CAREERS

Graduate Teaching Assistant, English for Academic Purposes

UBC Vantage College invites applications for up to 9-10, full-time Graduate Teaching Assistant positions in the 2021/2022 academic year to assist with academic English courses in Vantage College’s Arts, Science, and Engineering Programs.

UBC Vantage College offers first-year curriculum in a cohort program to academically strong international multilingual students whose English language proficiency does not yet meet the English language requirements for direct admission into UBC degrees. Students take courses in one of the Vantage One programs (Arts, Science, or Engineering) before transferring into second year in their degree program. The primary goals of the Vantage One curriculum are: (1) to encourage students’ cultural, linguistic, and academic engagement in disciplinary communities and (2) to maximize students’ successful transition to Year Two in the Faculties of Arts, Science, or Applied Science. For more information about the Vantage One programs, please see https://vantagecollege.ubc.ca/

The Vantage One programs are hiring up to the equivalent of  9-10, full-time Graduate Teaching Assistants. These programs include specific courses focused on academic English language and literacy development, such as LLED 200 (Introduction to Writing in Academic and Professional Registers), LLED 201 (Critical Reading and Writing in Academic and Professional Registers), and VANT 140 (Content and Language Enrichment Tutorials). These courses are developed and taught in close coordination with the other courses in the program; for example, VANT 140 in the Vantage One Arts program focuses on academic English specific to the Arts courses taught in that program (Political Science/Psychology/Sociology).

The Teaching Assistant positions will involve up to 192 hours in Winter terms 1 and 2 of the 2021-2022 academic year and are subject to final budgetary approval. Each course section is allocated 32 hours of GTA support. Therefore, a full GTAship would involve assisting in multiple course sections.

Duties

The Graduate Teaching Assistant supports the academic English instructors with teaching, assessment and feedback, as well as coordination, with an emphasis on qualitative feedback, tutoring and marking. Duties may include attending regular program/course meetings/classes, holding office hours, providing student feedback where applicable, conducting research to support materials design, attending mandatory training sessions and marking/collaborating in assignment and exam design, as well as potentially designing and facilitating study skills workshops with students (e.g., library skills).

Qualifications

Graduate Teaching Assistants must be registered as full-time graduate students at UBC and must have experience teaching and/or tutoring English language learners for academic purposes. Formal training and teaching in TESOL or Applied Linguistics is an asset. The academic English courses at Vantage College are informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and genre-based pedagogies; therefore, while prior knowledge in these areas is not required, depending on the assigned duties, applicants may be expected to have an interest in familiarizing themselves with the theoretical and pedagogical approaches used in the courses they support.

In addition, familiarity and prior experience with any or a combination of the following disciplines is also an asset for applicants interested in serving as GTA for the VANT 140 courses:

• Political Science, Psychology, or Sociology (For VANT 140 Arts)
• Chemistry, Physics, Math, Computer Science or Earth and Oceans Sciences (For VANT 140 Science)
• Matter and Energy, Electricity, Magnetism and Waves, Sustainability, Computer Programming or Engineering Design (For VANT 140 Engineering)

Application instructions

The following application materials must be sent (as separate Word or .pdf files, using this file-naming convention: LASTNAME, Firstname_Application Form; LASTNAME, Firstname_CV; etc.) by email with the subject heading “Graduate Teaching Assistant – English for Academic Purposes, Vantage College” to the following address: employment@vantagecollege.ubc.ca. Review of applications will begin on May 1st. Applications will continue to be accepted until the positions have been filled.  

All Applicants are required to include the following in their application package:

(1) a completed Vantage College EAP Courses GTA Application Form (Download the EAP Course GTA Application form)
(2) curriculum vitae, including a list of all teaching-related activities,

(3) evidence of teaching effectiveness (e.g. teaching evaluations), if available

For questions about this position, please contact the Director of our Academic English Program, Dr. Sandra Zappa-Hollman: sandra.zappa@ubc.ca  

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Indigenous person. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians citizens and permanent residents will be given priority.

UBC Vantage College invites applications for Sessional Lecturer position(s) in the 2021-2022 academic year for Academic English Program courses offered through the Vantage One Arts, Vantage One Science, and Vantage One Engineering programs

Up to 5 sections of LLED 200: Introduction to Writing in Academic and Professional Registers (Winter Term 1-2, Vantage One Arts program) Each section is 3 credits.

Up to 4 sections of LLED 200: Introduction to Writing in Academic and Professional Registers s (Winter term1, Vantage One Science and Vantage One Engineering program). Each section is 3 credits.

Up to 4 sections of LLED 201: Critical Reading and Writing Academic and Professional Registers (Winter terms 1-2, Vantage One Science and Vantage One Engineering program)

Up to 3 sections of VANT 140 – Integrated Language and Content Tutorials (Winter terms 1-2, Vantage One Engineering Program). Each section is 2 credits.

UBC Vantage College offers first-year curriculum in a cohort program to academically strong international students whose English language proficiency does not yet meet the English language requirements for direct admission into UBC degrees.

Students take courses in one of Vantage College’s three streams (Arts, Science, or Engineering) before transferring into second year in their degree program.

The primary goals of the Vantage College curriculum are:
(1) to encourage students’ cultural, linguistic, and academic engagement in disciplinary communities and
(2) to maximize students’ successful transition to Year Two in the Faculties of Arts, Science, or Applied Science.

For more information about the Vantage One programs, please see https://vantagecollege.ubc.ca/program-overview 

The Academic English Program (AEP) courses consist of two foundational credit-bearing academic reading and writing courses (LLED 200 and LLED 201) and a series of credit-bearing adjunct courses (VANT 140) linked to respective courses in the disciplines. AEP and disciplinary course instructors collaborate in the design of the lesson plans and materials, and coordinate course and program activities (e.g., through regular meetings and attending each other’s classes). All AEP courses are informed by the language theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen), and also draw on genre-based pedagogies following the Sydney school (Martin & Rose, 2008).

Teaching duties

For LLED 200:

LLED 200 “Introduction to Writing in Academic and Professional Registers”, introduces students to writing in university settings. The course promotes deeper understanding of the role of language in achieving academic and professional registers. This is done by providing explicit instruction through the use of SFL-informed metalanguage via lessons, individualized feedback (through assignment drafts as well as individual tutorials), and extensive opportunities to write across a variety of university registers.

Instructors are part of the AEP team and thus work closely with other LLED 200 instructors and with the Director of the Academic English Program. Instructors are also members of the Vantage One Arts/Science/Engineering teaching team in which the LLED 200 course section(s) are embedded, and thus work closely with the Chair of the respective Vantage One programs and other members of the instructional team at UBC Vantage College in a highly collaborative environment.

Duties include SFL/genre-based pedagogy-informed lesson planning (could be online and/or face-to-face), developing/revising teaching materials, teaching, holding regular office hours, marking assignments, providing detailed feedback on multiple drafts, reporting grades, and attending planning meetings and program meetings as needed.

For LLED 201:

In LLED 201 “Critical Reading and Writing in Academic and Professional Registers”, the heightened awareness of effective academic writing gained in LLED 200 is applied to a small research project that students design, implement and report on. Students receive explicit, critically-framed instruction in reading and writing academic reports, and individualized feedback on the draft sections of their research paper, including a research proposal.

Instructors are part of the AEP team and thus work closely with other LLED 201 instructors and with the Director of the Academic English Program. Instructors are also members of the Vantage One Science/Engineering teaching team, and thus work closely with the Chair of the Vantage One Science or Engineering program, and other members of the instructional team at UBC Vantage College in a highly collaborative environment.

Duties include SFL/genre-based pedagogy-informed lesson planning (could be online and/or face-to-face), developing/revising teaching materials, teaching, holding regular office hours, marking assignments, providing detailed feedback on multiple drafts, reporting grades, and attending planning meetings and program meetings as needed.

For VANT 140:

A more discipline-specific lens is offered in custom-developed VANT 140, Integrated Language and Content Tutorials. The custom-designed sections of VANT 140 courses have been developed by the Vantage College AEP team in collaboration with disciplinary instructors teaching a variety of courses across the Vantage One programs. Using a content-based instructional approach and a focus on English for specific academic purposes, this adjunct course is linked to the content courses (e.g., Geography, Chemistry, Economics, etc.) in the respective Vantage One program options. 

Qualifications

Applicants should preferably hold a PhD in English for Academic Purposes, Applied Linguistics, Teaching English as a Second/Additional Language, Second Language Writing or a related discipline. Applicants with a Master’s degree and expertise in the above-mentioned areas will also be considered.

Preference will be given to applicants with the following knowledge, skills and abilities:

• Experience teaching LLED 200 and/or LLED 201, or VANT 140 in one of the Vantage One programs.
• A strong foundation in socio-cultural approaches to research and pedagogy and/or educational linguistics, and familiarity with (ideally also with pedagogical experience informed by) the systemic functional linguistics and/or associated corpus approaches. AEP instructors are expected to draw on SFL and genre-based pedagogies for teaching AEP courses, as is this is the language orientation underpinning the AEP program. Thus, instructors who may lack enough familiarity with SFL and/or genre-based pedagogies will be expected to develop expertise in this area in order to be able to teach the program courses as expected.
• Substantial experience teaching English for academic purposes to undergraduate students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. A minimum of five years of demonstrable successful, full-time English for Academic Purposes instruction at the tertiary level is preferred.
• Familiarity with CLIL/CBI (content and language integrated learning/content-based instruction); task-based instruction; and multi-literacies pedagogies.
• A principled approach to curriculum and materials design (in face-to-face as well as in technology-mediated modes); pedagogical approaches grounded in sound research and theory in the field of EAP; familiarity with assessment practices.
• Familiarity with Arts (Social Science), Science, and/or Applied Science discourse, and ability to work with subject specialists in these areas. Individuals lacking the above specified background but with a keen interest in developing familiarity in any of these disciplinary fields are also encouraged to apply.
• Experience working with online teaching platforms (e.g., Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, Zoom) and ability to teach both in face to face as well as online teaching contexts.

Additionally, ideal candidates will demonstrate a passion for language education as well as awareness of strategies to fully engage students in their (language) learning trajectories.

Application instructions

The following application materials must be sent electronically (as separate Word or .pdf files, using this file-naming convention: LASTNAME, Firstname_Cover; LASTNAME, Firstname_CV; etc.) by email with the subject heading “Vantage One AEP, Sessional Lecturer” to the following address: employment@vantagecollege.ubc.ca.

For questions about the position and courses, applicants can contact the AEP Director, Dr. Sandra Zappa-Hollman, at Sandra.zappa@ubc.ca

Review of applications will begin July 29, 2021. Applications will continue to be accepted until the position has been filled.

 (1) a cover letter indicating suitability for the position and teaching availability, as well as the types of courses and number of sections the applicant is interested in teaching.
(2) curriculum vitae, including a list of all post-secondary courses taught, indicating credit value of each,
(3) evidence of teaching effectiveness, if available, and/or a statement of teaching philosophy,
(4) names and contact information of two referees.

The salary for these Sessional Lecturer positions will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. This position is subject to final budgetary approval.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Indigenous person. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.