Program Expectations

Do's & Don'ts

Do Submit a Weekly Progress Report to the SILS director. Your language partner will also keep a record of your performance and attendance. Repeated, unexplained absences are grounds for dismissal from the program.
Do Attend practice sessions as scheduled (normally two 1-hour sessions a week).
Do Prepare for each practice session by spending 60 minutes a day on your individual language studies. Complete all audiovisual and written exercises prescribed in your course syllabus and/or in your last practice session.
Do Take a final evaluation, administered by the instructor who recommended your course materials and syllabus. Exams are oral, administered in person or via phone/web, and are graded based on the time you take to formulate your responses, fluency, pronunciation, comprehension, and usage of the patterns and expressions you have worked on. Final exams are scheduled in advance; make-up exams cannot usually be arranged.

Do not withdraw - Commit to a full semester of study. This is extremely important! Our language partners and examiners are hired on semester-long contracts with limited funds; if you stop attending before the end of the semester you will have expended valuable resources that could have been used to support another student. You cannot "withdraw" from a SILS course the way you can withdraw from other classes. Please do not apply for SILS if you anticipate that this will be a problem.
Do not miss a session - Contact your language partner in advance if you must miss a session. Make-up sessions are not normally available, unless the language partner and students are in full agreement and the SILS staff is able to arrange for a meeting space.