Bilingual Education Certificate for Catholic School Educators

The Bilingual Education Certificate (BEC) is an instructional series designed for Catholic school teachers who wish to earn a certificate from the Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Together in community, a cohort of Catholic school educators take four online courses over the span of one calendar year — one course per season.

At a Glance


January 2024 to December 2024


4 Online Courses


2-Hour Monthly Sessions

Bilingual Education Certificate Courses

The certificate will prepare teachers to better serve students in schools that follow — or wish to follow — a bilingual or dual language (DL) model, especially those in Catholic schools. 

  1. Foundations of Bilingual Education
    • This course frames the relevance of bilingual / DL education and its core components. It develops the necessary skills to effectively plan for DL instruction.    
  2. Learning Content and Language
    • Through a deeper understanding of second language acquisition, participants in this course will learn strategies on how to incorporate content and language learning in each instructional lesson.
  3. Biliteracy Development
    • This course will review and apply effective biliteracy development frameworks, including oracy as a precursor to reading and writing development.
  4. Sociocultural Competence and Faith Formation
    • Participants in this course will engage with practices that effectively foster sociocultural competence and faith formation in schools.

Together in community through synchronous and asynchronous sessions, participants will discuss readings, complete assignments, and consider how content can be applied in their respective school settings. Areas of focus and topics addressed throughout the certificate program include: the social and political contexts of language use and instruction; enhanced ways of teaching language through content; bilingual language arts and literacy instruction; and text selection for multilingual youth.

Certificate Information

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Audience

The Bilingual Education Certificate for Catholic Educators is designed for elementary and secondary Catholic school teachers and leaders working in dual language schools or interested in bilingual education. TWIN-CS school participants are preferred.

2024 Dates

The Bilingual Education Certificate program runs from January 2024 to December 2024.

Four courses total make up the Certificate program, with one course taken per season (winter, spring, summer, fall).

Each course consists of 2-hour monthly virtual sessions and hands-on homework.

Costs

The courses for this certificate prepare teachers in a way similar to graduate school credit-bearing courses, but at a more affordable rate of $300 per course — $1200 total for four courses.

The four courses are equivalent to adult education credits and not graduate school credits; hence, they cannot be applied to state teacher certification.

Invoices can be sent to schools or district offices (dependent on previous agreement). 

Schools are encouraged to use Title II or III funds to cover course costs.

Register

Register for the Bilingual Education Certificate

Questions?

Contact the Roche Center at rochecenter@bc.edu.

 

About the Facilitator: Elena Sada, Ph.D.

Molly McMahon

Dr. Elena Sada, Program Director for the Roche Center's Two-Way Immersion Network for Catholic Schools (TWIN-CS), has more than 20 years of experience working with teachers and leaders implementing dual language and world language programs. As TWIN-CS Program Director, Elena oversees a national network of 21 dual language Catholic schools that share research, ideas, techniques, and resources to support students in becoming bilingual and biliterate. She holds a doctorate in bilingual education from the University of Connecticut.

Multilingual World: Multilingual ChurchCatholic schools are urged to "undertake the special effort necessary" to help students guard their cultures and language for the enrichment of the world.


Source: Welcoming the Stranger Among Us: Unity in Diversity, 2000 USCCB document