I was browsing the site http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowMost.jsp[/URL] and noticed a lot of complaints (some maybe unfair) from students in the US, about Professors teaching with heavy accents. I can imagine their frustration when trying to master a difficult subject and at the same time trying to figure out what the Prof is saying! The one student mentioned that he would have had a better chance of passing if he could understand Chinese! Anyone like to comment on this?
From my experience I can relate to the problem of profs and assistants with heavy accents. I have studied electrical engineering some years ago. While most of my lecturers spoke very good and clear English, even those who had an accent, most of the PhD students who were assisting in labs and tutorials were most frequently from China and most had barely functional English, let alone accented. Many of my friends also studying engineering with me were from Hong Kong and Singapore, so out of sheer frustration because they could not understand the assistants either, they spoke with them in Chinese and so had it explained to them in Chinese. They then translated the explanation to me. If I had not had these friends, I would have understood zilch of anything that was said by one of those assistants. Heave accents are definitely a problem in teaching. The solution? If the PhD candidates want to earn extra money by assisting in lab classes, they should first learn to speak the English language sufficiently well to make themselves understood. Otherwise, no matter how brilliant they are academically, they will not be of benefit to the undergrads they are supposed to be teaching. In the end, they are of no assistance to the professor, because we as students learnt quickly not to ask them any questions and refer to the professor instead, who then was being overwhelmed by questions in the labs.
I don't disagree with you but isn't it the responsibility of the university to screen these TAs/Instructors regarding their ability to communicate. I'm guessing that the problem is that testing for English proficiency is done on paper. This does not indicate a persons ability to speak the language (regardless to the "heaviness" of the accent. Jack
That is absolutely correct. They pass the written English test such as TOEFL, and that is it. I have heard though, that because students have been complaining about the lack of spoken language skills or heavy accents of their tutors, the universities are attempting to encourage those PhD students who wish to tutor undergrads to take language classes where they can hone their speaking skills, or the universities try to find those with the best spoken skills to run lab classes. I have also seen job ads in recent years for academic posts where good oral language skills were emphasized as an important requirement. It is common sense after all. There is no point in having academics, at any level, who simply cannot be understood by students. Spoken language skills, like any skill, can be improved with practice. Any self-respecting academic who wants to move on in academia would do well to learn to communicate effectively, not only in writing, but also orally. Since English is not my first language either, and I do speak with an accent (very lightly, as lots of people have told me, after lots of practice), I can discuss this from both sides of the coin
It is a problem. I've taught English to non-native speaking teaching assistants who were difficult to understand. However, I feel that not all complaints should be taken at face value. The majority of the graduate students and professors in the math department where I study now are non-native speakers, and their command of English is perfectly adequate to their teaching tasks. But whenever I've tutored or taught students who had trouble in a math class taught by a non-native speaker, they invariably blame it on the teacher's English. Usually, the less competent the student, the louder the complaint.
Spot on, Bill. But the 'blame somebody else for my lack of performance' is pretty easy to detect. If the student is highly motivated to learn, language barriers can be overcome. Like I had Chinese speaking fellow students to refer to, and if all else failed, the teaching assistants resorted to writing down the term or sentence they were trying to express. However, it does slow things down and can lead to frustration on both sides. It is nevertheless a problem, even if you take out those who rather blame others for their failure ( and who probably are mono-lingual and never bother learning another language). It is, however, not an insurmountable obstacle to learning.
