Volunteer Information for Faculty and Staff
The Oral English Proficiency Program (OEPP) helps international graduate students improve their language and communication skills so that they can be highly effective teaching assistants. It is therefore essential that our students get experience teaching and interacting with undergraduate Boilermakers, both domestic and international.
In 2024-25, more than 120 faculty, instructors, and staff encouraged their undergraduate students to volunteer in the Oral English Proficiency Program. In the end, our international graduate students benefited from more than 2,500 hours of volunteering from undergraduate students. We are so grateful to the faculty, instructors, and staff for encouraging their students!
What do undergraduate students do as volunteers?
On presentation days, undergraduates participate in presentations and micro-teaching sessions that our international graduate students teach. They also provide constructive feedback on a very short form.
On roundtable days, our international graduate students ask undergraduates questions about their preferences and experiences with teaching assistants, e.g., What do you think makes for a great TA?
Benefits to Undergraduates:
By volunteering in the OEPP, undergraduates hone their ability to navigate language and culture in academic and professional environments. Additionally, they can earn a new line for their CV/resume, in the form of an Intercultural Communication Partner Certificate.
How can faculty, staff, and instructors help?
It is very helpful when faculty members can:
- Show our informational video about volunteering on the West Lafayette campus or our informational video about voluntering on the Indianapolis campus. If you prefer, we can give a short presentation to your class about volunteering in the OEPP.
- Post to Brightspace our informational flyer about volunteering on the West Lafayette campus or our informational flyer about volunteering on the Indianapolis campus.
- Post the link to our volunteer sign-up lists to Brightspace
- Motivate your undergraduates to volunteer. We have noticed that undergraduates really only volunteer for the first time when a course requires or incentivizes it. For example:
- Some instructors require their students to volunteer and then submit a reflection about the experience as a course assignment.
- Some instructors award extra credit (around .1 percentage-points on the final grade) for every time that a student volunteers, capped at the amount required to earn an Intercultural Communication Partner Certificate (10 hours).
The Oral English Proficiency Program makes it easy on you!
When students sign up to volunteer in our app, they can indicate that they are attending for your course. In the last week of classes, the OEPP will email you an Excel file that lists the students who put in information for your course as well as the number of hours that they each volunteered for your course.
Please contact the OEPP at oepp@purdue.edu for more information on our volunteer program.