All students for whom English is not a first language (as self-reported on their admissions application) and who have first-time appointments as graduate teaching assistants (TAs) are required to go through a testing process to assess their effectiveness in speaking English before they are assigned assistantship responsibilities.  

Who needs to take the SPEC test? 

Any graduate student who is included in the following categories needs to have their oral English proficiency tested by the TAPE Program: 

  • Students whose first language is not English (i.e. learned another language first) as self-reported on their admissions application, and 

  • Have been appointed as a Teaching Assistant 

Some students may be eligible to take a shortened version of the SPEC test (task three only). A list of possible qualifications can be found below. 

 

Qualifications to take the shortened SPEC test: 

  • Students with an official valid (within the last two years) iBT Listening score of 25 and an iBT Speaking score of 26 

  • Students who obtained degrees at institutions in which the language of instruction was English. This includes:      

    • Undergraduate degrees and/or      

    • Continuous attendance of English-language schools since the age of 12 (or younger) 

  • Students who served as teaching assistants at other institutions of higher learning in which the language of instruction is English, provided that they were listed as the instructor of record for a course or led a discussion section in English for at least one year, with a year defined as either two academic semesters or three academic quarters. 

  • Requests for exceptions regarding the SPEC can be submitted for evaluation to a committee consisting of the Director of ESL Programs, the Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs in the Graduate College, and a representative from University Human Resources. 

 

Requests for shortened SPEC tests must come from the department by the deadline, not the student. Deadlines to register students for testing as well as submit requests for the shortened SPEC are: 

  • July 19 

  • October 1 

  • January 1 

  • March 1   

 

The following are NOT qualifications for a shortened test: 

  • Students who come from a country where English is one of the official languages 

  • Students who are U.S. permanent residents or U.S. citizens whose first language is not English 

If you are unsure if someone needs to take the SPEC test, please contact the ESL Programs Office (esl-program@uiowa.edu).