Significant progress has been made to enhance the oral English proficiency of International Teaching Assistants (ITAs), with the greatest strides being made in the linguistic aspects but little attention being paid to cultural communication and pedagogical dimensions. A survey of ITAs in the chemistry, mathematics, and physics departments at…

This study investigated components of preservice training likely to influence the development of expertise in teaching. The study examined whether perceived self-efficacy, cognitive skills for teaching, basic teaching skills, beginning training teacher performance, knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of teaching, teacher work environment, and…

The original Foxfire program evolved into the Foxfire Teacher Outreach program during the 1980s, providing an approach to classroom instruction applicable to all content areas and grade levels. It is a student-centered, hands on, community-based generally for 2 weeks in the summer. Teacher networks are test-driven). The Foxfire Course for Teachers…

Information from a survey of temperament and learning styles was used with International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) at the University of Minnesota in an ITA development course to enhance their communication skills and teaching abilities. The study used the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, a condensed version of the Myers-Briggs Temperament Inventory,…

This monograph presents results and recommendations from a project designed as a collaborative effort to prepare graduate students in the humanities for careers as scholar-teachers within institutions committed to liberal education. The project's two principle activities are discussed under the following headings: (1) Encountering Campus Cultures:…

A two-part study examined the use of communication strategies by two types of international teaching assistants (ITA) in the classroom, and cultural perceptions of teaching and teachers. Two representative kinds of ITAs were hypothesized to exist: (1) a type "X" ITA who has tight control of discussion in class, calls on students instead…

A review of the programs and policies to support the retention and nurturing of minority faculty members and students at the University of Pennsylvania leads to a number of recommendations to expand minority group representation in student and faculty ranks. These include (1) establishing departmental incentives for minority faculty recruitment,…

This newsletter theme issue focuses on unionization of graduate student assistants at institutions of higher education. The first article, "Graduate Assistants and Unionization" by Frank R. Annunziato, points out that more than 21,000 graduate student assistants at public sector colleges/universities are represented by unions in eight…

A study investigating difficulties encountered by Chinese graduate students in asking questions in the American classroom, and suggested solutions, are presented. An introductory section describes features of the Chinese educational system, focusing on attitudes toward questioning. The first chapter offers sociolinguistic and pragmatic…

Methods are described for visualizing and characterizing user interactions with hypermedia systems; they have been found to be effective in several developmental and evaluation studies. Analyzing the patterns of user interaction makes it possible to evaluate the design and usefulness of such systems. Path algebras can be used to describe and…

A study examined prevailing views on the role of errors and on error correction held by teachers and other school-related personnel in contact with second language learners. An error perception inventory was administered to a group of school personnel (69 teachers and 18 other personnel) completing a graduate-level training program. Of these, 35…

A study analyzed the ability of 31 advanced students of English as a Second Language (ESL) to monitor their own use of article and verb errors in their compositions. Subjects were 31 foreign graduate students enrolled in an advanced composition course at Iowa State University. The two categories of grammatical errors were monitored in three…

Evaluation of the Attitudes Toward Statistics Scale (ATS) of S. L. Wise (1985) was extended by examining scale responses in relation to: (1) the scale's factor structure; and (2) the correlation of ATS subscale scores with students' grades in statistics courses at several levels of graduate study, students' sex, and scores on measures of basic…

This report presents the results of a survey of graduate students, both U.S. and foreign, enrolled in U.S. universities who were focusing their advanced studies on a world area. The survey was designed to determine how students become interested and involved in foreign language and area studies and focussed on several questions, in particular:…

The experiences of Hispanic American female college students were studied over a 2-year period, based on interviews with 80 students and some staff members. Hispanic American female students fell into two major groups: (1) those few who attended private or specialized public schools; and (2) those who attended public schools or general private…