LTC Portfolio Program

The Graduate Portfolio Certificate in Language Teaching and Program Coordination (LTC) is an additional credential available to current graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin, along with their Master’s or Doctoral degree. It is offered through the College of Liberal Arts’ Texas Language Center (TLC) and is administered and supervised by the Director of the TLC, in collaboration with an Advisory Committee.

The LTC Portfolio is available in two tracks: Language Teaching and Language Program Coordination. You must choose one and your coursework must align with the one you choose.

The LTC portfolio provides the opportunity for graduate students interested in linguistics, literature, and/or culture of any language to receive advanced professional development in either the language teaching track or program coordination track, which builds upon the fundamental instruction provided by required departmental 398T courses. Students will further have the opportunity to expand their professional expertise through exposure to a variety of applied linguistics subfields and to allied disciplines that support the development and refinement of both theoretical and practical applications for language teaching and program direction.

Students in the portfolio program will receive training in language and culture pedagogy, applied linguistics, theory and practice of language acquisition, and program coordination offered by faculty in six language departments and the Department of Linguistics in the College of Liberal Arts, as well as through courses offered by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education, and the TLC.

LTC Portfolio Requirements

You may enter the portfolio program at any point in your graduate work, though it is recommended you apply as early as possible. The LTC Portfolio Application is online.

• You must take four courses for 12 hours of credit in graduate-level classes in the area of Language Teaching and/or Program Coordination. The current list of approved courses is here. For both teaching and program coordination tracks, two of the four must be the following:
  • LTC 389 (new course number; same course), Proficiency-Based Language and Culture Instruction: Theory and Practice
  • A departmental 398T course, Supervised Teaching in World Languages.
  • In addition, LTC 397P is also required for the program coordination track.
     
• You must maintain a 3.0 GPA in LTC Portfolio courses. These classes must be taken for a grade (may not be taken Credit/No Credit). Undergraduate classes do not count towards the LTC Portfolio.
   
• You must complete a portfolio project in your area of specialization and present it at a TLC event, departmental colloquium, or an approved academic conference. Travel funds may be available from the TLC. If you are traveling to fulfill the presentation requirement, you can request funds using this form. 
   
• You are responsible for keeping up-to-date with the Portfolio administration by monitoring the LTC listserv. Information and updates on the program are distributed via listserv.

Once you have met the course and presentation requirements, you will fill out the Graduate School's Portfolio Completion Reporting form and email it to the TLC. 

The advisory committee will review the form, along with documentation (link to or PDF of the conference program, e.g.) of your presentation, and then approve it and submit it to the Graduate School.

Benefits of the LTC Portfolio Program

The 2007 MLA Report on Foreign Languages and Higher Education, among its many critical recommendations to the field, suggests institutions “enhance and reward graduate student training in languages and language teaching” and “teach graduate students to use technology in language instruction and learning.” The graduate Portfolio in Language Teaching and Program Coordination is designed to prepare you to become successful and productive collegiate language professionals and to reinforce language teaching as a scholarly activity.

To these ends, the proposed portfolio focuses its course offerings on the language classroom, curriculum and materials development, and learning outcomes. Completion of the portfolio will ensure you are given the necessary tools both to implement best practices and conduct research in these environments.

Depending on which of the two tracks you choose, when you complete the program, your official UT transcript will read either “Portfolio in Language Teaching" or "Portfolio in Language Program Coordination.” A printed certificate from the TLC is also available upon request.