CMU ITA Test: Passed

Background

For those not concerned, Carnegie Mellon University performs blatant discrimination of non-native English speakers via the International Teaching Assistantship test (ITA). The policy is: if you are a foreigner and you want to be a Teaching Assistant (TA) at CMU, you need to pass the test. No matter what you do---from grading assignments to giving lectures---you have to take it before.

The ITA test is conducted by the Intercultural Communications Center, a constituent of CMU. This center also provides seminars, workshops, and classes for non-natives.

The ITA test potential results are as follows:

• Category 4: you suck and cannot TA anything.
• Category 3: you better have a TA position where you wouldn't interact a lot with people because their ears bleed when you talk. Please spend 15 hours per semester in ICC classes to improve your English.
• Category 2: you're basically a loser because you can TA whatever you want, but you have to spend 15 hrs/semester of your precious time in ICC classes.
• Category 1: You're cool and owe nothing to the ICC anymore.

The essence of the test is that a student has to give a 5-minute (strictly timed) talk with a randomly selected topic (from his proficiency area) using only a whiteboard and a marker.

Motivation

CMU needs the ITA test in order to comply with the PA state law that requires that all TAs are certified. By the way, the law does not establish any competitive standards for the test, categories, or anything.

The ICC needs the test to motivate its own existence: they need people to spend time in their classes, and the ITA test puts the people in the classes. Since the ICC sets the rules and categories as well as conducts the testing, I see a small conflict of interests here.

Preparation

This is the crux of this post. In preparation for the ITA test, you need to get a set of things into your mind and be able to check if your speech complies to all these requirements. In case it does not, you need to adjust it immediately. I give italicized examples to several points below.  

So, my list of ITA test strategies: 

• Speech
• Be slow! No, even slower! The slowest speed reasonably possible! So that a bunch of pedagogues could listen to you, understand you, take notes, and think up questions.
• Stress: A formula used in the ICC is: louder, longer, pause [on the important word]. 
• Intonation: the classic American staircase step-down intonation with pitch jumps on important words. BAB is an awesome guide.
• Individual phonemes: if you said [ah] instead of [eh], just go back and correct yourself. Much better than have them complain about your pronunciation. 
• Gestures: don't do anything wild. Don't stay still. Your gestures should help listeners understand what the hell you're talking about.

• Talk organization
• An attention-catching opener: I know how to save billions of dollars today.
• An overview of the talk: first, I will talk about pipes, then about pipelines, and finally about piperlines.
• A coherent flow of ideas:
  

  Roses are red,

  Violets are blue,

  Cows are fat,

  And so are you.

• Reliance on the board: draw stuff there and refer to it. They like it.
• Final highlight: what I want you to remember from this talk is that all of us are mortal.

• Explanation
• Teacher's language: the Bayes theorem is counterintuitive, so here's how I prefer to think about it... 
• Analogies. Be sure to explain how the analogy is related to the topic, what the similarity is, and what your conclusion is. A poor analogy is like a kitten and a mirror. 
• Examples. 3rd Newton's Law of Motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example, if I punch you in the face, I will fail the ITA test.  
• Definitions. A is B that is C - that's the form they like. You may want to use a "near miss" definition: A is almost like B, but C in A is different. 
• Audience participation
• Eye contact: make sure to check back with the listening professors once in a while. Otherwise, they start feeling terribly lonely.
• Opening questions: have you ever thought how animals manage to survive Winter?
• Polls: how many of you ever used a debugger?
• Ask confirming questions: did I put that clear? Never ask whether they were able to understand as it puts the responsibility on them, which is not considered right in the American speaking culture.
• Let them prove themselves worthy and throw you a question or two.

You are graded based on a similar checklist. Your category is determined by the average of all those scores.


The Test

Well, you just go into a room with the ICC staff, they promptly pick you a topic, and without any preparation you start talking.

The test worked out pretty well for me. I scored in category 1 on April 16, even though I didn't actually expect that. I'm free and happy now.