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| What is the waiver program? |
| The waiver program allows candidates for the single subject credential
in Spanish to demonstrate competency in Spanish language communication,
literature and linguistics, without having to take the State Praxis Exam
for Spanish. Demonstrated competency, either by way of the State Praxis
Exam or by fulfilling the CSUSM waiver program requirements, are necessary
before credential candidates are allowed to begin their student teaching
and are often required before students apply to or enter single subject
credential programs. Please be advised that this program ONLY serves to
allow the credential candidate to waive the State Praxis Exam for Spanish.
This program does not serve to waive any other type of exam or requirement
necessary for the completion of the single subject credential, such as
the CBEST exam. |
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| Who can apply to the waiver program? |
| The CSUSM Program in Spanish will accept the following candidates for
admission to the waiver program: |
* Graduates with a major in Spanish
from CSUSM applying to a credential program at CSUSM or any other
school
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* Graduates with a major in Spanish
from any accredited college or university who are applying only to the
CSUSM credential program. |
| If you are not a CSUSM graduate and are not applying to a CSUSM credential
program, we will not consider your application for a waiver. If you fall
into this category, you should contact the college or university that
granted your degree to find out about obtaining a waiver from them.
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| What are the requirements? |
| There are three general requirements to receive the waiver for Spanish:
a course requirement, an Exit Examination, and a Portfolio Evaluation.
The course requirements are listed below. Note that while these courses
closely parallel those required for the general track of the Spanish Major,
they are not identical, as the waiver program requires a few additional
courses. |
| Course Requirements: |
| Students completing all of these courses at CSUSM will automatically
fulfill this requirement for the waiver program. If you have completed
identical courses at other institutions, these courses will need to be
evaluated for equivalency. As a rule we generally do not grant substitutions
for these courses, however, if you feel that you have completed a course
sufficiently similar to one of the following, you may request that the
course be evaluated for substitution. |
| SEE EXIT EXAM |
| SEE PORTFOLIO REQUIREMENTS |
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| Core Requirements 27 units |
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| SPAN 301A or 301B |
Advanced Spanish |
3
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| SPAN 302 |
Theory and Practice of Oral and Written Communication |
3
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| SPAN 315 |
Reading and Analysis of Hispanic Literary Texts |
3
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| SPAN 350A |
Spanish Civilization |
3
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| SPAN 350B |
Spanish American Civilization |
3
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| SPAN 399 |
Internship/ Fieldwork in Community and University Service |
3
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| SPAN 317 |
Spanish Sociolinguistics |
3
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| SPAN 331 |
Introduction to Spanish Linguistics |
3
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| EDUC 350 |
Foundations of Teaching as a Profession |
3
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| Nine Units Selected from the following courses: |
| SPAN 370 |
Hispanic Literatures in English Translation |
3
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| SPAN 400A |
Hispanic Prose Fiction |
3
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| SPAN 400B |
Hispanic Poetry |
3
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| SPAN 400C |
Hispanic Theatre |
3
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| SPAN 400D |
Hispanic Essay |
3
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| SPAN 421 |
Viva el Teatro- Spanish Theatre in Performance |
3
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| Three units selected from the following courses: |
| SPAN 450A |
Seminar in Language |
3
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| SPAN 450B |
Seminar in Literature |
3
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| SPAN 450C |
Seminar in Civilization |
3
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| Three units selected from the following courses: |
| Anthropology 325 |
| Education 517 or 617 |
| Geography 340C or 450 |
| History 250, 251, 351, 352,353,354, or 201 |
| Linguistics 301,250,450,451 |
| Literature and Writing 400F,400H, 410H,410Q,420B, or 420E |
| Music 322,390,422, or 425 |
| Political Science 338,361, or 362 |
| Sociology 345 |
| Theater Arts 320,420, or 480 |
| Visual Arts 323 or 325 |
| Portfolio Evaluation: |
| Once you have successfully completed the exit exam you may continue
on to the portfolio evaluation portion of the waiver process. The purpose
of the portfolio is to assess the development of your ability to express
yourself through written Spanish, as well as to assess your growth in
awareness of Spanish language, literary, linguistic, and cultural concepts.
As such, the following will be required of your portfolio: |
* The work you submit must be
gathered in a notebook, folder, accordion file, or other format allowing
all
materials to be kept together and indexed in an orderly fashion. |
* This portfolio must include
include at least three samples (totaling at least 10 pages) of your written,
graded
work from your upper division Spanish courses. One of the samples
must be from a literature course,
another from a linguistics course,
and the third must be from a culture or civilization course. This last
sample may be a copy of a written or oral assignment focusing on culture
or civilization of the Hispanic
world. (This can range from a handout
to a term paper) |
| * The samples submitted must
represent work completed during two different academic years. |
* Your portfolio must be accompanied
by a narrative of at least 5 and no more than 7 typed, double spaced
pages.
In this narrative you must first explain each of the samples of your work
that you have chosen to
include. This portion of the narrative should
describe when in your academic career you completed each
sample, the context
in which each sample was assigned (i.e. was it a term paper assigned by
the Prof, did
you select the topic?...), why you decided to include each
sample, and how the assignment enhanced your
knowledge of Spanish. A second
portion of the narrative should discuss several of the problem areas in
your Spanish language development that you have improved on over the years
of your study. Share what
steps you took to improve and discuss how this
improvement is reflected in the progression of your
academic work in Spanish.
Finally, discuss what strategies you plan employ to remain a life-long
learner of
Spanish. |
| * Of
course all samples in the portfolio, as well as the newly written narrative
must be in Spanish. |
* Portfolios
will be accepted for one time per academic year in the Spring semester. Before submitting your
portfolio
take care to proof read your narrative and make sure that the entire portfolio
is neatly organized in
accordance with all of the requirements delineated
here. Failure to do so will result in failure of the portfolio
requirement
and thus failure to obtain the Single Subject Waiver.
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KEEP IN MIND: Because the portfolio part of the waiver
process requires that you present work completed in two different academic
years, it is a good idea to save all of your written work on diskette
and in hard copy. Even if you are not currently considering entering a
single subject credential program, you may do so in the future and will
be very happy to have kept such work on file.
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| When and how do I enroll? |
| You may apply to our waiver program at the same time that you apply
for admission into a credentialing institution. At that point, provided
that you have completed the majority of your course requirements, you
may also register to take the Exit Exam. After you have passed the Exit
Exam will you be able to submit a portfolio to complete your waiver requirements.
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In order to officially enroll you must submit an application to the
College of Arts and Sciences Advising Offices. You may obtain a form from
the Advising Office of the College of Arts & Sciences in Craven Hall.
Before submitting your application, it is a good idea to look at the course
requirements and check to see that you have completed them. Once you
fill out and submit the application to the Advising Office, your file
with your current transcripts will be sent to the Waiver Committee in
the Program in Spanish to be evaluated. At this time you may sign-up to
take the Exit Exam on the next available date. Click here for the exam
schedule.
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| When will the next waiver exit exam take place? |
| The next exam will be held in Spring 2009. The exit exam is a comprehensive
examination that tests your Spanish language competence across the
speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. Included in the exam
are cultural, literary, and linguistic components that allow the student
to demonstrate the knowledge obtained in these areas throughout his or
her coursework at CSUSM. This test is not a "fill in the blank"
type of grammar exam, rather it requires demonstration of the ability to
think critically and express yourself adequately in Spanish across a
range of topics and situations. Because of the comprehensive nature of
this examination, it will be difficult to do any sort of crash-course
review to prepare. It is recommended, however, that before taking the
exam students review critical concepts presented and discussed in their
Spanish language, literature, linguistics, and culture courses.
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| How long does it take to get the waiver? |
Once you have taken the exit exam, you will be contacted within the
following few weeks and will be informed about whether or not you have
passed. At that time, if you have passed, you will be asked to submit
your portfolio for review and will be given a deadline for doing so. Once
your portfolio has been submitted, you will be contacted within 3 to 4
weeks and informed of your waiver status.
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| What if I need the waiver now, but I still have requirements
to finish? |
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Students might have this question when they find themselves in one
of two situations. The first is when first applying to credential programs.
Many Single Subject Credential programs require that their students
have the waiver in hand (or a passing score on the praxis) or have the
waiver "in progress". If you are in this situation, after applying to
the Waiver program in the Advising office on the 6th floor of Craven
Hall, you may request that the advisor give you an "in progress letter".
This should satisfy your intended credential program.
The second possible scenario is that you are about to begin your student
teaching but have not quite completed all the requirements for the waiver.
In this case, to begin your student teaching without delay, you may
obtain a 4/5 waiver. Simply stated, a 4/5 waiver means that a candidate
has completed all but one of the three principal requirements for the
program (i.e. coursework, exam, and portfolio). For example, if you
have completed all but two or fewer of the required courses for the
waiver, but have successfully completed the exam and portfolio requirements,
you may qualify for the 4/5 waiver. In the same way, if you have completed
all of the courses and passed the exam, but just need to submit a portfolio
for evaluation, you may also qualify for the 4/5 waiver. Once the required
coursework is satisfactorily completed, you will receive the full waiver.
Note that the full waiver will be necessary before you can receive your
credential. The 4/5 waiver may be obtained from the Advising office
on the 6th floor of Craven Hall.
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