"Accent work" is a term used to describe the preparatory work that professional actors undergo to attain a speech accent for a role. However, this article presents international teaching assistants (ITAs) as another set of workers who engage in their own type of accent work. Since the accents of ITAs are constructed as…

The possession of a foreign accent constitutes one of the challenges international teaching assistants have to deal with in their encounters in U.S. classrooms. This challenge often impacts their perceived competence and effectiveness in the classroom. Consequently, undergraduate students usually have existing stereotypes about international…

Research provides evidence of effective factors in pronunciation teaching and learning. However, incorporating research into classroom practice is a challenge left to instructors, often without the help of a systematic framework for integrating pronunciation into a curriculum. This article, informed by work with international teaching assistants,…

In this article, Libby reflects on her experiences as a teacher, wife and mother while working at a school in Far North Queensland. In sharing these aspects of her identity, she effectively demonstrated one of the ways in which non-Indigenous educators can begin to connect with and address the learning needs of Indigenous students.

International instructors in U.S. institutions of higher education boost the academic quality of education available to U.S. undergraduate students. Many university students, however, regard nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants (NNESTAs) as problematic. Innovative programs for enhancing undergraduates' capacity to understand NNESTAs'…

It is quite common for Australian schools introducing Japanese as a foreign language to engage native Japanese volunteers to assist in the classroom using a collaborative team-teaching approach. These volunteer Japanese assistant teachers, commonly referred to as Japanese Assistant Teachers (JATs), are an indispensable asset to school language…

The recommendations and questions in this report enumerate key factors that may help a department answer the most important question about a graduate program: does it give its students the time and resources necessary to complete their degrees in a timely fashion? This document offers best practices in seven general areas for improving the…

I examine how American students respond to foreign instructors, who teach English Composition and Research Writing. I discuss how minority teacher's cultural, lingual, and ethnic differences interfere with classroom dynamics in the United States. I rely on my experiences as a Turkish instructor of composition at the University of Wisconsin,…

A reading-writing initiative began in 2011-12 at the University of Toronto as a partnership between an East Asian Studies (EAS) department and an English Language Learning (ELL) Program. In this institution, students are expected to enter into scholarly discussions in their first year essays, yet many (both native English speakers and non-native…

China has become an exporter of material goods to the world, particularly to the United States. It is time for the exploration of a mutually beneficial relationship in a strikingly different realm, that of human capital in higher education and its contributions to the quality of university teaching. To faculty members and students at U.S.…

The presence of a bilingual educator is proving pivotal to the success of technology initiatives aimed at developing Spanish-speaking students' grasp of both the concepts and the language of mathematics. This article features Ginny Badger, a teaching assistant at Glenwood Springs High School in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, who sacrificed her…

In 1997 English became a compulsory subject in Korean elementary schools. The education of English teachers for the elementary level was accelerated. The training curriculum was reformed according to the educational objective to enhance students' oral communication skills in English. Coupled to this change, the introduction of English Teacher…

A topic of continued discussion has been whether international teaching assistant (ITA) education is best done within academic departments, or within university-wide programs organized by English as a Second Language (ESL) specialists. This report describes a pilot ITA practicum which may potentially combine the best of both approaches: Academic…

Adult language learners have specific learning goals that reflect their lives within a global society, and adults negotiate multiple and changing identities throughout their personal, academic, and professional lives. Chapters in "Authenticity in the Language Classroom and Beyond: Adult Learners" highlight how teachers have the ability…

Peer teaching instruction has not received much attention in college second language (L2) learning. In this article, an L2 peer teaching program at the College of Charleston is discussed including the role, training, and supervision of undergraduate peer teaching assistants (PTAs). The article also explores the hinds of self-reported benefits…