This column offers an essay by an international graduate student. He was hired to work as a Teaching Assistant (TA) for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) language courses with content altered according to the needs of the learner and the requirements of their chosen profession. The TA contrasts his job description for a one semester-long Business English course with that of a 15-week Foreign Affairs course.
In this essay, I will describe the job description I was given for working as a teaching assistant (TA). I will summarize my background and qualifications as well as the essential responsibilities, activities, and skills that I learned to carry out an appealing job that is responsible for helping teachers and students to complete daily tasks within a classroom environment.
I am an international student from China. My long term aim is to become a foreign language teacher in my home country. To achieve this career goal, I need an advanced degree in education from an overseas university. My primary purpose is to learn as much as I can in the university classrooms of Japan. As an undergraduate student at Osaka University of Economics and Law, I studied foreign languages. I also worked for four years as a part-time cashier at supermarkets and drugstores. That work experience gave me some exposure to accounting, inventory, and sales activities at companies in Japan. Interaction with co-workers and customers greatly improved my fluency in the Japanese language. I came to realize that extracurricular activities provide fruitful learning experiences. During the 2022 to 2023 academic year, I worked as a TA at a private university during my first year as a graduate student. Each semester, I had to gain 10 credits in five compulsory courses, so, I could only work as a TA in one class each semester. I applied to assist a professor to teach two courses that year. They were Business English and Foreign Affairs—two English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses with 50 second- and third-year students. These were required courses for undergraduate students hoping to get high school teaching certificates. This TA experience helped me to focus on my major in the field of English education (Figure 1).
My job description as a TA included three main roles:
- Assisting and supporting the instructor to create handouts and teaching materials
- Assisting and supporting the teacher to make class presentations and lectures
- Supporting international students to better understand the class content
I will now explain how I used this basic job description to provide support and assistance to individual students and small groups to help them better understand the content of the Business English and the Foreign Affairs courses.
In the spring semester, I assisted in the teaching of Business English. My workflow was to help my supervisor prepare materials for his presentations. It was my job to help make class presentations and lectures, so the supervisor asked me to give a self-introduction in the first class. I was so nervous that I stood in silence for one minute in front of the 50 students. This moment was so embarrassing, but my supervisor supported me and encouraged me to never lose confidence. If I kept working at it, he assured me that I would eventually succeed. These warm words motivated me a lot and helped me to realize that it is crucial to be persistent in the process of becoming a language teacher. I also needed to think of different ideas to keep students motivated until the last of the 15 classes. Active learning and cooperative learning seemed to be appropriate methods. I suggested to the instructor in charge that we assign videos to be watched at home. I also suggested we divide the 50 students into 10 groups when they came to discuss those videos in class. This flipped learning approach seemed to maintain their concentration and motivation.
In the classroom, we followed Suzuki and Ishikawa’s (2007) advice to talk to every group. Teachers and TAs were advised to take an interest in each of the students in a group, so we tried to learn more about them by talking to them individually as much as possible. When it came time for students to make a group presentation in front of the class, I was able to focus on every member. In addition to helping students with their delivery of presentations, I assisted them to acquire specialized vocabulary. As a TA, I was expected to teach translations of vocabulary related to the economy, finance, energy, and migration. A side benefit of carrying out this essential task helped me to improve my own TOEIC scores. My supervisor assigned videos to watch at home that included these keywords. As a warm-up during class time the instructor asked a particular group to write 26 keywords as well as a few sentences on the board using some of the words. Once all the words and sentences were up on the board, the group posed questions to individuals in the classroom. For example, if the word “refugee” was on the board, a member of the group might ask, “What is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, famine, or drought?” This method kept the class constantly focused and encouraged student-presenters to express themselves in ways that kept the other groups attentive.
During the autumn semester, I was assigned to be a TA for the 15-week course, Foreign Affairs. In this class, although the general process was the same as for Business English, I tried to suggest new ideas for arranging the class. I printed handout sheets of specialized vocabulary lists. I also prepared lesson materials using PowerPoint for my supervisor one week in advance of his lessons. I recommended various foreign landscape pictures and maps for the instructor to use while presenting customs and vocabulary (Figure 2). For example, when the Canadian government was discussed in class, photos of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa were displayed (Chayamichi, 2023). The 50 student-cohort were divided into mixed groups of Chinese and Japanese students to exchange their experiences of living overseas. They were asked to share their information in English, something the Chinese students were not accustomed to doing in Japan. To help international students to better understand the class content, I attended to a number of questions from Chinese students, and I tried to motivate Japanese and Chinese students to participate in group conversations. I also helped students who were called upon to make statesmanlike presentations. When students gave a speech, I served as a time-keeper to keep each 90-minute class running smoothly and ending on time. I think the class format and content was effective and especially meaningful for students who have never gone abroad.
Working as a TA was full of challenges. It was particularly hard to work with foreign students who asked me to speak about various business topics and Canada in English, Japanese, and Chinese. The job duties described for a TA do not seem too difficult until they are carried out in a live classroom full of different students. It is a hard job, but I quickly learned to adapt to the teacher’s style and to suggest additional teaching techniques. Having worked in a few university classrooms in Japan, I now feel closer to achieving my goal of becoming an English language teacher in China.
References
Chayamichi, N. (2023, February 1). TA ga Kanada bungaku ni tsuite tokubetsu kogi [Special lecture by TA on Canadian literature]. IUK Kokusai Bunka Gakka. https://intercultural.iuk-plus.net/?p=1502
Suzuki, M., & Ishikawa, K. (2007). The effects of teachers’ teaching style and actions of student assistants on learning outcomes in first year seminar. Yamanashi Gakuin University Law Review, 88-89, 1-11. http://id.nii.ac.jp/1188/00003909/