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International Teaching Assistant Program

ITAP Overview

The English Language Institute has conducted the University of Alabama's International Teaching Assistant Program (ITAP) annually since 1982 and semi-annually since 1985. The purpose of the program is to train, evaluate, and screen prospective international graduate teaching assistants. All non-native speakers of English who serve as graduate teaching assistants are required to complete the ITAP Course successfully and pass the ITAP Proficiency Exam before they are allowed to teach in the classroom.

The ITAP Course focuses on three main areas--teaching methods, American culture, and spoken English. The ITAP Proficiency Exam evaluates course participants on both their general proficiency in spoken English as well as on their ability to handle a classroom or laboratory teaching situation.

Student Profile

Program participants are all international graduate students who will hold teaching assistantships from an academic department at UA and will actually be given some classroom responsibility, whether that responsibility be lecturing, conducting a laboratory, conducting a tutorial, etc.

Duration

Summer Program:
Four hours per day (plus conferencing time) during the three weeks immediately prior to the Fall semester.

Spring Program:
Three hours per week (plus conferencing time) for the duration of the Spring semester.

Course Component

The ITAP Course consists of the three components described below. The course may be taken a maximum of two times.

Teaching Methods :
The Teaching Methods class is designed to prepare students to teach in an American college classroom. This goal is accomplished by means of the two primary components of the class:

(1) lectures and discussions of relevant pedagogical issues including course policy statements, establishing rapport, lesson plans, teaching techniques and strategies, handling classroom questions, key and necessary vocabulary, nonverbal communication, campus resources, classroom management, testing and grading, getting feedback, self-evaluation, and cultural variance; and
(2) actual practice teaching, which involves having the students teach mini- lessons which are videotaped for later review by the instructor and the student together.

American Culture :
The objectives of the American Culture class are to develop in the International Teaching Assistant (ITAs) the following:

(1) an awareness of cultural
assumptions and the role of values in those assumptions,<br>
(2) an understanding of the
American educational system, and&nbsp;<br>
(3) an understanding of
various aspects of American culture which are relevant to academic and
social life in the United States.

Spoken English :
The objectives of the Spoken English class are twofold. One aspect of this course deals with helping students to become aware of various aspects of English pronunciation, as well as helping them to isolate and overcome individual pronunciation problems which they may have in English. The other focus of this course is on conversation management skills. Students learn how conversation, especially that which takes place in the classroom, is effectively managed within the linguistic and cultural framework of English. The general overall objective of this course is to help students improve their communicative skills in oral English.

Evaluation

Each participant's readiness to handle classroom responsibility as a graduate teaching assistant at UA is based on three factors: the ELI instructors' assessments of each student's readiness, the student's completion of the ITAP course, and the student's score on the ITAP Proficiency Exam.

ITAP Proficiency Exam

The Proficiency Exam consists of two parts: (a) the SPEAK Test (the institutional version of the Test of Spoken English), which is a general test of spoken English, and (b) a SAMPLE LESSON PRESENTATION, which requires students to present a lesson on some topic in their field in a simulated classroom setting.

Teaching Eligibility :
Based on the three factors mentioned above, ITAP participants are given one of three evaluations regarding their readiness to teach.

Full Pass:
The student has sufficient language and teaching skills which allow for full teaching responsibility in the classroom.

Conditional Pass :
The student has problems with certain language and/or teaching skills and should only be given teaching responsibility in a lab or tutorial situation where instruction occurs mostly on a one-to-one basis or in a classroom situation where a senior teacher is present.

No Pass:
The student has serious problems with certain language and/ or teaching skills and should be given no speaking responsibility in a class, lab, or tutorial.

In some instances students are given a Trial Pass (Trial Full Pass or Trial Conditional Pass). A Trial Pass is valid only for the semester immediately following the date the ITAP Proficiency Exam was given.

Follow-up

A follow-up observation is conducted of each student who receives a passing recommendation from the International Teaching Assistant Program and is actually given a teaching assignment. At least once during the ITA's first semester of teaching, an ELI instructor will observe the ITA in the classroom and meet with him or her to discuss the ITA's performance. Continued follow-up observations are conducted if they are deemed necessary.

More Information

For more information regarding The University of Alabama's International Teaching Assistant Program, contact: