Perspectives of international teaching assistants on working in music disciplines in American higher education

Abstract

Previous researchers have identified the barriers faced by international teaching assistants (ITAs), yet few studies have specifically explored these barriers within music disciplines. Teaching assistants at American universities often encounter linguistic and sociocultural challenges, while those working in music schools may face additional obstacles due to the unique nature of the subject. The qualitative research method was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with five individuals who currently were or who had been teaching assistants in music departments of colleges and universities. This study explored the challenges faced by international teaching assistants in terms of communication, language and cultural barriers, differences in teaching methods, and difficulties in balancing learning and teaching. Tutor support became an important resource, but the support resources available varied from university to university. The result of this study highlighted the need for professional music teaching training, regular mentor meetings, and support in the daily work and professional development of international teaching assistants.

Keywords

Higher education international students international teaching assistants linguistic and sociocultural challenge music education professional development

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adebayo

C. T.

Allen

(2020). The experiences of international teaching assistants in the U.S. classroom: A qualitative study. Journal of International Students, 10(1), 69–83.

Axelson

E. R.

Madden

C. G.

(1994). Discourse strategies for ITAs across instructional contexts. In C. L. Myers (Ed.), Discourse and performance of international teaching assistants (pp. 153–185). Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Bernhardt

(1987). Training foreign teaching assistants: Cultural differences. College Teaching, 35(2), 67–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.1987.10532369

Borjas

(2005). Do foreign students crowd out native students from graduate programs? In Stephen

Ehrenberg

(Eds.), Science and the university (pp. 63–80). The University of Wisconsin Press.

Burton

A. M.

Jenkins

Robertson

D. J.

(2019). I recognise your name but I can’t remember your face: An advantage for names in recognition memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72(7), 1847–1854. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818813081

Chiang

S. Y.

H. F.

(2008). Reformulation as a strategy for managing ‘understanding uncertainty’ in office hour interactions between international teaching assistants and American college students. Intercultural Education, 19(3), 269–281.

Chiang

S. Y.

(2009). Dealing with communication problems in the instructional interactions between international teaching assistants and American college students. Language and Education, 23(5), 461–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500780902822959

Choi

(2017). Empirical profiles of academic oral English proficiency from an international teaching assistant screening test. Language Testing, 34(1), 49–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/026553221560

Glenz

(2014). The importance of learning students’ names. Journal on Best Teaching Practices, 1(1), 21–22.

10.

Clua Serrano

. (2021). Can you see what I mean? A multimodal approach to interactional competence in English-medium instruction. https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/672710

11.

Creswell

J. W.

Poth

C. N.

(2016). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage Publications.

12.

Fitch

Morgan

S. E.

(2003). “Not a lick of English”: Constructing the ITA identity through student narratives. Communication Education, 52(3–4), 297–310.

13.

Gautam

Lowery

C. L.

Mays

Durant

(2016). Challenges for global learners: A qualitative study of the concerns and difficulties of international students. Journal of International Students, 6(2), 501–526.

14.

Gorsuch

G. J.

(2003). The educational cultures of international teaching assistants and U.S. universities. TESL-EJ, 7(3), n3.

15.

Gorsuch

(2012). Working theories for teaching assistant development. New Forums.

16.

Gorsuch

G. J.

(2013). Helping international teaching assistants acquire discourse intonation: Explicit and implicitl2 knowledge. Journal of Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes, 1(2), 67–92.

17.

Gorsuch

(2016). International teaching assistants at universities: A research agenda. Language Teaching, 49(2), 275–290.

18.

Hahn

L. D.

(2004). Primary stress and intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching of suprasegmentals. TESOL quarterly, 38(2), 201–223.

19.

Handy

(2008). Learning student names. Language Teacher, 32(8), 28–29.

20.

Johnston

R. A.

Edmonds

A. J.

(2009). Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition: A review. Memory, 17(5), 577–596.

21.

Klatzky

R. L.

Forrest

F. H.

(1984). Recognizing familiar and unfamiliar faces. Memory & Cognition, 12(1), 60–70.

22.

Krauss

R. M.

Chiu

C.-Y.

(1998). Language and social behavior. In Gilbert

D. T.

Fiske

S. T.

Lindzey

(Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 41–88). The McGraw-Hill Companies.

23.

(2016). College admissions policy of international students: Theory and evidence. SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=288985

24.

Merriam

S. B.

Tisdell

E. J.

(2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. John Wiley & Sons.

25.

Pickering

(2001). The role of tone choice in improving ITA communication in the classroom. Tesol Quarterly, 35(2), 233–255.

26.

Pickering

(2004). The structure and function of intonational paragraphs in native and non-native speaker instructional discourse. English for Specific Purposes, 23(1), 19–43.

27.

Rubin

D. L.

(1993). The other half of international teaching assistant training: Classroom communication workshops for international students. Innovative Higher Education, 17, 183–193.

28.

Stoynoff

(1997). Factors associated with international students’ academic achievement. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 24(1), 56–68.

29.

Stich

(2015). Exploring cultural differences within a pattern of teaching ‘musics’: An international comparative study of two music lessons on video. Research in Comparative and International Education, 10(3), 437–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745499915581080

30.

Tracy

S. J.

(2019). Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. John Wiley & Sons.

31.

Wicks

(2017). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 12(2), 169–170.

32.

Willcoxson

(1998). The impact of academics’ learning and teaching preferences on their teaching practices: A pilot study. Studies in Higher Education, 23(1), 59–70.

33.

Williams

G. M.

Case

R. E.

(2015). Tale of the tape: International teaching assistant noticing during videotaped classroom observations. Journal of International Students, 5(4), 434–446. https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v5i4.406

34.

Williams

G. M.

Case

R. E.

(2016). When in Rome: Socializing international teaching assistants into the US higher education norms. In C. Foster (Ed.), Exploring the social and academic experiences of international students in higher education institutions (pp. 156–174). IGI Global.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.02 MB