The International Teaching Assistant Evaluation Process

1
The International Teaching Assistant Evaluation
Process
The evaluation is designed to test your ability
to speak and understand spoken English to a
degree that will allow you to interact readily
with American undergraduates in the classroom or
laboratory
2
The Evaluation Process

• The evaluation is composed of three parts
• An oral interview
• A listening dictation test
• A microteaching presentation
• The portions of the evaluation are given in this
  order, and if you should score high enough on the
  oral interview you need not do the rest.

3
The Oral Interview

• You will spend time talking with two trained
  interviewers
• They will simply have a conversation with you
  the topic might be anything
• Many students try not to talk much during the
  interview to hide their accentthis is a bad idea
• The key to scoring well on this part of the
  evalu-ation is to be talkative and make eye
  contact

4
The Oral Interview

• Remember that the interviewers are going to try
  to assess how you will interact with
  undergrad-uates from the US
• With students it is often important that you
  initiate a conversation, and you want to
  demon-strate that you can do this in the
  interview as welldont just react to what the
  interviewers say
• You will have a chance to practice this later
  today

5
The Oral Interview

• The interview is scored on a 5-point scale
• If you get a 3 or better from both interviewers,
  you may be eligible to teach
• A score of 3 does not exempt you from further
  evaluation
• A score of 4 means that you are cleared for
  teaching and need not participate further in the
  evaluation

6
The Listening Dictation Test

• You will listen to twenty recorded questions that
  are frequently asked by undergraduates at US
  universities
• The questions will be in colloquial English, and
  the voices will be both male and female
• You will hear each question only once
• After the question, you must write down what you
  have heard

7
The Listening Dictation Test

• You must then write down an appropriate short
  response to the question
• There is no specific correct answer to any of
  these questions, you need only write down an
  answer that is appropriate
• For example, a question might be What is the
  policy on turning in homework assignments late?

8
The Listening Dictation Test

• To pass this section of the test, you must
  comprehend at least 16 of the questions correctly

9
The Microteaching Presentation

• You will give a 10-minute presentation in which
  you explain a principle or a central concept in
  your field
• You select your own topic, and present it as if
  to an undergraduate audience with no significant
  background in the field (its probably better to
  do this at a high-school level)
• The last 2-3 minutes of the presentation will be
  devoted to questions

10
The Microteaching Presentation

• You must have at least six minutes of material
  prepared
• It is OK if you have too much material they will
  stop you before you are done, but there is no
  penalty for this
• You will be rated by three different evaluators
  both on your presentation and on answering their
  questions

11
The Microteaching Presentation

• A score of 4 will allow you to teach
• We will talk in more detail about microteaching
  tomorrow and will practice on Wednesday

12
The Evaluation Rating

• In effect there are three possible ratings
• Pass allows you to teach with no further
  requirements
• Conditional pass may allow you to teach, so long
  as you also take an English class
• Fail means that you must take English classes and
  redo the ITA evaluation

13
The Recommended Placement

• Exempt means that you are done
• UME1006 is a course to help improve your
  pronunciation of American English
• UME1008 is a course to improve your listening,
  fluency and communication skills
• Other means that you may be required to take
  additional courses

14
What if you dont pass?
There are TA positions that involve grading
rather than classroom or laboratory teaching. If
you do not pass you will most likely be assigned
to one of these positions.
15
Why pass, then?

• The English class(es) that you will have to take
  if you do not pass will take up a lot of your
  time and are not nearly as interesting as your
  science classes
• You will have to keep taking the evaluation until
  you pass
• You will have less time to devote to your other
  classes and to choosing a research group

16
Your scheduled appointments

• If MEI has scheduled you for an event, you must
  attend
• This takes precedence over anything and
  every-thing else
• For this reason, much of the material for the
  general orientation on Thursday and Friday is
  being covered separately for you today
• At times at which MEI has not scheduled you, do
  attend relevant events at the general orientation