the Center for Applied Linguistics’ December 2007 Digest: “Effects of Instructional Hours and Intensity of Instruction on NRS Level Gain in Listening and Speaking” by Sarah Young.)
For this reason, the program has the different levels and the goal of completing a certain number of hours in 6 months.
- Adult students have been shown to be more successful when they set their own goals, influence what and how they learn, and also can schedule classes to better fit their busy schedules. (See research by the Continuing Education Program, ABE/ESL Program at San Diego Community College.)
This is why program participants can take courses, set up individual tutoring, work on projects on their own, and more. Participants will be asked to set goals for what to work on and how they think they will meet the number of hours for their certificate.
Rules
This program is an independent study program. Instructors help participants plan and find practice opportunities. In order to get credit, participants must complete acceptable (pre-approved) forms of practice activities AND turn in records of the work that was done. If it is not clear that an activity would be acceptable, or how to record information about it, call the supervising instructors before you start it! In general, we want to expand participants’ abilities and comfort level using the language, so activities which push someone to use English or Spanish in a new way or for more time will get the most credit.
Participants have 6 months to complete the number of hours of work to reach their goal. Everyone will be on the same 6 month schedule, although registration is possible at any time. At the end of the 6 month period, we will have a recognition party for everyone who participated!
To help us help participants, while they are in this program, we ask that they:
- Fill out and send us an evaluation every month.
- Set goals and work towards them. Evaluate these goals and their progress every month.
- Plan, carry out, and log activities to improve their communications skills. Participants must turn in a log every week in order to receive credit for their work.
- Take tests occasionally to check on their progress.
- Be open to trying new things.
- Contact us at least one day in advance if they cannot make a tutoring appointment that has been scheduled. (If you don’t hear back from the instructor, they probably don’t know that you have cancelled!) If participants miss two meetings with a tutor without cancelling in advance, they will not be able to schedule another tutoring appointment until the next 6-month certificate period.
- Come in to talk to us if they need or want to stop participating in the program for any reason.
- Call, email, write, or communicate with us in some way if they are unhappy with the program. We want this to be helpful, but if we don’t know what is wrong, we can’t make improvements!
How to register
To register, the first thing that interested participants need to do is schedule a meeting with an instructor to set up a plan for what to accomplish over the six months, and how that might be done. Peter Rohrbough (peter-rohrbough@uiowa.edu) is available to meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Jane Gressang (jane-gressang@uiowa.edu) is available on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This first appointment should take about an hour. After this initial appointment, participants can choose to work on their own, continue meeting with a tutor, attend conversation groups or other classes, or complete projects for credit.
Suggestions of activities
Here are some examples of activities that MIGHT be approved practice (to be sure that an activity is approved, you should seek confirmation from an instructor BEFORE you start the activity). Each activity needs to involve some kind of active language experience, such as speaking, writing, or analyzing. Credit will not be given for the completion of only a passive activity such as reading an article, listening to the radio, or watching TV. Think of trying to practice by doing activities that involve BOTH language receiving or input and your language construction or output!
English examples:
- Attending a Learning & Development class on grammar.
- Eating lunch with a co-worker you don’t usually eat with so that you have more time to speak English during the day.
- Watching an English movie and writing down 10 vocabulary words you don’t know and then looking up the definitions and using them in sentences that you turn in to be corrected.
- Reading a book in English, and completing a report on it that you turn in.
- Completing an online grammar lesson on articles, and then writing a journal that you turn in for grammar corrections.
- Going to a Staff Language & Culture Services English Conversation hour.
Spanish examples
- Listening to a song in Spanish, looking up the lyrics, and finding out what the song means or researching the singer’s background. Turning this in as a report.
- Watching a TV show in Spanish and writing down 10 vocabulary words you don’t know, looking up the definitions, and using them in sentences that you turn in to be corrected.
- Completing an online grammar lesson on articles, and then writing a journal that you turn in for grammar corrections.
- Going to a Diversity Focus or UI Café Cervantes Spanish Conversation hour.
- Looking through a magazine in Spanish (‘People en español’, ‘Siempre mujer’…). Writing out sentences or vocabulary that confuse you with your best guess of their meaning.
- Reading a book in Spanish, and completing a report on it that you turn in.
**Resources and more information to come!
This site is still under construction!**
