The ITA Program offers two courses for multilingual instructors who wish to improve their English oral proficiency skills in academic settings (GRAD 5082), and/or their intercultural communication skills in the American classroom (GRAD 5092). These courses may also  be required as an outcome of the ITA Exam (please visit the ITA Exam policy page for more details).

 

GRAD 5082 - Oral Proficiency

This course provides International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) with tools to identify features of spoken English that facilitate effective instructional communication and employ these features in their own spoken English, as well as other strategies to compensate for linguistic challenges.

 

Course Objectives

After completing this course, students should be able to:

• Identify features of spoken English that contribute to comprehensibility such as stress patterns, intonation, pauses, and phrasing.
• Demonstrate use of these features in prepared presentations and in interactions to effectively express information.
• Identify features of their own spoken English that may cause difficulty in understanding.
• Demonstrate techniques to mitigate features of their own spoken English that may impede effective communication.
• Demonstrate interactional techniques that facilitate understanding between interlocutors and avoid miscommunication, especially in question and answer settings.
• Demonstrate effective techniques to compensate for linguistic challenges such as the use of presentations, body language, etc.

GRAD 5082 is a two credit hour, letter-graded course. Students who receive a score of no pass on the ITA exam must enroll in GRAD 5082. Students who earn a grade of B or higher in GRAD 5082 are eligible to retake the ITA exam.

 

 

GRAD 5092 - Language in the American Classroom

This course provides International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) with linguistic, interactional, and compensatory tools (e.g. visual aids, body language) for effective presentation in the classroom. This course focuses especially on the linguistic expectations of American instructional settings, compensatory presentation skills, and on field-specific linguistic practices.

 

Course Objectives

After completing this course, students should be able to:

• Identify and demonstrate features of spoken English that contribute to comprehensibility such as stress patterns, intonation, pauses, and phrasing.
• Demonstrate interactional techniques that facilitate understanding between interlocutors and avoid miscommunication, especially in question and answer settings.
• Identify and effectively employ specific English vocabulary and linguistic practices (e.g. explaining a procedure) used in their field and in classroom interactions in general.