VOA special English program -生活美语（1）- Lesson4 VOA, program, special, English, 生活

Life_on_journey

This is Will White with VOA special English Education REport. We continue our series of reports about how foreign students can study at an American college or university. Today, we discuss one way foreign students earn money while attending graduate school. They can work as teaching assistants. Teaching assistant, also know as TA for short. They usually work about 20 hours a week. They're paid to help college professors teach large numbers of students in lower level classes. Generally the professor gives a talk or lecture to all the students in a large class one or two times a week. The teaching assistant leads another smaller class each week. The TA gives tests and homework or reports the students may be required to write. Teaching assistants also meet individual student seeking help. They attend teaching meetings and they help organize lab equipment if they help to teach in science class. Most American colleges and universities must honor legal requirements while employing international students as TA. One of these is that the TA must be good in English. many University departments require all TA from non-native English speaking countries to take one or two English speaking tests. One of thes is a test for Spoken English or  TSE. It's offered by the Education Testing service. Foreign students can take the test before they arrive in the United States. The other test is the Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit, known as the SPEAK test. The college or University usually gives this test to make sure that students will be able to understand the foreign teaching assistant. For rexample, the University of West Virginia in Morgan Town uses foreign teaching assistants. The university requires a good score on either test before an international students is permitted to teach. The university also suggest that foreign graduate students give a short talk to a group of people to make sure they'll be understood.
Foreign graduate students whose Enlish is not good enough are given duties that do not require communication with students. They're expected to get the neccessary help to improve their spoken English. Information about becoming a teaching assistant can be found in the internet websites of the universities that offer such positions.


That is all for today. THX.