The department seeks to facilitate the acquisition of second language and academic skills within a sequential program of content-based ESL instruction so that students will achieve proficiency in college-level reading, writing, and critical thinking skills in English and succeed in the CUNY-mandated tests and the College's academic programs. It also offers Linguistics courses to all interested students, particularly those who are Liberal Arts and Education majors.

The department is committed to developing various programmatic options of interdisciplinary study suited to the academic needs and aspirations of all students enrolled in our program. It also hopes to serve as a pedagogic resource to departments teaching ESL students by sharing strategies to develop teaching techniques that will make content comprehensible for these students, optimize their class participation, and facilitate their oral/written responses to the material in question.

The Board of Trustees unanimously incorporated the Department of Language and Cognition on January 27, 1999. The department seeks to:

• Facilitate the acquisition of second language and academic skills, within a sequential program of content-based ESL instruction leading to success on CUNY-mandated tests and in the College´s academic programs;
• Develop various programmatic options of interdisciplinary study suited to the academic needs and aspirations of different student groups;
• Offer Linguistics for Liberal Arts and Education majors;
• Serve as a pedagogic resource to departments seeking to further develop teaching techniques for making content comprehensible to ESL students and for developing strategies to optimize class participation and oral/written response to content by such students.

Under the auspices of the Hostos Academic Learning Center (HALC), trained tutors offer students at all levels of the ESL and English course sequences the opportunity to develop their fluency, clarity, and grammar, and to refine reading and writing skills requisite to passing the ACT and College Proficiency Exams. Students referred to the center upon a teacher´s recommendation may seek assistance in meeting course requirements or requirements for passing CUNY exams. They may also seek enrichment to accelerate progress through their ESL/English sequence of study. Individual students may also drop into the center for assistance, subject to tutor availability.