English for International Teaching Assistants
The non-credit courses described below are designed for international graduate students who require English language certification before serving as teaching assistants in their departments. Graduate students who have been awarded teaching assistantships and whose native language is not English will be tested upon their arrival for English proficiency before they begin teaching. To schedule an English proficiency evaluation, please contact Jill Stewart. According to Graduate School policy, if a student’s English language skills do not meet the minimum standards for certification, provisional approval of the teaching assistantship appointment may be made on condition that the student enroll in an English-language course during the first semester of the appointment and be assigned to other duties that will prepare him or her for teaching. Students who have not been certified at the appropriate level for the classroom or laboratory will not be supported as teaching assistants past the first year. Request for English Evaluation form click here Request form
Placement in one of the non-credit courses below requires the recommendation and approval of the instructor and is determined by proficiency evaluation. With permission of the instructor, other international graduate students or scholars may enroll as space allows. Click here for other ESL programs at Brown and in the community.
| EINT 2100 | Academic Discourse for Internationals |
| This course develops the English skills of first-year international graduate students who are preparing to be teaching assistants. Students improve their listening comprehension and fluency in conversational interactions typical of academic settings. Areas of spoken English that are addressed include pronunciation, stress patterns, intonation, vocabulary, and structure. Instructor permission required. | |
| EINT 2200 | Academic Interactions |
| This course develops the English language skills of first-year international graduate students who are preparing to be teaching assistants. Students improve their fluency and expression of complex ideas in a variety of linguistic situations typical of classroom interactions. Students also increase their control of vocabulary, pronunciation and listening comprehension when communicating with American undergraduates. Instructor permission required. | |
| EINT 2300 | Negotiating an American Classroom |
| In this course, international graduate students increase their abilities to communicate accurately and fluently in English with American undergraduates. International students develop their ability to interact, in culturally appropriate ways, in a variety of teaching situations common to an institution of higher education, where they are responsible for expressing and explaining complex information and ideas in English. Instructor permission required. | |
| EINT 2400 | Speaking Professionally for Internationals |
| This course develops the English communication skills of international graduate students with an emphasis on intelligibility of speech and clarity of expression in a variety of teaching and professional situations (e.g. presenting material, responding to questions, directing discussions). Students develop increased facility of English in extended discourse when they are the authority in a teaching or other professional context. Instructor permission required. | |
| EINT 2500 | Advanced Articulation Tutorial |
| This course is an advanced pronunciation tutorial for international graduate students who have achieved a near-native speaker level of fluency in English, but who require greater precision of English articulations, pronunciation, fluency and/or expression. Instructor permission required. | |