Mastering the spoken word

A group of international graduate students gained command of English during summer program.

by Kristen Cole

As if teaching for the first time isn’t hard enough, imagine teaching when English is not your first language. Your students phrase questions in the form of statements. They say they don’t “get it.” What did they think they were going to get?

This summer, international graduate students who wanted assistance with spoken English had the opportunity to enroll in an intensive English language program created specifically for teaching assistants. Sixteen graduate students enrolled in the program offered for the first time by the Office of Summer Studies.

During the academic year, international graduate students who are teaching assistants can take courses through the Center for Language Studies and seek advice from the Sheridan Center for Teaching. But the need for a summer program became apparent when Summer Studies noticed that graduate students had enrolled in the summer language program for international high school students, said Kathryn Good, director of the Intensive English Language Programs for Summer Studies.

Although many of the international teaching assistants have a tremendous understanding of English and are skilled in grammar, punctuation and other writing and reading skills, they may not be as practiced in speaking and listening, said Good.

Mee Jin Cho is one such person. A 24-year-old graduate student of economics, Cho studied English in Korea but did not speak the language often. During her first year at Brown, she was responsible only for grading students’ work, but the coming year will require her to teach as well.

“I always have butterflies when I speak in front of people,” said Cho. “I’m shy, so I’m practicing speaking in front of people and projection.”

The new summer program, which was designed with input from department chairs, required the graduate students to give presentations in front of their peers. This tested their emerging skills in timing and answering questions. Their classmates rated each presenter on such factors as eye contact and voice projection. The peers’ criticism often was pointed, but the graduate students welcomed the critiques, said Good.

“They are so willing and so open and so eager to get the feedback,” she said. “They have a lot of conversations with people who don’t correct them out of a desire to be polite.”

A few weeks into the Summer Studies course, Good said she noticed a change in the pace of students’ presentations and engagement with their audience.

Engineering graduate student Xu Chen was rewarded with laughter when he began his presentation about concrete with a deadpan: “The topic of my presentation is something concrete. …It’s really about concrete.”

Laughter also followed his closing remark that the procedure for producing concrete would produce a lot of money. “So if you want to make money, come see me,” he said.

Humor is another facet of speaking that is difficult to master when there is a language barrier, said Chris Raabe, the course instructor, and “Xu did a good job of that.”