Workshops Include:

Adapting to the Culture of the American Classroom: A Workshop for International Faculty explores the unique challenges faced by international faculty and offers strategies to them teach more effectively in the Carnegie Mellon classroom.

Communicating More Effectively with International Students helps faculty or staff understand some of the underlying causes of miscommunication with international students and then to develop techniques and skills to improve communication.

Interviewing Nonnative English Speakers (NNES): Tips for interviewers not trained in language assessment This workshop was created in response to faculty concerns that interviews with international applicants are often more challenging due to language and cultural differences. Also, some faculty find that their lack of background with language assessment can lead to an inaccurate impression of an applicant's command of spoken English. Participants become aware of the potential stumbling blocks and familiarized themselves with some basic techniques and procedures commonly used at ICC to communicate with nonnative English speakers.

Making the Most of Your International TAs gives undergraduate students the opportunity to understand some of the culture and language differences which may cause problems for their international TAs, and gives them ways to compensate for those problems. The session also explores the process of ITA testing and training at Carnegie Mellon.

The Other Side of the Equation: A View from Three International TAs While this material is the basis of a seminar, in the past year we also turned it into self-paced material for international faculty (video + study guide) to help them recognize key differences in classroom cultures and learning styles around world, and to better understand the challenges they will face in the CMU classroom. On the video three international CMU graduate students compare higher education in their home country with what they encountered on this campus, and reflect on what they learned about US-style education, both positive and negative.

Teaching in a Multi-cultural Classroom, an interactive workshop for faculty and/or TAs, looks at issues of cross-cultural communication and cultural differences in the multi-cultural classroom. The workshop helps instructors identify potential problem areas and develop strategies for preventing those problems and creating a cohesive classroom community.

Understanding ICC Support for Nonnative English Speakers, intended for department administrators working with international students, this session covers issues such as: ensuring that students get started as soon as possible with ICC work, helping them better understand and prepare for the ITA test, interpreting TOEFL score more effectively. Participants also have the opportunity to share "best practices" for dealing with and supporting international students in their departments

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