Communication...

Note: Most of the participants in the survey did not know of any special training or preparation for LCTL teachers at their institution or elsewhere. For this reason, and because the training programs which were described are quite varied, the individual responses have been compiled and summarized by institution.

Brown University
New faculty and lecturers at Brown University are encouraged to take part in year-long workshops offered by the university's Center for the Advancement of College Teaching. Brown also has an interdepartmentally-sponsored course in language teaching methods that is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates; students in Italian, French and Spanish are required to take it; both the German and Slavic departments don't allow their students to take the course until they have fulfilled other Ph.D. course requirements, which effectively means they can't take it until after their time as instructors is past. This year, however, the German and Slavic departments are cooperating in offering an expanded pre-service workshop.

BYU-Hawaii
The World Languages coordinator at BYU-Hawaii offers a yearly in-service training meeting for language teachers; bi-monthly visits are made by the coordinator with follow-up interview/critique sessions with each teacher.

UCLA
At UCLA, African language TAs have to take a TA training course, and if they are not already trained or experienced language teachers, they work under the supervision of a professor for one year. This supervision usually involves team-teaching with the professor for at least one quarter; in subsequent quarters their teaching is closely monitored through visits to the classroom and frequent meetings. The TAs are also required to attend annual workshops and meetings held at UCLA that deal with a range of language-teaching issues, mainly focusing on teaching methodology.

Indiana University
Assistant instructors of Dutch at Indiana University are required to take a class on teaching methods, and are observed by department faculty and evaluated by them annually.

University of Iowa
The Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Iowa has a MA degree program in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. Students in the program are trained in Chinese language, Chinese linguistics, Chinese culture and literature and Chinese language pedagogy, which includes:

“background of and assumptions about the Chinese language, such as the writing system, romanization, languages/dialects of Chinese and communicative protocols in Chinese; Chinese pedagogical assumptions; curriculum design (goals); classroom management; lesson planning; resources/materials use; methodology (communication approaches); learning strategies; assessment and evaluation (standards); articulation; performed culture; program development (management, alternative instruction, community support); material development and technology; advanced skills (narrative, rhetoric, composition and achievement culture/literature); integration of theory and research in CFL and classroom instruction; and the cognitive basis of CFL.”

Students who have graduated from the program are either teaching at the college/university level as instructors or are pursuing an advanced degree in applied linguistics/foreign language education (at Iowa or at other universities).

The College of Education also has certification programs for Chinese and Japanese Secondary Instruction. There is regular communication between these program and the programs in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, and two of the courses in the program for the MA in TCFL are also required courses for the Chinese certification program. Non-native speakers of Japanese must complete at least four years of Japanese language instruction to be certified in the state of Iowa, and native speakers must pass the university's SPEAK/LECT test to become a TA.

University of Kansas
The Department of African and African-American Studies at the University of Kansas holds a pedagogical orientation for TAs at the beginning of the school year, and the TAs are closely monitored and observed and provided with feedback on how to improve their teaching.

In the Department of Slavic Languages, the extent of departmental training for TAs ranges from several individual consultations with the department's language coordinator, to participation in a pre-service workshop and weekly consultation meetings, to participation in the workshop, weekly consultation, and enrollment in a semester-long three-credit course in the teaching of Slavic languages. Additionally, all TAs are encouraged to observe each other's classes as well as to share their own teaching activities. At least once a semester, the language coordinator observes classes taught by the TAs and holds follow-up conferences. The University of Kansas also has a Russian and East European Studies National Resource Center, which hosts an annual one-day pedagogy workshop.

University of Maryland
At the University of Maryland, LCTL teachers have limited preparatory workshops prior to the beginning of the academic year.

  Teachers of Scandinavian languages at the University of Minnesota have an annual week-long orientation, quarterly workshops, and a course for new teachers.

  At the University of Pennsylvania, all new language teachers, including LCTL teachers, must participate in two major workshops: a week long workshop that prepares teachers for communicative teaching, and an OPI workshop to prepare teachers for proficiency testing. In addition, there are ongoing language-specific and general meetings for the professional development of all language teachers.

  The University of Colorado as a secondary certification program jointly directed by the College of Education and the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, which is a one-year post-BA program of coursework and practicum.

  Assistant instructors and TAs in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at The University of Texas at Austin take a teacher-training course taught by an expert in applied linguistics.

  At the University of Wisconsin, there is a general foreign language TA orientation program for all foreign language TAs.

In addition, there is a methods course for Russian TAs and faculty supervision is provided.

A course in "Methods of Teaching African Languages" will be offered for the first time in the Fall 1996 term by the Department of African Languages and Literatures.

Japanese students also take a one-semester course in Japanese language acquisition, and usually have one year's experience as a teaching assistant. Some students also take other advanced language acquisition courses (mostly research oriented) offered in other departments.

In some departments, LCTLs have faculty coordinators who guide the TAs; in other departments faculty will supervise one or two TAs.