Temple's TESOL program is located within the Department of Teaching & Learning in the College of Education and Human Development. The program offers well-established Master's and Doctoral degrees and an ESL teacher certificate program that prepares teachers to work effectively with English language learners in Pennsylvania public K-12 schools.

The program supports Temple's institutional mission by promoting internationalization, linguistic and cultural diversity, teaching excellence, and integration of research with teaching and learning. The primary mission of the TESOL Program is to provide pre-service and in-service teachers and novice researchers with theoretical and practical tools that will enable them to become effective teachers, to conduct efficient language assessment, to explore language and teaching practices in multiple settings, and to engage in critical thinking about curricular and policy decisions with regard to linguistically diverse populations. Rather than favoring a particular theoretical paradigm, we aim to offer students a balanced perspective on current theoretical developments and to integrate theory and practice in meaningful ways through field-based components of the coursework.

We firmly believe that the goal of EFL and ESL instruction is to foster learning environments conducive to bi- and multilingualism. We seek to prepare students who can take leadership roles as teachers in elementary, secondary, higher, and adult language education, and as scholars, administrators, language policy makers, curriculum developers, and experts in language assessment. We are proud to say that our graduates have assumed a variety of these roles in the United States and abroad.