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April 05, 2005
Say What?
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about a proposed education bill in South Dakota.
[State Rep. Bette Grande] wants her state's university system to do something about the fact that its students can't understand what the heck their foreign-born instructors are saying.Late in January, Ms. Grande proposed a bill in the North Dakota legislature to prod public institutions of higher education in precisely that direction. Under her bill, if a student complained in writing that his or her instructor did not "speak English clearly and with good pronunciation," that student would then be entitled to withdraw from the class with no academic or financial penalty -- and would even get a refund.
Further, if 10 percent of the students in a class came forward with such complaints, the university would be obliged to move the instructor into a "nonteaching position," thus losing that instructor's classroom labor.
This is a big problem in higher education and I’m pleased to see that people are taking an interest, seeing as how the universities often don’t seem to care.
[Ms. Grande] approached administrators about the issue, but received responses she found to be tepid at best. "I found it as frustrating as any student had described," she says. "'This is something that the students should work through; it's a diversity issue,' they told me.""There were more excuses," Ms. Grande sizes up, "than there were avenues to remedy the situation."
It seems that universities usually approach this issue with English proficiency tests. Craig Schnell of North Dakota State says that foreign teaching assistants are required to take “a series of written and spoken language-proficiency tests” and if they fail them, take “remedial classes in English as a second language.”
The problem is that English proficiency does not always translate to being understood. You can be proficient at the technical aspects of English and still have a heavy accent that is difficult for others to understand. It’s also possible that a person who is able to do well on a test will not necessarily bring that proficiency into their classroom. For instance, it is possible that I could demonstrate a high vocabulary on a test, but not bring that into my everyday speaking vocabulary.
I would also be interested to know if the English tests that universities use include the correct pronunciation of technical words. A foreign teacher may be able to speak English well in one setting, but pronounce “differentiate” in a calculus class so poorly that students have trouble following.
Allowing the students to assess foreign speakers of English in the setting where it really counts seems like a much more efficient way to make sure that the teachers in the classroom can make themselves understood. Tests can only do so much.
However, there are questions about possible student abuse of the proposed system. I can certainly understand this. For instance, while I am in favor of these websites that “grade” instructors so that you can decide whom to take a class from, I also realize that some students use them to pick out the instructor with the easiest grading policy or simplest course content. I think it’s stupid for a student to use them this way, but in this case, it’s that student’s right to choose a poorer quality education if they so desire. But that student should not have too much power over who teaches and who doesn’t.
As with this case, a balance needs to be struck between student feedback and more objective grading of a foreign born instructor. So I don’t think that students should have complete say over who is understandable and who isn’t, but universities need to do more to address the issue and listen to student concerns instead of just assuming that it is the fault of students who are not prepared for a “global society” as Mr. Schnell says.
"I think North Dakota's fairly provincial," he says, "and if you sound in any way different, that's a point of contention." Those hang-ups are something students must grow past, he insists. He then cites one of the basic premises -- for Ms. Grande, a basic excuse -- of contemporary higher education: "We're going to live in a global society," Mr. Schnell says, "and we have to be prepared.
I don't think that, as Mr. Schnell suggests, the problem is merely one of outright xenophobia. But indeed some students show an unwillingness to put any work into understanding foreign speakers. I have found that with just a little effort, it is possible to learn the particular kinds of mistakes speakers from a certain country make with English, and then it becomes much easier to understand them. But it takes time to learn that. Should students be required to learn how to understand a Taiwanese speaker of English while they are trying to learn calculus, a difficult subject in and of itself?
[Donald L. Rubin, a professor of education and speech communication at the University of Georgia], however, prefers to think of the issue in terms of prerequisites -- worldly listening skills as a requirement for graduation. "I consider the ability to listen to and comprehend world Englishes a prerequisite to success in a wide variety of enterprises," he says.
Dr. Rubin seems to think so. But I’m not quite so sure.
Ms. Grande's bill is currently undergoing modifications. Hopefully it will end up being something that is useful, without being overly abused.
Other schools are taking different approaches to the problem.
At the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, foreign-born teaching assistants go through an intensive two-and-a-half-week program that meets for five to six hours a day in the summer. The program encompasses management strategies and teaching methodologies for American classrooms, campus dynamics, and the broader scope of American culture, in addition to focusing on simple language fluency.Meanwhile, at institutions like Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, foreign-born teaching assistants are paired with undergraduate tutors whose function is to expose the newcomers to both the rules and idiosyncrasies of students' behavior and speech.
At the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, incoming international teaching assistants participate in role-playing exercises in which they play students and teachers, or in which a student theater group acts out a number of different classroom scenarios for them to discuss.
These programs have their proud advocates, but are they effective? Do undergraduates still complain that they can't make heads or tails of what their foreign instructors are saying?
"Yep," says Diane Larsen-Freeman, director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan, home to one of the most robust international orientation programs. "We do get undergraduates who will complain."
The question isn't whether or not students still complain, because there will always be people who will complain, but about how many complain now as opposed to before the program was implemented.
For more, see Say Anything and Dakota Pundit
Posted by illuminaria at April 5, 2005 02:46 PM
Comments
There's another issue that isn't even considered. Institutions of higher education are places where students come to learn and scholars go to study, yes. But they are also places where scholars go to exchange ideas with other scholars. That's not possible when the scholars can't understand each other. It's hard enough for a native speaker of English to understand semi-speakers of English but it's that much harder for two semi-speakers of English who have no other language in common to understand each other.
Posted by: Dave Schuler at April 6, 2005 10:34 AM
Actually, studies have shown that non-native speakers of a foreign language understand each other quite well. They are not expecting perfect English from each other and have developed linguistic skills to communicate even though each word is not perfectly pronounced.
I agree that people in teaching positions should possess basic English skills and many must pass the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) as an entrance requirement to graduate school. But like many standardized tests what does a passing grade really indicate in terms of active language skills? Kudos to the graduate schools that go above and beyond and demand demonstratable classroom English skills.
I also agree that people in a teaching position must possess a basic concept of teaching. Regardless of their English skills, the teaching ability of many TAs is miserable and most schools do nothing in terms of preparing them to be teachers. Be thankful to your professors who took the time to give them some guidance.
Posted by: EduBabe at April 6, 2005 07:02 PM