This month's focus:  

Linguistics  

Note from the Director 

Marie Nelson
(Linguistics)

"...with the development of the University of Florida Brain Institute, it is apparent that psycho-linguistics, along with cognitive studies, could become an important area for further development." 

International Issues in Pedagogy 

Roger M. Thompson discusses TESL - Teaching English as a Second English 

"...teaching language in a real life context rather than from a book improves language skills for both the teacher and the student." 

Phonetics and Phonology  

An Interview with Caroline Wiltshire on the Unwritten Rules of Language Systems  
 

Applying Linguistics 

Diana Boxer describes her work in applied linguistics  

The Dean's Musings   

Graduate Growth in CLAS  

Around the College   
 

Department News 

Announcements  
 

Computers and Writing Conference 
 

CLAS Deans Receive Matheson Historic Preservation Award 
 

CLAS Professors Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences  

Lada Awarded CAREER Grant  

Joins Five Others in CLAS  

Bookbeat    

Three new books from CLAS faculty  

Grants    

Grant Awards for April 1998 from the Division of Sponsored Research 

CLAS notes is published monthly by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to inform faculty and staff of current research and events. 
 
 

Academic Spoken English (ASE) Coordinator, Kathy Kidder, evaluates the teaching tape of an international TA. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In the 1980s, due in part to the world-wide changing economic and political  climate, increasing numbers of foreign students began enrolling in American universities.  UF's growing reputation in research made it no exception to this trend.  Although visiting students added much to UF in terms of international scholarship, as teaching assistants, they raised eyebrows among students and parents concerned about the intelligibility of their instruction (in turn fueling an already heated controversy about the general quality of undergraduate instruction at research institutions).  Newspaper editorials and local debate on the subject culminated in Gainesville's state senator establishing a hotline for reporting supposed cases of inadequate classroom communication skills.  Eventually, the Florida legislature enacted a statute requiring instructors at state universities to "be proficient in the oral use of English, as determined by a satisfactory grade on the Test of Spoken English (TSE)." 
     Enter the Academic Spoken English (ASE) program, established in 1986.  Funded by the Graduate School and designed by the Linguistics Program  (with collaboration from the College of Education), ASE screens incoming international graduate students before they are given teaching appointments to make sure they are proficient enough with spoken English to be effective instructors.  "There's a real advantage to being taught by these very talented, highly selected individuals from all around the world," says ASE Coordinator Kathy Kidder, "and it's our job to help ensure that these bright international TAs are successful in the classroom." 
    Minimum scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the GRE exam are required of all international applicants, and as a result, UF foreign grad students generally have an advanced reading knowledge of English.  Since these tests don't include oral components, however, high scores can't guarantee a student's ability to speak clearly or understand the varieties of American English. "Some of our international TAs (ITAs) get to UF and find out that the 12 or 13 years of English they'd studied in their countries doesn't do them any good if they can't make themselves understood here," Kidder says.  "Many were taught by teachers with poor accents...or maybe they did lots of grammar, reading and writing but had little practice speaking."   
     To remedy this situation, ten times a year ASE gives the locally administered and scored version of the Test of Spoken English, called SPEAK, to all international students.  Prospective ITAs passing this test at the highest level are free to teach without further language training.  Those passing the exam with provisional scores are still permitted to become ITAs under the condition that they take a specialized ASE course, ENS 4502, during the first semester of teaching.  International students scoring below the cutoff point are not allowed to teach until they become more proficient. 
     Capped at six students per section to ensure individualized instruction, ENS 4502 covers strategies for accent reduction as well as teaching techniques and intercultural communication.  The new ITAs are recorded on video every other week at work in their classrooms, and on alternating weeks they meet one-on-one with an instructor to review their tapes and work on individual trouble spots.  Together with the ASE administered "early feedback form" (a mid-term evaluation of the ITA by his/her students), the tapes and seminar provide intensive instruction and constructive criticism while building ITA confidence.  And since all of the students in 4502 are in their first semester of teaching, they are regularly able to share teaching frustrations and problems in an open, supportive environment.  
  

International graduate student Amy Buchwald works on vowel reduction in an ASE lab. The computer software ASE uses (called TEAM) provides the student user a graph of how a particular word should sound.  When the student repeats this word into a connected headset, a graph of his/her pronunciation appears directly below the correct version, allowing a visual comparison.  Students may repeat words as many times as it takes to see consistent improvement. 
 
 

After a semester in the Academic Spoken English program, most of the international instructors, Kidder explains, are approved by ASE and their individual departments to continue teaching with normal supervision.  Infrequently, when an ITA is still struggling after a term of teaching and 4502, s/he won't be re-appointed or will be switched to a research assistantship.  Another option in this situation is for the student to take the observation portion of ENS 4502 over again, meeting with the instructor every two weeks as before.  "We continue to tape them in the classroom and conference with them on individual issues including how to integrate more American teaching styles (interaction, visual support for explanations, using case studies and examples, etc.) so that despite negotiating an accent, undergraduates can more readily follow the class format and therefore can understand their instructor better," says Kidder.  "A lot of the things we do are compensatory strategies." 
     Academic Spoken English also offers ENS 4501, which Kidder calls  "a crash course in how to survive in American academia" to non-teaching foreign students (and occasional visiting professors) who are seeking to improve their communication skills and/or are planning to teach eventually. Often, departments or dissertation committees will require foreign grad students struggling with spoken English to attend this class.  The four credit, nine contact hour-a-week course includes three hours a week in the language lab working on sounds, rhythms, intonations and overall language patterns, as well as extensive public speaking experience to prepare them for class and professional presentations.  As in ENS 4502, students are videotaped and critiqued individually. "It's very intensive," Kidder says.  
     ENS 4503, the program's advanced course, focuses on interpersonal skills.  It is especially useful for graders and tutors although some students take it as a follow up to 4501. 
     All three ASE courses include a good deal of cultural content.  "Our students come to learn that undergraduates asking questions is not disrespectful [as it is in some of their home countries], and that it's not necessarily rude if students eat or drink in class.  We also reinforce to them that there are kinds of behaviors that they do have to control, and we help them to understand where they should set the limits in what is to some of them a strange world to negotiate." 
    Academic Spoken English offers six to seven ENS courses per semester.  Kidder teaches two and linguistics graduate students handle the rest.  "We have the advantage of our TAs being from the Linguistics Program, so they are very familiar with the latest work and all the current research and patterns in English," she says.  "It's a real strength." 
    Those in contact with the program might use these same words to describe ASE, which renders an important service to UF on many levels.  Academic Spoken English helps assure that undergraduates receive quality classroom instruction, while linguistics TAs working in the program are provided the invaluable experience of teaching advanced academic speakers.  And of course, the English assistance ASE provides foreign graduate students makes UF even more appealing to prospective international applicants.  "All of these people are going to be eminent in their fields," says Kidder of the ITAs, "and since English is the most common academic language spoken, if/when they return to their home countries, they'll be even more valuable as scholars."