Under university regulations, all Ph.D. students must pass the English Competency Proficiency Tests before they will be allowed to schedule their comprehensive examination. The IE Department participates in College of Engineering-sponsored English Competency Proficiency Testing, conducted each February over a two day period. The following is a brief description of the testing expectations and procedures. Expectations for written material include demonstration of clear competence on both rhetorical and syntactic levels. An interview is conducted in a relaxed setting by evaluators from the Center for English as a Second Language.
Questions require the Ph.D. student to describe illustrations and express opinions.
The student is rated on pronunciation, fluency, grammar, and overall comprehensibility. Students rated as less than acceptable will not be allowed to take the Presentation Skills Proficiency test, and must retake the Oral Language Proficiency Test the following year. Each student will prepare a 5-7 minute technical presentation in an area of personal competence. The presentation must inform a group of non-technical listeners about a concept important to their work, and must provide and appropriate level of listener understanding. Presentations will be videotaped for further review, and will be scored by a joint committee from Speech Communications and the College of Engineering.