Writing
Skills in English:
Information for Graduate Students
As
part of your graduate program, you will be doing a lot of writing: at first,
papers for your courses; later, grant proposals, abstracts and papers to submit
to conferences or journals, and your thesis or dissertation.
Good writing skills are essential.
This
is true not only for Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures' students, but for all graduate
students. A recent resolution of
the Penn State Graduate School (the administrative structure that supervises all
Penn State graduate programs) emphasized the importance of good communication
skills in English and, in fact, mandated that each department have a mechanism
for ensuring “high-level competence in the use of the English language.” The statement from the Graduate School is quoted below.
It refers to the Ph.D. students, since it came from a committee
pertaining to the Ph.D., but its general principles are valid for M.A. students
too.
A
candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy is required to demonstrate
high-level competence in the use of the English language, including reading,
writing, listening, and speaking, as part of the language and communication
requirements for the Ph.D. [Graduate departments and] programs are expected to
establish mechanisms for assessing competence of both domestic and international
students. Programs and advisers
should identify any deficiencies early and direct students into appropriate
remedial activities. Competence
must be attested by the program before the comprehensive examination will be
scheduled. (International students
should note that passage of the minimal TOEFL requirement does not demonstrate
the level of competence expected of a Ph.D. from Penn State.)
In
our department, your writing skills may be taken into consideration as part of
the decision to admit you as a graduate student, or to award financial aid,
since strong writing skills are essential for success in our graduate degree
programs. Thus if you send us a
writing sample as part of your application for admission, please be sure that it
represents your own work, and your very best work.
Once
students are enrolled in our M.A. or Ph.D. program, the “mechanism for
assessing competence” (in the Graduate School’s phrase) is that the required
introductory course, will be used for the diagnosis of writing
skills. You will write several
short papers in this course and the instructor will use these papers to assess
your writing skills. Please be sure that each paper you submit in this course is
as polished and professional as you can make it!
We encourage you to use a computer (computers are available for your use
in the department), to check your work with a “spelling check”
program, etc. If your written work
shows the need for improvement, the instructor of German 501 will let you know
and will suggest what steps to take next.
Speaking
Skills: Oral Proficiency in English for Teaching Assistants
Are
you going to apply for a Teaching Assistantship at Penn State?
If so, the following information may pertain to you.
If
students whose first language is not English are awarded Teaching Assistantships
to serve as classroom teachers at Penn State, they will be required to take an
oral proficiency test in English after they arrive at Penn State but before they
begin to teach.
This
test is administered by Penn State’s Center for the Study of English Language.
It is not designed specifically for Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures' students, but
is required of all non-native speakers of English, in whatever field, who are
going to serve as classroom teachers to Penn State undergraduates.
The test is intended to help ensure that Penn State undergraduates will
be able to understand their teachers. There
is no charge for the test.
On
the basis of this test, graduate students who will be classroom teachers may be
required to take English-language courses to improve their proficiency.
(Such courses are in addition to the courses that constitute the degree
program.) If a graduate student’s
score on the test does not meet the minimal requirements for teaching, he or she
will not be permitted to teach until the level of proficiency in spoken English
improves.
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