Briercrest College took a significant step forward this week in the continuing development of their Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages(TESOL) program. TESL Canada has announced that the Associate of Arts in TESOL and the Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies: TESOL have both been awarded TESL Canada Standard Two accreditation. This recognition is important for Briercrest as the institution now joins the University of Saskatchewan as the two leading TESOL providers in the province, and joins Trinity Western University as one of only two Christian institutions in Canada offering TESOL training at this level.

TESL Canada is the professional body which accredits TESL and TESOL programs in Canada and the accreditation it offers is essentially the stamp of quality confirming that graduates have received a solid education. TESL Canada professional certification has increasingly become the key qualification required for employment in the field of ESL in Canada. This level of accreditation is something Briercrest has worked very hard to achieve, though Briercrest TESOL professor David Catterick points out that “the real measure of the quality of our programs will be graduates who feel they have been well-prepared for their future ministries and employers who contact us to ask us to send them more of our students.”

Briercrest College TESOL professor Darla Gamache learned of the accreditation news while in north-east China where she is working with a group of current Briercrest TESOL students who are completing their internship requirement. Having begun the accreditation process in October 2006 and having helped draft the more than 600 pages of documentation required as part of the accreditation application, Darla finds it “hard to believe that it’s finished!"

Even before receiving this accreditation, there has been enormous interest in TESOL at Briercrest. In fact, enrolment in the program has almost doubled over the past year and if this rate of growth is sustained, Briercrest is expected to have overtaken the University of Saskatchewan as the largest provider of TESOL training in the province by as early as September 2008.

The future continues to appear very promising for the program. With a great deal of energy and momentum, Briercrest’s goal is to build one of Canada’s finest TESOL programs for the glory of God and to prepare graduates who will be world changers.

To learn more about the TESOL program at Briercrest College, visit www.briercrest.ca/tesol