TESOL

__ TESOL Standards __

TESOL is a national organization and the standards were created at the national level to be a guide for the development of state and district standards across the country. They are intended to complement and expand on the WIDA standards mentioned above. The TESOL standards are similar in nature to both the WIDA and the WIDA-based IL ELPS. They use the same language domains and grade-level clusters as the previous two sets of standards. Although they use 5 instead of 6 levels and the titles are slightly different, the same basic principles are involved. Each level has performance definitions and model performance indicators to help place students’ various levels of proficiency across the domains. The five standards used by TESOL are almost identical to the WIDA and IL ELPS with one difference. In the first standard TESOL includes intercultural communication in addition to social and instructional communication. This is am important distinction, as it implies the need for students to communicate with cultures, including the dominant culture of the United States, which may have very different social norms and customs than their own. Below you will find a link to the TESOL Standards Framework web page. [|TESOL Standards Framework]