Language program hits home run with international students
Yvonne Chiu Hays
For most Americans, Rob Mirabile's demonstration would have been as clear as the white diamond outline on the blackboard behind him: He was talking about baseball.
With a weathered mitt on his left hand, Mirabile illustrated with his right hand how a hit might allow the batter to progress from the center square at the bottom of the blackboard to the neatly drawn square to the right, labeled "B1."
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Graduate students in Princeton's
English Language Program this summer stepped up to
the plate to learn about idiomatic speech and
everyday life in America.
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"The one with the club, what's his name?"
"Can there be two people on base one?"
"If the batter starts running, does the base one player have to run?"
"If we already have two outs, and if a person on third runs home, and another makes an out, what is the result?"
The baseball lesson by Mirabile, a Princeton graduate student, was part of a revamped three-week English Language Program launched at the University this summer. Most of the 126 students enrolled were first-time graduate students at Princeton whose native language is not English and who did not earn their undergraduate degree at a U.S. college or university.
"As universities in this country have been transformed into global centers, including graduate students from all over the world who teach as well as conduct research, it has become apparent that they need help with their English language skills," said Jacqueline Mintz, director of the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, which oversees the language program. "We want to make sure they understand and are understood by the students they teach."
The revised summer program is one of the many new steps the University is taking to orient international graduate students not only to the English language, but also to idiomatic speech and everyday life -- crucial components to their success as students and teachers, she said.
A policy change last winter tightened the English language proficiency requirements for graduate students at Princeton. As a result of that change, the University created an English Language Institute, which was composed of English as a Second Language teachers and drama and speech instructors from across the country. The group designed the new curriculum for the summer language program.
Miki Mendelsohn, language program coordinator in the McGraw Center, said the new curriculum tackled a wide variety of issues facing the non-native speaker, both as a student and as a teacher. For example, some of the classes worked on pronunciation, voice projection and giving presentations as well as making small talk and discussing grades with students.
The intensive language program also took the graduate students to watch a minor league baseball game in Trenton -- in addition to learning to play in the classroom -- and to visit Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange in New York City.
The field trips, while culturally enlightening, served another purpose. They were language embellishments -- springboards for learning new vocabulary and metaphors not easily found in an English dictionary.
"We are looking at how Americans, even without thinking, use idioms from sports and the financial world: 'Value added' and 'ballpark figure' are examples of the kind of language that has seeped into our conversations and that the students will encounter every day," Mintz said.
The course was strengthened in other ways. Students took an oral test new to Princeton called Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit (SPEAK) when they first arrived. Those who passed the test became immediately eligible to be appointed as assistants in instruction, although the Graduate School prefers that departments delay placing first-year international graduate students in teaching roles right away to ensure they are confident. But the students who received a teaching post are now required to enroll in follow-up seminars during the first two semesters they are teaching.
"The Graduate School's new policy enabled us to test and follow through with proper measures so that graduate students and, in particular, those who are teaching, will be better able to do research and learn in the classroom, and to then teach Princeton undergraduates," Mintz said.
Those who almost passed the SPEAK will be evaluated again at the end of the language program with an exam called the Princeton Oral Proficiency Test (POPT). For that test, students will give a presentation in their field of study, and evaluators will rate their performance and how well they responded to questions by actual students.
"It is something that requires a level of oral fluidity that students can only have if they practice and understand what they're doing. And it's done within the context of the classroom," Mintz said.
Students who do not pass the POPT will continue to take language classes. At the end of each semester, the POPT will be administered. Those who pass will be permitted to teach, but will take seminars through the McGraw Center during their first two semesters of teaching, just like students who passed the SPEAK.
"The goal of course is to make new students not only as comfortable as possible, but also as prepared as possible to negotiate an English-language environment, including their seminars and lectures, their research in the departments and their teaching as assistants in instruction," said David Redman, the Graduate School's associate dean for academic affairs. "With the planned follow-up language courses and teaching workshops, we believe that our students will quickly learn to operate effectively in this academic environment."
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September 18, 2000 Contents • Shapiro:
Take advantage of new beginnings • Fuchs
selected for leadership prize • Graduate
School turns 100 • Language
program hits home run with international
students • Coach
choreographs new game plan • Alumna
uses music to touch lives • By
the numbers
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