Final Job Memo

 

Undergraduate Student Consultant

Most people from Marshall don’t know what an undergraduate student consultant is. If I didn’t have my East Asian Languages and Cultures double major, I probably wouldn’t have known about it either. I first learned about this job from my Dornsife advisor and was an undergraduate student consultant for three semesters. If the pandemic didn’t exist, I would be looking forward to matching with a potential graduate student on campus right now.

An undergraduate student consultant, or uSC for short, works with one or more ITAs(international teaching assistants). These ITAs are international graduate students who know enough English to communicate information about their field, but not enough to teach as a proper teaching assistant yet. Most of these ITAs don’t have anyone to speak English with outside of their classes. Even within their classes, they usually speak their native languages with other students from their country. My job is to help the ITAs become familiar with speaking American English at an appropriate level for their needs.

There are three main responsibilities that I had as a uSC:

1. Prepare

2. Converse

3. Reflect

I can use these words to describe what I did during my time as a uSC.

Prepare

One of my responsibilities was to help the ITAs prepare for their classes and presentations. A few of the ways to do this were:

• Look over any assignments or drafts they had written before meeting up with me

• Give them materials to help them better understand pronunciation

• Give them feedback after presenting in front of me

Usually the ITAs wrote something or created a presentation for their class before our scheduled meeting. I would talk to them about how some parts of their presentation could be clearer or if there was grammar that needed fixing. After that, I would ask them to practice presenting in front of me and see whether their speaking would prevent others from understanding the material. If so, I would write down the words they had issues with and practice with them until they got it. Sometimes, the ITAs would be confused about certain pronunciation rules and the many exceptions in the English language. I would send them lists of exceptions and similar words that sounded similar to the ones they had trouble with. Aside from the ITA from Chile, I would say the word that the ITAs had most trouble with was the word "world." They could not seem to properly connect the "ld" with the "r."

Converse

One of the most important responsibilities I had was simply to have conversations with the ITAs. This consisted of talking to them about:

• Any concerns they had

• Their goals for improving their English speaking skills

• Their opinions on current events

I would ask the ITAs how their day or week has been. This would allow them to talk about their concerns and let them release some of their stress since they were usually very busy. For most, if not all of them, this was the only time they could just talk about their day with a native English speaker. After each session with them, I would ask them about what they would like to focus on and how I could make my sessions with them more relevant. I wanted to make sure that they felt like they were improving their English and didn’t feel bored. One semester, I had an ITA from Chile who told me about the civil unrest in Chile, and how he was worried for his family because there was a curfew established. I ended up learning about news that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

Reflect

One of the more understated responsibilities was simply reflecting on my sessions with the ITAs. The ways I did this were:

• Fill out a required report

• Figure out how to make the environment more appropriate

• Look at previous uSC and ITA activities

I had to fill out a summary of what I did with each ITA every two weeks. This let me think about whether my activities were too repetitive or boring. On top of that, I could think about whether their pronunciation was getting better. Sometimes, the ITAs would tell me about an upcoming presentation. I would then reserve a private breakout room in Fertitta Hall instead of the noisy Starbucks I usually held my sessions in. If it felt like the sessions were being too repetitive, I would look at previous activities that other uSCs had done and do them. These consisted of watching celebrity conversations on YouTube and talking about dialogue in a TV series. 

 

Lesson Learned

One of my most awkward experiences was when I had a misunderstanding with one of my ITAs. The program directors sent me an email saying that we were not supposed to meet during this one week and I wrongly assumed that the ITA got the memo as well. At our originally scheduled time, the ITA asked me where I was and I told her that we didn't have to meet. She got angry and said that I was not respecting her and was wasting her time. I apologized many times and told her I didn't mean to disrespect her. I also sent an email detailing the entire situation to the program directors. In the end, the ITA didn't say anything more about the situation afterwards but from this, I learned to be much more diligent in terms of making sure everyone knows about any schedule changes.

 

Readability

Flesch Reading Ease: 62.3

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.2

Passive Voice: 0%