Course Description

The purpose of SCLA 620 is to help international graduate students in their oral English proficiency in order to prepare them for positions as instructional teaching assistants in undergraduate classrooms.

Native English speaker proficiency and expression are not expected of 620 students. The general expectation for certification is the ability to communicate in English without great effort or misunderstanding. Our goal is to assist students in developing improved intelligibility, vocabulary, grammar, presentation skills, and interactive communication so that any weaknesses do not interfere with communication.

The skills necessary for effective communication include:

• intelligible pronunciation, stress and intonation patterns;
• accurate listening comprehension;
• control of academic, professional, and field-specific vocabulary;
• control of English grammar;
• paraphrasing and elaboration skills;
• coherent organization of information at sentence and discourse levels;
• interactive skills to enhance comprehension.

Communication in academic settings can also benefit from an awareness of:

• the values in the American educational system;
• expectations of students and instructors in the American education system;
• verbal and non-verbal behavior appropriate for students and instructors;
• patterns of interaction between students and instructors;
• differences in styles and organization of classroom activities when the international students' educational contexts are compared to those at Purdue.

 For more information on the students in our program, see our student spotlights.