OECT Policies

OECT Test-Takers

• Prospective international teaching assistants whose native-language is not English must take OECT before they are assigned teaching duties. Departments and graduate programs must inform itas@iastate.edu about the students who have to be tested.
• Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) applicants whose native-language is not English need to take the OECT before their application. If they cannot take the OECT before their application, they must indicate their tentative month of OECT and inform the PFF coordinator.

ENGL 180 Courses

Students with scores below Level 1 must enroll in a level-based section of ENGL 180: English for Teaching Purposes. The number of ENGL 180 courses they need to take depend on their initial and subsequent OECT scores.

Retesting

• Students who have taken one semester of ENGL 180 are eligible for retesting. They can choose to retake the test at the end of the course or up till one year after the ENGL 180 course.
• Students who have not complete at least one semester of ENGL 180 cannot retest. We enforce these restrictive testing policies for the following reasons:

• The OECT and the corresponding ENGL 180 courses are implemented to meet the Board of Regents’ mandate that is implemented through the ISU faculty policies.
• It is depressing and demoralizing for test candidates to retake the test but see little, if any, improvement in scores.
• The test is thorough, but expensive and time consuming to administer.
• Significant progress in oral English is generally slower than most students expect. A number of students improve to scores of around 200 (a mid level-3) or even lower, and then plateau. 
  • Plateauing around the score of 200 is not surprising. 200 scores mean that communication is somewhat effective.
  • Students with these scores are able to operate in English fairly successfully thus having less reason to work on improving although their English language abilities are somewhat limited and/or have errors.
  • Persistent problem areas often include pronunciation, grammar and limited vocabulary. 
  • Language proficiency needs constant practice and focused work on problem areas for improvement to take place.
• Most of ITAs who are not taking English classes retest at the same level as previously. Students who move up a level have at least 10 months of instruction, and in some cases over 2 years, between test dates. There have also been cases when students made no significant improvement on OECT for a long time.