Conversation Partner for International Students

We express our gratitude to the faculty of the Emeritus College who have already served as mentors in the Conversation Pairs program. All the students you have been mentoring have performed well on the Verification of English Skills Test (VEST) and have become eligible for a teaching assistantship (TA). The students also appreciate your work.

Every year there is an opportunity to participate as a conversation partner in the Conversation Pairs program. Members of the Emeritus College have been participating with International Students as part of the Clemson University International Student Teaching Assistant (ITA) program. Conversation Pairs is provided both as a standalone program or as part of a course entitled "Advancing English for Teaching" offered by Jennifer Brondell in the Office of Global Engagement's English Language Programs. Students are recommended or required to participate in the Conversation Pairs Program for at least one semester, given their score on the VEST test. Since mentoring in the Conversation Pairs program fulfills some students' academic requirements, the faculty mentoring service is reported in the Emeritus College Annual Report to the University. Finally, Emeritus faculty have the talent and experience to mentor international graduate students effectively.

The number of students participating in the Conversation Pairs program, based on their VEST test scores, varies each year. The conversation partner's goal is to help students overcome their shortcomings in their English communication. This program will vary from year to year and student to student. Preliminary work for the conversation partners will be to help the students improve their pronunciation so that their speech is easier to understand. Some students will also need to improve their fluency.

We hope you will consider volunteering as a conversational partner of an international student and look forward to hearing from you. If you would like to volunteer, just e-mail Adolph Beyerlein, Chair of the Emeritus College Language Skills Committee, at albrl@g.clemson.edu or the program coordinator, Jennifer Brondell, at jbronde@clemson.edu.