Summer Oral Skills Workshop for International TAs

This summer, the Graduate Division will once again offer an Oral Skills Workshop for prospective international Teaching Assistants. Departments are encouraged to recommend candidates who could benefit from an eleven-day intensive training workshop in oral academic English.

The program is seeking candidates who are:

• Newly accepted to a Ph.D. program
• Non-native speakers of English
• Under consideration for a TA position in 2022-2023, and thus needing to take the TA English Language Evaluation in September
• Available to arrive on or before August 21 and participate August 22 through September 7
• Highly motivated to learn and improve their oral English skills to prepare to be a TA

The class is limited to 15 students. Preference will be given to students who have spoken to department faculty or a staff member (for example, by phone or Skype) and demonstrated sufficient skills to participate in the workshop, but also a need to improve their oral English fluency, pronunciation, or language accuracy for better overall comprehensibility.

Students will need to be recommended by their departments and will be required to:

• Submit a "learner self-introduction" statement (see attached)
• Attend group meetings Monday through Friday mornings (3 hours per day)
• Prepare presentations and undertake daily independent study (1-2 hours per day)
• Consult individually with the instructor (1-2 hours per week)

Participating students will receive an $1,000 stipend for completing the three-week workshop. The stipend will be paid following conclusion of the workshop under the conditions that students regularly attend and complete the training.

The workshop will be led by Randy Rightmire, a continuing lecturer in UCSB's English for Multilingual Students (EMS) Program. He has previously taught courses in oral English for academic purposes and other courses for international graduate students; he has also served as an evaluator for the TA English Language Exam. Additional details about the workshop are available in the attached bulletin.

Application and Nomination Process: Departments should send their recommendations to graddeans@graddiv.ucsb.edu by Friday, June 24. Recommendations must be accompanied by a Learner Self-Introduction (see attached), completed by each recommended student. The department should also include a memo, briefly describing their reasons for nominating each student, including any opportunity the department faculty or staff have had to assess the student's oral English (e.g., in phone or Skype conversations). Departments who wish to nominate more than one student, should rank the students in terms of their potential to benefit from this program.

For more information, contact Randy Rightmire, English for Multilingual Students Program, rightmire@linguistics.ucsb.edu.