Responsibilities of International Teaching Assistants/Instructors

Many international teaching assistants/instructors (ITAs) and ITA candidates wish to improve their oral language assessment score so they can qualify for an initial TA position or for a TA position requiring more advanced language skills. An international teaching assistant/instructor may be tested annually or may test at the end of any semester in which a language development class has been completed.

Course Work Options

Students not wishing to take a class may take part in more informal language development (see Oral Language Development Opportunities), but in order to qualify for ITAP oral language reassessment, the candidate must provide ITAP with documentation of a minimum of three hours of course work and six hours of oral-production homework per week for 15 weeks (for a total of 45 hours of course work and 90 hours of oral-production homework). Because communication deficits only improve through time and diligent effort, course work must be done consistently throughout the semester.

Individual Language Development Plans

Individual students and academic programs can create personalized language development programs for students who are unable to schedule regular language development courses in order to qualify for ITAP language reassessment.

Individual language development plans must be discussed with an ITA staff and implemented by the end of the first week of the semester in which the student hopes to be reassessed. In order to qualify for ITAP language reassessment, documentation of completion needs to come from the academic program.