Pedagogy Training

Teaching is integral to our graduate program. The department offers students training in pedagogy and experience in instruction, which prepares them for a range of professional opportunities. 

All students enroll in ROMST 700: Theories and Techniques of Teaching Foreign Language in the fall semester of their second year, a seminar centered on theories of communicative language pedagogy as well as pragmatic lesson planning and elaboration of teaching and testing materials. The course includes a language teaching apprenticeship in which students shadow experienced faculty, and professionalization and training workshops.

In the fourth and fifth semesters in the program, students teach one section of a lower level course in the appropriate language program with the direction and support of the language program supervisor. After these two semesters of experience in the language program, students have the opportunity to be a Teaching Assistant (TA) for an upper level undergraduate course with their advisor or another professor in their field.

Students who are advanced in their dissertation research and writing, and have already taught in the lower levels of the language program, may design and teach a course in their major field. Typically, in their fourth year students submit a proposal for a 327S course to be taught the following year. These courses contribute to the department’s undergraduate curriculum, and are of sufficient breadth and depth to attract a range of students, and so provide invaluable experience as our students prepare to apply for jobs.

All graduate student instructors attend a teaching orientation workshop held each year at the beginning of the Fall semester.