The English as a Second Language Level 4 Certificate of Competency prepares student to transition to credit ESL college courses. The courses required for the certificate integrate high-intermediate to advanced reading and writing skills and listening and speaking skills that prepare students for academic work in college-level courses. Students will also acquire skills to effectively communicate in academic, social, employment, financial, and medical settings. The focus is to prepare students to transition to advanced credit ESL courses and college content courses.

Upon successful completion of this program, students will be able to: 

• Give a 5-10-minute presentation on a given topic in front of the class applying target vocabulary, grammatical structures, and presentation techniques.
• Apply note-taking skills on an academic-level presentation/lecture to demonstrate comprehension.
• Use vocabulary related to real-life competencies, including but not limited to: expressing preferences, describing people and emotional states, describing countries and topography, evaluating, comparing, giving opinions, predicting, reporting, agreeing, and disagreeing.
• Write simple, compound, and complex sentence structures using correct grammar and syntax.
• Comprehend paragraph structure including main idea and supporting details.
• Use context clues to understand the meaning of new vocabulary.