For students in many of Harvard's large lecture courses, contact with a teaching fellow may well be the only one-on-one instruction and help they get.

Whether analyzing medieval literature or studying the intricacies of organic chemistry, interaction in section is an invaluable part of a Harvard education.

But when gaps in language and culture interfere with that instruction, the results can be frustrating for both students and TFs.

In response to new Education Policy Committee requirements designed to standardize teaching throughout the College, the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning this year implemented a program to help acclimate international TFs to American higher education.

"The undergraduate experience is very different in many ways [from that in foreign countries]," says Virginia M. Maurer, international faculty coordinator in the Bok Center.

"Here in the U.S., especially at Harvard, there are a lot of extracurricular activities," she says. "Studying is not [students'] whole lives."

The Bok Center's new program, called Teaching in English (TIE), is designed to help acclimate international TFs to the "culture of an American classroom," according to James Wilkinson '65, director of the center.

The program grew out of a collaboration between the Bok Center and Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell, with advice from Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz and Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, according to Wilkinson.

The TIE program is a week-long program held at the Bok Center the week before each semester begins.

During the week, international TFs attend seminars and discussions focused on what is expected of them in a classroom, who they are teaching and how to reach their goals.

"We focus on the cultural differences between teaching here and where they came from," Maurer says.

Central to the week are microteaching sessions where each TF spends five minutes presenting a concept to the rest of the group.

"It's important to give [TFs] practice in discussion-leading," Wilkinson says.

Each of the three times throughout the week that a TF presents a concept, the presentation is taped and discussed later in individual consultations, Maurer says.

It is in these consultations that goals are set and language difficulties are identified that are followed up throughout the semester, she says.

"This really is a week for them to make mistakes," Maurer says. "We are not here to evaluate but to help people to become better teachers. Grad life can be isolating; we are trying to plug them into Harvard."