Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese

Applicants for teaching assistantships in Spanish who are not native speakers of Spanish must submit a CD which demonstrates their linguistic abilities. In addition, all applicants for teaching assistantships who are not native speakers of English must submit a CD demonstrating their abilities in English.

The CD should be 5-10 minutes long, and should consist of free, spontaneous narration. Appropriate topics include a brief biographical sketch, accounts of travel or other experiences which bear on graduate study in Spanish, reasons for deciding to pursue a graduate career, specific research interests, and awareness of the programs offered by the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at Penn State University.

Applicants should try to use as wide a range of grammatical structures as possible, including past, present, future, and hypothetical reference, and an appropriately professional vocabulary. No portion of the recording should be read or memorized, nor should the tape be edited' in any way.

If the submitted recording does not adequately demonstrate the candidates' linguistic abilities, additional demonstration may be required, such as a supplemental tape, or a telephone or personal interview.