Major Requirements (41 semester hours)

For Early Childhood through Adolescence Education Certification (grades K-12) 

• SPA 101 - Elementary Spanish I with lab (4 semester hours)
• SPA 102 - Elementary Spanish II with lab (4 semester hours)
• SPA 201 - Intermediate Spanish I
• SPA 202 - Intermediate Spanish II
• SPA 301 - Advanced Spanish
• SPA 310 - Composition and Conversation
• EDU 370 - Foreign Language Teaching Methods
• ESL 322 - Second Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics
• Participation in a DPI-approved foreign language immersion program abroad (one month).
• Placement in the “Intermediate High” category on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Exam* prior to student teaching semester.

Teacher Certification

To qualify for Early Childhood through Adolescence (grades K-12) teaching certification in Spanish, a student must complete the courses listed above, the Early Childhood through Adolescence Professional Sequence, and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) statutory requirements.

*ACTFL Oral Proficiency and Writing Proficiency Exams

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is a standardized procedure for the assessment of functional speaking ability. It is a face-to-face or telephone interview between a certified ACTFL tester and an examinee. The test is used to determine how well a person speaks a language by comparing his or her performance of specific communication tasks with the criteria for each of ten proficiency levels. Also required is the ACTFL Writing Proficiency Test (WPT). Lakeland University requires candidates for State of Wisconsin foreign language teaching certification to be proficient at the Intermediate High level. Information regarding the ACTFL examinations is available in the Office of the Registrar.