Academic Spoken English

Please Note:

The UF Administration has opted to reorganize the functions of ASE. After June 9th 2022, questions about EAP 5836 and the SPEAK test should be directed to the University of Florida English Language Institute. More information can be found here.

Academic Spoken English (ASE) provides a number of highly useful services to the UF community in general and to international graduate students in particular. These include:

• The SPEAK Test: All international graduate students who do not have a valid score for the spoken section of the TOEFL iBT are required to take the SPEAK test before they begin teaching. ASE administers the SPEAK test on a monthly basis. More information about the SPEAK Test can be found in the menu above.
• EAP 5836 (ASE 2): ASE 2 is a course required by state law for all international students who are in their first semester of teaching and have scored between 45-50 on the SPEAK or 23-27 on the TOEFL iBT. The course consists of a weekly seminar to discuss various aspects of teaching, cross-cultural communication, language & culture, and to provide assistance with spoken English where necessary. Additionally, all ASE 2 students are recorded while teaching, and these videos are then discussed in one-on-one conferences with the ASE instructor.
• EAP 5835 (ASE 1): ASE 1 is a course designed to assist international graduate students who have yet to pass the speaking section of the SPEAK or TOEFL iBT. It includes accent reduction and pronunciation instruction, as well as numerous opportunites to improve speaking and listening proficiency.
• Advanced Oral Proficiency (AOP): Advanced Oral Proficiency is a six-week, non-credit, advanced oral proficiency in English course. The purpose of this course is to diagnose student fluency problems in English and to introduce self-practice methods and online resources to aid students interested in advancing their oral language proficiency. While not intended as a SPEAK-test preparation course, a commitment to improving spoken fluency in English may result in an improved assessment on oral proficiency tests.

All ASE coursework consists of actively practicing the public speaking and interpersonal communication techniques which learners will need to be successful as graduate students, teaching assistants, and researchers. Our classes are small and interactive, which facilitates individualized diagnosis and practice.