One challenge for many international teaching assistants (ITAs) is improving their spoken English fluency after arrival in the U.S.A. It may be argued that poor fluency, with its hallmarks of slow speech rate, false starts, and particularly pauses that violate phrasal boundaries, account for the failure of many ITAs to be certified by their…

Looks at what constitutes culture in university teaching settings worldwide and how this may be operationalized as an international teaching assistant (ITA) need. Investigates ITAs' educational attitudes towards teacher and student roles, modes of information presentation, and significant mores of higher education as mediated by gender, previous…

Recounts the use of a computer-mediated proficiency test in an intensive international teaching assistant workshop. Both traditional raw score analyses and item response theory analyses done on the test data are described in detail. Indicated that the test was not suitable for making exemption and retention decisions with this particular group of…