Aside from formal requirements, TAs are usually given encouragement and latitude to develop their own teaching styles. Structuring the classroom, kinds of drills, types of questions, number and kind of teaching aids-these are areas in which you can begin to develop informal skills which will serve you well in your budding career as a college language instructor. But within the basic drills and grammar requirements lie a variety of creative approaches to instruction which can make learning easier and time spent in the classroom more fun for both TA and student. A few of these approaches follow. It also is a chance for them to get to know one another better, since people generally feel more comfortable sharing in a small-scale discussion.
Many departments ask their TAs to teach using only the text and their imagination.
Recently, however, some departments have begun to incorporate videotaped dialogues keyed to a textbook. Or cartoons on the board. Role-playing dialogues and acting out simple plays can be used to enliven even a beginning language section. If you yourself are not a native speaker, try inviting one or two natives as guest lecturers each quarter. Use all your resources-the more ways in which students are offered foreign language input, the more they will absorb.