Spring Break
ESL classes benefit both students and TAs alike
Issue date: 11/1/07
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One of students' biggest pet peeves is Teaching Assistants with thick accents and poor English.
That's the reason the Language Teaching Center created the English for International TAs program: To train and screen TAs before they are ready to teach in the classroom.
According to instructor and coordinator Doris Shiffman, the program was founded 18 years ago as a response to undergraduates' complaints about having trouble understanding their international TAs.
Since then, the program has grown from just one course to two courses with two sections each, in addition to a summer program designed to orient new TA's for large departments such as chemistry, physics and math.
Graduate students from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering who intend to become TAs and need help with their English are recommended to use the program by their departments. They are then screened and placed in appropriate level classes.
"We help them with their language, help them understand the culture of the American classroom, and give them hints on teaching," Shiffman said.
Altogether, over the course of the year, about 50 students participate in the classes. During the academic year, two classes are offered: Oral Skills for International Teaching Assistants and Communication Strategies in the American Classroom.
In Oral Skills, which meets three times a week, students practice listening, speaking and pronunciation using authentic materials, such as recordings of undergraduates talking about their lives at Hopkins. Students are asked to imitate the speech of native speakers and learn jargon that may be heard around the classroom. Picnics and dinners throughout the year help the TA's learn about undergraduate culture.
The second course, Communication Strategies, is a higher-level class that helps students fine-tune their communication skills.
"This class is for students who have done better in their English testing, but who still need some extra help," Shiffman said. "We work on all the vocabulary of the classroom and nonverbal communication. We work with helping them know when to smile, how to use the board, how to stay in eye contact."
Students then practice teaching by making administrative announcements, explaining simple concepts from their fields and going over homework problems.
For Guofan Hu, a physics graduate student TA from China, the most helpful thing about the program is the opportunity to experience American language and culture firsthand.
"This is the first time I've been to America, so I have never been in an ESL program before," he said. "The most helpful thing is I have to speak for nearly one hour for three days a week [for Oral Skills]."
Zheng Zhang, another Chinese student in the physics department who just arrived in America two months ago, also finds the course helpful even though he has taken English courses in China in the past.
"The pronunciation I learned in China is a little different from the pronunciation that people have here," Zhang said. "The English class helps me to improve a lot."
That's the reason the Language Teaching Center created the English for International TAs program: To train and screen TAs before they are ready to teach in the classroom.
According to instructor and coordinator Doris Shiffman, the program was founded 18 years ago as a response to undergraduates' complaints about having trouble understanding their international TAs.
Since then, the program has grown from just one course to two courses with two sections each, in addition to a summer program designed to orient new TA's for large departments such as chemistry, physics and math.
Graduate students from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering who intend to become TAs and need help with their English are recommended to use the program by their departments. They are then screened and placed in appropriate level classes.
"We help them with their language, help them understand the culture of the American classroom, and give them hints on teaching," Shiffman said.
Altogether, over the course of the year, about 50 students participate in the classes. During the academic year, two classes are offered: Oral Skills for International Teaching Assistants and Communication Strategies in the American Classroom.
In Oral Skills, which meets three times a week, students practice listening, speaking and pronunciation using authentic materials, such as recordings of undergraduates talking about their lives at Hopkins. Students are asked to imitate the speech of native speakers and learn jargon that may be heard around the classroom. Picnics and dinners throughout the year help the TA's learn about undergraduate culture.
The second course, Communication Strategies, is a higher-level class that helps students fine-tune their communication skills.
"This class is for students who have done better in their English testing, but who still need some extra help," Shiffman said. "We work on all the vocabulary of the classroom and nonverbal communication. We work with helping them know when to smile, how to use the board, how to stay in eye contact."
Students then practice teaching by making administrative announcements, explaining simple concepts from their fields and going over homework problems.
For Guofan Hu, a physics graduate student TA from China, the most helpful thing about the program is the opportunity to experience American language and culture firsthand.
"This is the first time I've been to America, so I have never been in an ESL program before," he said. "The most helpful thing is I have to speak for nearly one hour for three days a week [for Oral Skills]."
Zheng Zhang, another Chinese student in the physics department who just arrived in America two months ago, also finds the course helpful even though he has taken English courses in China in the past.
"The pronunciation I learned in China is a little different from the pronunciation that people have here," Zhang said. "The English class helps me to improve a lot."
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