My son has auditory processing issues, and when he can’t understand a speaker, he cannot begin to grasp the content. So we need to avoid schools where international students teach undergrads. Anybody know if that happens at RPI/WPI/A&M?
Perhaps it’s the construct of your question that seems off, but… Most colleges and universities have graduate students as TAs. Not only is it the case that some of those Grad students may be “international students”, but other faculty and staff (such as Professors/Instructors) may be as well. For that matter, they may be from the United States, and speak with a heavy regional accent that other native English speakers, from other regions, may have a difficult time understanding. When I first moved to Texas, one of my neighbors was from East Texas, near the Texas/Louisiana border. His only language was English. I had a terrible time understanding him, at first, and his wife would frequently (and humorously) translate. I speak fluent “East Texas” now, but I just wanted to share a real life example of how language incongruencies are not limited or unique to “international students”. Also, many of my friends, neighbors, and colleagues who originate from other countries, speak perfect English. That said–
- Texas A&M utilizes TAs. Their application and training documentation doesn't indicate that they discriminate based on country of origin.
- Rochester Polytechnic Institute utilizes TAs. Their application and orientation information does not indicate that they discriminate based on country of origin.
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute utilizes TAs. Again, looking at their requirements on their website, they do not discriminate based on country of origin.
thanks. can you think of a better way to construct the question?
I hear what you are asking and it’s a valid concern, really for all students, and not just with TAs.
My D goes to Purdue and they have a requirement for solid english communication skills for all instructors (my D is TA/mentoring a course this Fall so went through the interview process). HOWEVER, that is a highly subjective standard. And, so far, the issue for D has been more with professors than TAs. My D’s multi variable calc prof was extremely difficult to understand. She was able to watch another prof’s lectures on line before her class, do problem sets before hand, and then go to his lecture just to reinforce the material. Her school also seems to also do a good job of pairing international professors with native english speaking TAs. D didn’t have any combination where both prof and TA were non native speakers. I would hope that would be the case at all schools but perhaps something to ask.
I think at any research based university, like the ones on your list, your student is going to run into international professors and grad students. IMO, the important thing to remember is that lecture is not the only place where you can get information and that there are other profs teaching the same courses (especially the big intro courses). Lots of my D’s friends went to different lectures than they were assigned or to different TA’s office hours. Most schools also have subject specific help rooms, free tutoring, etc…
Another useful tool - the rate my professor type sites. After 1st semester freshman year, D looked up all the possible professors and picked her schedule accordingly.
If your child has a formal diagnosis, you can also talk to the school’s disability office to see if they can assist. Your student may get permission to record lectures so they can stop and start the lecture and rewind if they didn’t understand something (if they aren’t already being recorded).
thank you!
I have told this story before, but it’s especially apt here:
A relative of mine discovered during his math PhD program that he essentially loathed teaching undergraduates, apart from a handful who would eventually wind up in PhD programs themselves. Like essentially everyone in his program, he had to teach a section of basic calculus for first year students. This is what he said about the experience: " The only thing I ever liked about it was watching the process by which the students’ initial joy at getting an instructor who was a native English speaker slowly converted into the realization that they would have been better off with someone who spoke only Chinese but who gave a crap about them."
A friend of mine from my home country is a tenured professor at a local university. I am not sure you will find many colleges where every teaching staff member has only an American accent.
I understand the challenge. But I’ve got to try, or he won’t learn
I agree that your son’s issues need to be addressed by the disability office. Some speech patterns might not be strictly native, but still intelligible to him. Likewise there may well be native speakers who because of slang, idiomatic usage, or a regional speech pattern might be unintelligible. My own kid picked up a style of speech (different sentence stress pattern) local to her university that I found nearly impossible to understand.
really good thoughts. thank you!
Even at my son’s midwest college there are professors and TAs that have accents. I just asked him about this. He said he has had a few professors with accents but nothing too bad but several engineering and higher level math students have complained that they have trouble understanding a couple of professors or TAs. The TAs and LAs (like undergrad TAs) have to go through a class where they work on communication and there isn’t much trouble in classes where the pool to select from is large. In higher level specialized classes there may no be as big a selection pool for TAs and many professors have accents of various kinds. I’m not sure you will be able to totally remove this from the mix at any school. Working with the disability office may be the best thing. They may be able to provide notes from the lectures.
thanks very much for asking your son!
My daughter graduated from WPI. She had some professors who were difficult to understand because of their accents. However, she found office hours to be helpful despite this. Perhaps those professors were easier to understand one on one. I attended RPI and I can guarantee the situation would be the same for your son there as at WPI. I had the same experience at my undergrad school, which was a large state school. Over time, I became comfortable with certain accents and speech patterns.
You really can’t avoid it. But, you can adjust to it.
A smaller LAC type school will have courses generally taught by professors rather than grad students or TAs. While some (many) of these may be people who speak with an accent, the likelihood is that they will have studied/lived in the US for a longer period than a grad student, and thus, their accent may be easier to understand. In some fields, such as STEM, which attract an international demographic, there is likely to be more diversity in language use/accent. (That being said, I have a friend who teaches in a small LAC and their department includes 50% instructors with accents, although all are sensitive to the issue and many deliberately use teaching techniques such as powerpoint to mitigate any misunderstandings.)
I’m sensitive to your son’s issue, since (with no diagnosis) I remember nothing from my Intro to Philosophy class except for Dr Huang’s delightfully relaxing voice. But let me recommend that in this PC world you find a way to phrase the concern in a way that will minimize the inevitable charges of bias that will inevitably be attached to the question.
Colleges get instructors (faculty and TAs) from a wide range of regions, so there will be no escaping encountering instructors with accents other than what he may be used to (including from different regions of the US, or other places where English is the most common first language such as England, most of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.).
Rather than approach it in terms of instructor national or ethnic origin (which is impractical and could be seen as advocating some type of illegal discrimination), you may want to investigate whether there are disability accommodations that are possible (sometimes with existing services, such as notetaking/scribing services found in some larger lecture classes at some colleges).
What may also help would be to move to an area with greater (domestic and international) immigration, so that he gets used to more different accents in daily life. But that may not be practical for you and your family for other reasons (cost, need to change jobs, etc.).
This one is going to be tricky - I agree with others that you’ll want to start with whether there are disability aids he qualifies for. Definitely don’t word it as “foreign” as it isn’t that (unless it is, then that’s a different issue and one I won’t touch).
I know I’m a Yankee and married a Southerner. Both of us have modified our speech quite a bit, but I still need to “translate” for him in many places up north - esp for things like, “Do you want rice or fries?” as many people can’t understand the difference as he speaks it and it definitely makes a difference. For the “other” direction, his dad really has never been able to accurately understand me. Even within our marriage H has to let me know if he means a pin or pen - I swear - those words sound the exact same to me the way he verbalizes them. We have cute family memories how one of our lads grew up with a speech problem, being unable to articulate half the alphabet. Down south no one had any problem understanding him. Up north no one could understand him by words alone. Such is life.
That’s the reason it’s better to go to small colleges with undergraduate focus and good student: faculty ratio.
What’s the point of going to a college which gets its name and rating due to grad programs/ doctoral research and undergrads aren’t a priority.
https://aschmann.net/AmEng/ has a map and information about English dialects in the North America. Information includes pronunciation features, as well as links to YouTube videos of people speaking various dialects. Note: as the page notes, African American Vernacular English is not shown regionally, but is commonly spoken by African American people in many regions; it is related to Southern dialects.
I encountered many different accents in college. Some made it a challenge to understand what they were saying. My daughter experienced the same thing at WPI. You figured out how to communicate with people from all different cultures. And it goes much more than just language and accents.
I also encountered the same variety of cultures, accents, etc. in my professional life. So the experience in college and learning to more than cope but thrive in those situations is an important skill to learn.
Not sure why going to a college which does not use TAs is necessarily better for this situation. If there are two instructors (faculty and TA) teaching the course, the odds of at least one being understandable in terms of English dialect or accent is better than if there is just one instructor (faculty, no TA). Student / faculty ratio or class size may not have much of an effect, since if the instructor’s English dialect or accent is difficult to understand, it does not matter if one is listening in a large lecture hall or a small classroom.