On Friday, September 20, 2013, 10 individuals from six universities got together at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) for the semiannual Mid Atlantic ITA (MAITA) meeting. Directors, coordinators, and instructors from Drexel University, Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, University of Delaware, and Penn met to discuss common issues, new developments, and best practices in the field. We were even joined remotely by two additional members from Cornell University.

The group was originally founded by Barbara Hoekje (Drexel) and Miki Mendelsohn (Princeton) to foster idea sharing among regional ITA professionals. I remember my first meeting, approximately two years prior. Earlier in 2011, I had taken over coordination of ITA testing and training at Penn English Language Programs (ELP). Though my colleagues were supportive and helpful to me in my new role, I felt isolated as one of the sole ITA instructors housed in a much larger intensive English program. However, when I attended the MAITA meeting at Princeton that autumn, my feeling of isolation disappeared. I finally had colleagues whose brains I could pick and with whom I could exchange best practices.

Our meeting this fall began with a welcome by Penn ELP executive director James Riedel and a state-of-the-ITAIS conversation led by our chair, Kim Kenyon, via Skype. The team was especially pleased with how well the technology worked for this latter portion of the greeting; it gave new members a chance to meet the Cornell team, fostering connections that are usually made only at the national TESOL level.

The rest of the agenda was centered on themes. For example, assessment, culture, and pedagogy were just a few of the overarching subjects that guided our discussion. Here are some snippets of a few of our conversations.

Susan Greene of Princeton presented on her program’s pilot run with the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview by computer(OPIc) for ITA placement. They recently replaced their SPEAK test (an institutional version of the Test of Spoken English by ETS) with the OPIc and were generally pleased with the logistics of the operation. However, much is still to be determined about the fit of the test for their purposes until the semester is finished and after they do further assessments on students.

Anne Politz from Drexel lead the group in a discussion on making training programs relevant for international students who previously attended undergraduate and master’s programs in the United States. Although a bachelor’s degree earned in the United States excuses international students from demonstrating fluency for admissions purposes at Penn, it does not exempt them from ITA language testing. This is due to a Pennsylvania state law requiring the certified fluency of any undergraduate instructional faculty. This law affects many of the MAITA member programs, and other colleagues have institutional policies that also require experienced students to have their language assessed. Some of us have noted that having students with prior experience in the U.S. university system in the same class as new arrivals is challenging, in part because their needs are very different. Thus, it was interesting and useful to hear what strategies our neighbors were using to foster motivation. For example, if a training program has the institutional authority to cover pedagogy, this seemed one of the surest ways to keep culturally experienced ITAs engaged.

After lunch, Bruce Lenthall, the executive director of Penn’s Center for Teaching and Learning, spoke with the group about his department’s role in ITA development and ways they partner with the ELP. It was interesting to see the diversity of teaching centers across represented institutions and their involvement in ITA training programs. Some participants’ ITA programs are housed in these centers, whereas others, like Penn’s, have a partnership. Still other ITA programs have no relationship with their university’s teaching development units. Dr. Lenthall recommends some form of relationship, because it allows training programs to encourage students to continue with teaching development throughout their time at the university.

At this point in the afternoon, all formal presentations and discussions came to an end, and participants got down to sharing the resources they had brought with them. We spent time comparing syllabi and asking about order and approach to common ITA topics (e.g., International Phonetic Alphabet, word stress, language functions). As the organizer I found this particularly helpful, because it allowed me to gauge the configuration of our program against those of peers and helped me identify any gaps or omissions in our goals and objectives.

Our final activity for the day was a quick round of favorite activity sharing. This is a perennial component of the MAITA meeting, because it allows programs to freshen up their repertoire of highly motivating student-based tasks. There were activities for discussion gambits, story arcs, and fluency lines. The latter is an activity introduced by Wong (1987) in Teaching Pronunciation: Focus on English Rhythm and Intonation. Students stand in two circles or lines across from a partner; one is a listener and the other a speaker. The instructor assigns a topic and a time limit (usually 3–4 minutes), and one student speaks. When the first discussion is completed, students move down the line or clockwise around the circle and the instructor reduces the time limit (2 minutes). In the final round, the speaker has only 1 minute to discuss the same theme. After the final round, students switch roles and the instructor assigns a new topic. The activity can help raise student awareness about their differing levels of fluency in the three rounds.

On a whole, the micro conference was a success, and we hope to keep gaining new members. Currently, there are no limits on who can join the group. The location and date for our next meeting is still to be determined, but we plan to make an announcement on the ITAIS email list once details have been solidified. If you would like to be added to our MAITA email list, please contact Kenneth Hyde at the University of Delaware.

References

Wong, R. (1987). Teaching pronunciation: Focus on English rhythm and intonation.Englewood Clifs, NJ: Prentence Hall Regents.

Elizabeth Gillstrom has been the coordinator of ITA testing and training at the University of Pennsylvania since 2011. Her professional interests include language testing, teacher training, and materials development.