Teaching Assistants: Shared Experiences

The ITA course at UF is maybe the most useful tool we have for improving our skills in an efficient way. The use of audiotapes and videotapes for monitoring our progress, as well as the use of weekly journals and difficult word lists are the fastest way to improve poor language skills, to develop new abilities in listening and speaking and also to give the individual a little more trust in himself/herself when confronting a group of critical students.

Of course–and this is only my point of view–you may think it is an error to let the new international graduate student to teach who has just jumped off the plane in a new country. In my personal experience, after almost three years of being a teaching assistant in Mexico City, I still felt very scared of not being doing the right thing when I stood in front of my first American class. The students are expecting too much from you and you are giving them too little of your real experience in the subject just because of the language.
Maybe by allowing the new ITA to get involved into the English language for one semester; teaching in a simulated class and being instructed into the more delicate moods of speaking and listening–even if this represents a hard exercise–I think that would work better. The ITA, during that semester, can be tested several times to check improvement, can be active in conversational groups populated by volunteer native speakers, and still be a TA in a low level, maybe by assisting the professors in their grading or in the preparation of their teaching materials.

There are a lot of ways to help the TA, but it will never be a way to avoid very hard times between TAs and students. When an American student is not talking clearly, but just slipping out the words with the teeth almost closed and in a low voice to give the impression of being a cool person, then the ITA has a real hard time. When explaining to a sorority student that her paper is very neat and that those illustrations and decorations are definitely nice, but that her math is something that needs some serious comments – I can bet she will say "thank you" in very sad tone, smile a little and tell her close friend: "I'm sooo confuuused, why can’t he speak in English?"

Of course, not all is bad, and I found that after the Academic Spoken English course, I learned a lot about understanding these difficult situations: the memorization of student names, the use of visual aids, the seminars of questions to undergraduate students, gave me a lot of good experience and they were well paid back by little notes from some students congratulating me for being a good teacher.

The best way to integrate into the American way of being a student, a teacher, and a person who takes a bus, buys a book or ask for some pizza by phone is not a matter of taking courses, but a matter of bravery.
After my first two or three weeks at UF, one of my students called me (I gave them my home phone number for emergency questions), and he talked to one of my roommates, because I was not there. He was inviting me to one of his freshman parties, because he was convinced "that Carlos rules, man, he is the best" (my roommate was laughing in the floor after he hung up). At that time I did not know what to think, but it was just that he was genuinely interested in socializing with me because it was his first time having a teacher from another country and he was actually not only understanding, but enjoying the class.
After my second semester of teaching, one of the students evaluated me as with poor communication skills, and also commented that he was not able to give an opinion of the class because "it was not in English." On the evaluation sheet he was asked to comment on the TA’s abilities he wrote: "I don't know, maybe he has some [abilities] in Spanish." I did not pay too much attention to this because I knew from the handwriting he was one student who got a C after not turning half of the weekly lab reports required for the class. Actually, the rest of the students evaluated me highly, and a few even congratulated me and thanked me for their learning experience.

I enrolled in an English class that helped me overcome many problems that I had while I was teaching undergraduates. The practices that helped me the most were the videotaping sessions, pronunciation training, and biweekly conferences. The linguistic professor that I worked with [Kathryn L. Kidder, Coordinator, Academic Spoken English, University of Florida] pointed out many things from the videotaping session that might have hindered the learning process of my students. She helped me with my pronunciation, which was very poor at that time. Now I'm feeling a lot more confident to teach.

I like to interact with my students for many reasons. First, my class is an early afternoon class. Most students would probably have had lunch before they came. So, I had to wake them up somehow. The best way is to talk directly to them, not lecturing a class or talking to the air. Let them participate in the discussions as well as asking them to do some group discussion. By talking to them directly, they were alert and tended to pay more attention to what I said. Interaction allows me to know more what my students understand or do not understand.

Learning to know their names is important and necessary if you want to interact with your students. It was difficult at the beginning, but I got many suggestions from my linguistics professor on how to achieve that. I remembered all their names (about 40 of them) eventually.

I like the idea of students thinking of me as a friend more than a teacher. I talked to them just like I talked to a friend. Doing this has both good and bad sides. Sometimes some students didn't respect me as much as they should (to the degree that a friend respects his peers). But the benefits seemed to outweigh the disadvantages. Students asked questions more often and participated more in class. They asked for help when they needed it.

I didn't have many problems in terms of culture differences. I've been in the U.S. for many years and I've learned about the American culture quite a lot from TV and by observing people around me. What I really lacked was the day-to-day conversation skills. My professor helped me finding a linguistic student to help me talk more. That really helped too.

I got myself into some serious trouble a couple of times. Some of the students demanded to be treated differently. Some of them were not so nice on some occasions, but I wouldn't consider them as troublemakers. With lots of help from my linguistic professor, I managed to deal with all of them quite effectively.

My professor suggested that I do a review around the middle of the semester. I learned a lot about myself from those reviews by the students. They suggested to me many, many things that I should improve. I summarized the key points and talked to them how I would improve or what could be done to make the learning process more productive. They gave me many good suggestions. I was so glad that I did that.

I've met with many of my students after I finished teaching this class. They told me about their positive experiences with this class as well as some negative ones. At first, I was really scared to teach this class but when it was over, I was so happy that I really did it. I've learned so much by being a teacher myself. My experience teaching that class was a great one.

The courses that I have taken in the M.A. in TESOL Program at MSU have been very useful. Class observation and faculty orientation have contributed a lot to my classroom teaching. In addition, I constantly receive advice and suggestions from my professors and supervisor. I enjoy teaching very much, although it is not an easy job. Teaching brings me happiness and joy when I find that I get across to the students what seems almost impossible. Teaching brings me disappointment and frustration when students do not get what I am trying to teach them.

I would like to say that it is even harder to be ITAs in the field of ESL than in other areas because they are teaching students English, which is not their mother tongue. However, I do believe that ITAs can do a good job as long as they put their heart into it. Students like responsible instructors.

Amy Burns Short, Director of Graduate Teaching Programs, North Carolina State University, Raleigh.