This study investigated the construct of comprehensible English in the context of oral proficiency assessment for international teaching assistants. I carried out a three-part mixed method design to explore instructor rater judgments, results of a speech analysis, and how specific speech variables might have influenced judgments on the assessment criteria. Each step focused on a failed/passed assessment comparison made possible through archived data from which 10 individuals initially failed the oral proficiency test but within the same year retook the task and received a passing score. Part A evaluated the perspective of the instructor raters through the rating scale judgments provided on the assessment evaluation forms. In the second part of the study, I coded and scored grammatical, temporal, and phonological variables that occurred on two-minute excerpts of a field-specific summary task from the set of 10 failed and then subsequently passed assessments performed by the same individuals. I inspected the speech analysis results to evaluate differences in the values of specific speech variables on the set of failed performances in comparison to the set of passed performances. In Part C, I conducted 10 case studies to compare each individual's rating scale judgments and rater comments on grammar, fluency, and pronunciation from their failed and their passed assessment with the results from the speech analysis of grammatical, temporal, and phonological variables. The case study approach facilitated a broad inspection of the interrelation among the rater perspectives on the assessment criteria and the speech analysis results. The study findings showed evidence of an interrelation between temporal and phonological variables on rater judgments of comprehensibility, as well as the role of pronunciation as a criterion for oral proficiency assessments. I concluded with implications for future research on the interrelation among speech variables that influence listener perceptions of comprehensibility and the use of pronunciation as a speaking assessment criterion. / text

This exploratory case study investigated the Graduate Assistant (GA) Scholarship Programme at Technikon Natal (TN) as a staff development mechanism. Although GA programmes are not a new concept and have been used internationally for decades as a means to develop academic staff, the programme at TN has some differences. This programme was initiated to address the development of young Black, and in the main African, academics in order to assist with meeting future employment equity requirements. The programme in its simplest form offers the GA the opportunity to gain teaching experience while studying for a post graduate qualification. Between 1995 and 2000, fifty GAs were involved in the programme at TN, with the majority of GAs studying at the BTech qualification level. This case study identified the juxtaposition of two perspectives of influence, those of the institutional and the individual issues. The institutional issues identified were categorised into policy and procedural issues and the individual issues focused on staff development and mentorship issues. Although the findings cannot be generalised, significant issues have been identified which could prove of value to a wider audience. In addition to developing Black academics, the programme makes a significant contribution to increasing the achievement of higher qualifications from the technikon sector. This is desirable in order to produce the technological foundation for South Africa's future economy. The study identified great potential in the GAs and in the community at TN who have embraced this opportunity to develop young academics of the future. Although there are a number of issues to be addressed, the key stakeholders of this study; the GAs and their Heads of Departments, are well supported by the management and relevant units at TN. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

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Current teacher education research calls for investigation of the "missing paradigm," the connection between teachers' conceptions of knowledge and learning and their instructional practices. This call has been heeded in the scholarship on personal epistemology that reveals the role of knowledge in learning and instruction within and across various socio-cultural contexts. This study extends the work on the relationship between teachers' personal epistemologies and instructional practices to a previously unexamined population: international and U.S. Teaching Assistants (TAs). Employing a two-phase explanatory mixed methods approach, this study examines the relationship between personal epistemologies and instructional practices of two teaching assistant (TA) groups, international and U.S.-born, in U.S. university contexts. In the first phase of the study, an epistemological beliefs survey was conducted with two groups of TAs, 106 international and 50 U.S.-born, at four large research universities in the Mid-Atlantic States. Their answers were analyzed with a focus on the relationship between group variables and seven dimensions of personal epistemologies. Building on the initial quantitative study results, in the second phase, a qualitative case study was carried out to investigate the relationship between epistemic positions and teaching practices for four TAs representing international and domestic TA groups within two academic disciplines at a public research university in Philadelphia, PA. Forty four undergraduate student data from focus-group interviews and surveys also were collected to examine the relationship between TAs' instructional practices and student opinions about their teaching. The quantitative results showed a significant group difference in the knowledge beliefs domain and the relational views domain (p < .001). In general, ITAs held a higher degree in their beliefs about certainty of knowledge than did US TAs. In addition, US TAs assumed a closer relationship with their students than did the ITAs, while unlike common assumptions, US TAs assumed a higher degree of status differentiation from students than did ITAs. The findings of the qualitative phase of the study revealed that the relationship between TAs' epistemic positions and instructional practices was not fully consistent. In the case of the US TAs, much of the inconsistency of the relationship is explained by the lack of pedagogical knowledge and pedagogic skills, which would enable them to exercise control over the types of instructional approaches that they wanted to implement at a discourse level in class. ITAs' instructional practices were more closely aligned with learning strategies that they had developed through educational experiences in their home countries and with their generalized assumptions about attitudes of U.S. students toward learning. The results also show that ITAs are as qualified and competent instructors in teaching of undergraduate students as US TAs are, and that ITAs' teacher-centered approaches are well received by the students who expect explanation, guidance, direction, and reinforcement on the part of their instructors. In addition, the analysis of TAs' epistemic positions revealed domain specificity as well as group differences to be major compounding factors affecting TAs' professed epistemologies. Pedagogic as well as theoretical implications of the study are discussed. / CITE/Language Arts

Yes / This paper offers a critical reflection on the experience of two former Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) - the authors - who were tasked with creating a digital learning program during the first UK national lockdown in 2020. The program drew from an emerging body of literature that seeks to employ Freirian pedagogies in the digital classroom and was designed to equip both new and established members of faculty with the skills needed for online teaching. While taking on this challenge, however, the experienced GTAs found that their pedagogical instincts and practices were challenged by their positionalities as young Early Career Researchers (ECRs) from underrepresented groups in British Academia. The aim of this paper is thus to scrutinise the potential for online learning to democratise and shift perceived hierarchies within academia, not only for students, but for ECRs navigating the structures of university teaching in the current employment climate.

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