Grad students will face tougher test of English proficiency to be TAs

Beginning this summer, University graduate students seeking to become preceptors or teaching assistants will be tested for English proficiency as part of a Graduate College training program, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the Graduate College David Redman said yesterday.

Though student complaints about language barriers between undergraduates and their graduate student instructors have contributed to the move toward tighter procedures, the initiative is part of a national trend of universities developing English-proficiency programs for international students, according to Jacqueline Mintz, director of the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning.

In the revamped system — which is being coordinated by the McGraw center — all graduate students who are not native English speakers or have not earned their undergraduate degrees at a U.S. institution must arrive two weeks before the beginning of the fall semester, according to a policy statement provided by Mintz.

At the beginning of that period, the students will have their oral English proficiency evaluated by the McGraw center's English Language Program staff using the Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit test, Redman said.

Students who pass SPEAK will be immediately eligible to serve as Assistants in Instruction, though the graduate school encourages departments to avoid choosing first-year graduate students to serve as AIs, he said.

Those students who pass still will participate in the two-week summer English Language Program — an intensive orientation and English language course during the two-week period prior to the beginning of classes — Redman said.

Students who come within a narrow margin of passing SPEAK may choose to take the Princeton Oral Proficiency Test after the two-week summer English-proficiency program. The POPT requires students to perform simulated teaching exercises and respond to typical teaching situations. If students pass the POPT, they will be eligible for nomination as AIs, according to the policy statement.

Graduate students who do not pass the test will be required to participate in a four-hour-per-week English course during their first year and will have the opportunity to take the POPT at the end of each term to qualify as AIs.

All graduate students who are non-native speakers of English and who serve as AIs will be required to enroll in follow-up seminars through the McGraw center during their first two semesters of teaching, according to the statement.

"There will be a concerted effort on the part of the English Language Program staff to observe AIs in their teaching and to videotape them in class situations, then to provide feedback," Redman said.

"These programs are far from remedial," Dean of the Graduate School John Wilson said. "The skills of learning and teaching are important and we like to nurture those."

Existing program

In the current graduate training program, which has existed since 1990, the Graduate College office received funding from the University to conduct three-week English-proficiency sessions each summer for international graduate students, Redman said. Following each session, prospective AIs were tested and then placed in teaching roles. The Graduate College would conduct only a few follow-up evaluations of the AIs, who often had difficulty communicating with their classes.

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The McGraw center opened in the fall of 1999 to serve the general purpose of "teaching better and making learning easier for faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students and teaching assistants," said Ellen Rosenweig, administrative assistant for the McGraw center and the Office of the Provost.

The McGraw center, which will coordinate the new training program, eventually will occupy part of the Frist Campus Center. It is temporarily housed in Firestone library where it holds workshops on teaching and learning, offers English language programs, provides departments with grants for AI preparation and has its own library.

One-third of graduate school departments require their students to teach undergraduates, though most graduate students choose to teach in order to gain experience and to boost their resumes, Redman said.

Wilson said he believes the center significantly will improve the quality of University preceptors. "One thing that pleases me so much is that the [McGraw center] program enables graduate students to be more effective in teaching and precepting, but it also makes them stronger candidates in positions elsewhere," he said.