<p>I had the misfortune of sitting in an Economics class, the only section available, being taught by a Middle Eastern gentleman with a very poor speaking style coupled with a quite thick accent. It was quite difficult to follow his lectures. He would say 'do you understand?' several times during the lecture and he demanded that we ask questions in class. He also made it very clear that he would flunk any of us without hestitation, language barrier or not. After a week I dropped the class like a hot rock.</p>
<p>Maybe schools should ofer a new language class in "heavily accented english".
Different sections for different dialects. I'm dead serious. WIth many people in the world speaking english as a second language in the workforce and our expanding global economy this might be an idea whose time has come. Lazy? Maybe. But very functional.</p>
<p>This is a problem that's easy to solve. All we need is to produce enough math/chemistry/engineering students who then go into academics. </p>
<p>The reason we have so many foreign instructors in American universities is because we don't do just that. </p>
<p>Why? Because these are tough fields. Because it's hard to get jobs in academia. Because the private sector pays better. As long as this stays true our kids will be taught by foreigners.</p>
<p>^Absolutely.
And if one thinks the problem is with TAs, no sir, that's not true.
The profs are also foreign-born. And they get hired at LACs.</p>
<p>My H works in a company that has 15 employees, mostly with degrees in economics or computer sciences. Of the 15, there may be 5 or 6 who were born in this country. the rest were born in Asia (different countries and accents), Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe (also different countries and accents).</p>
<p>We attended an engineering open house where they had a prof. demonstrate some sort of laser thingee. The really funny part was NO ONE could understand a word he said. Nice advertisement for the department, huh?</p>
<p>This is a huge problem with our higher education system (in math and sciences) - big research universities hire professors because of their cutting-edge research and all the grant money this research brings. Teaching qualities do not make or break such hiring decisions. Since universities do not have funds to hire true teaching professors, they put these researchers to some use in the undergraduate classrooms. Foreign accents sometimes just mask the bigger problem: these bright scientific stars do not know how to teach undergrads and often do not want to be distracted from their research by teaching. Same goes for TAs. A typical TA in a large research university is a first or second year graduate student who has homework of his/her own, a test or two looming, a research project that needs to be taken care of 24/7, and on top of that a couple of labs/quiz sections to teach so grad school tuition can be forgiven by the university. Naturally, teaching becomes lowest priority. I taught chemistry labs in my grad. past, and I remember how kids from the other lab section would sneak into my half of the lab to ask questions because their own TA was just yelling at them in perfect English to go read the book. He was doing his own homework and did not want to be disturbed by stupid questions.</p>
<p>I once attended a lecture by Hans Bethe at Caltech. It was so fortunate that I couldn't decipher many words on account of his accent. Otherwise, I would have to admit that the whole thing was way beyond me.</p>
<p>Bunsen, Isn't that why most of us who are guilty would only send our kids to LAC's?</p>
<p>Marite, the answer of course is to give admission preference to first generation immigrants so that they can fill those classes and understand these "accented" prof's. Here, if we do away with the white majority in the student body, half the problem will go away. Alternatively, colleges can make "study abroad" in said countries a pre-requisite for courses that are populated with accented professors. </p>
<p>Seriously, the problem is due more to economics. These universities are using cheap labors regardless whether they are good in teaching or have communication skills. Foreign accent is only one manifestation of this economic-driven mentality of many universities.</p>
<p>Cheap labor at what level?
The graduate TAs of today with the incomprehensible accents are the profs of tomorrow. Their accents do not improve markedly with the receipt of a Ph.D., do they? </p>
<p>The LACs may or may not have more intelligible profs. But are they sending enough students to grad programs in math and science? I do not believe that graduate admissions committees give preference to foreign students. They select the BEST applicants, regardless of nationality. Too bad that so many of the best applicants are foreign. What does this say about our educational priorities? </p>
<p>Profs are not paid that low. But of course, a full prof earns less than a starting lawyer at a Wall Street law firm. That may be the reason for the presence of foreign profs. So is the solution higher pay for profs? But if profs got paid more, wouldn't we hear complaints about the cost of college? Oops. Scratch that. We already do, including in this thread.</p>
<p>Mega agreement with the math-science statements regarding the lack of Americans- kudos Marite on your posts! To those who gripe about paying so much for that private college- you could have investigated the school further and found out about the foreign presence in the classroom before making your decisions, no sympathy.</p>
<p>Reminds me of some circular reasoning. To get a job you have to have a job. To become a better English speaker you have to practice. We all want that perfect experience, but it doesn't exist in the real world. Sometimes we get the best package- superb knowledge and presentation skills, most of the time it will be varying degrees of both.</p>
<p>I wonder how many of the unintelligible profs are on H1-B visas - which in my humble opinion is nothing more than a program to edge out pricier native-born American workers.</p>
<p>Padad, Im a product of LAC-is education, and it was shocking to me to see how different things were in grad. school at my Big Research U. My kids decided that science is not for them. One wants to go into public health (currently at a Big Research U saving funds for med school), and the other wants to become a linguist (looking at LACs to be different). I guess it skips a generation </p>
<p>Marite, the problem is not how much these Big Research U profs are paid, but where their paycheck is coming from. If your research does not attract enough grant money, your position will go to someone who can do it. If you concentrate your time on teaching, you might end up unemployed. It is interesting that to become a high school science teacher in our state, one has to have a masters in education in addition to a bachelors degree in a scientific field, but to become a professor, all you have to do is to have a Ph.D., previous TA experience, and ideas and grant money to start a lab.</p>
<p>I doubt very much they are on H1-B visas. Profs are paid the same whether they are foreigners or citizens. Just as graduate admissions committees select for the best qualified applicants, so do search committees for profs. And unlike the grad school applicants, the prospective profs give job talks. Believe me, universities do NOT have a preference for foreigners. But American students have a preference for non-academic jobs. </p>
<p>Is $140k per year too low for a full prof? It was the starting salary at NYC law firms. Before the $30k bonus.</p>
<p>EDIT to reply to BunsenBurner.
[quote]
the problem is not how much these Big Research U profs are paid, but where their paycheck is coming from. If your research does not attract enough grant money, your position will go to someone who can do it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Sorry, I don't get this. What does this have to do about foreign accents? Does this mean that funding agencies discriminate against scholars who can speak English? Or does this mean that the research scholars who have the best shots at being funded are the best scholars, period; and that the best scholars are, er, foreing-born?</p>
<p>I'm not talking about indifferent TAs. That's not the subject of the OP's complaints. The OP is complaining about incomprehensible foreign TAs who are likely to go on being incomprehensible profs with outside funding and hordes of foreign-born graduate students. Last time I checked the majority of students were Americans and Caucasian. So what happens in grad school?</p>
<p>Up to now, the US could import talent - including researchers & professors - to fill up spots left vacant by Americans who bail out of technical fields because they outearn full professors in their first year of practicing law or doing investment banking on Wall Street. Fair enough. But what happens when China or India and other countries which now feed our universities develop their own state-of-the-art schools and research centers? They'll stay home. And the best & brightest Americans will be going to China and India for their education. Which begs the question -- where will that leave American universities and American industry/economy?</p>
<p>This is a huge problem. Hard-to-understand foreign professors at the UCs are just the tip of the ice berg.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do not believe that graduate admissions committees give preference to foreign students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Quite the contrary, as research has shown. Foreign students have to be significantly better academically to be admitted to the same programs as domestic students. Math graduate departments, in particular, LOVE to have native-born American graduate students, or more generally any students from countries where English accents are understandable to Americans, but such graduate students are in short supply.</p>
<p>Poor blackboard hand writing is almost as bad a problem, and one that's not restricted to foreign professors.</p>
<p>I am a 6th year parent at my children's university (S graduated in 2006, D is a junior). I have seen enough to take off my rose colored glasses and recognize the institution's stregths and shortcomings. First semester of S's freshman year there was a meltdown at Freshman Family Weekend session with A&S Dean over S's calc professor by other parents. She was highly knowledgeable and experienced, but brand spanking new to the country. They pulled her from the class in the 7th week and enrolled her in language improvement classes taught in another department and substituted experienced teachers to complete the class (not completely a smooth transition, but the best they could do). As this situation evolved, I e-mailed the brand new Dean of A&S regarding the emerging facts - no syllabus was ever distributed, only an assignment sheet; assigned prof's lack of ability to communicate in standard English (I don't know if this is still a standard with SACS, the regional accrediting body of children's university and my institution, but it was at the time), etc. Dean could not have been any nicer and explained that in the math department there simply was not an adequate supply of teachers with strong language proficiency. I was very impressed with their proactive approach to solving this problem by providing the teacher with instruction for language improvement. Seems like this could be done at many schools.</p>
<p>granted, my experience was in seminary where most students were sometimes decades older than college freshman. But I had many professors from various parts of the world... Asia, Europe, South America, and some were difficult to understand (and I was paying my tuition, not my parents). I think 'older' adult learners have no problem requesting a professor to either slow down or repeat themselves. I would suggest the students approach the professor (either individually, or as a group) before jumping right to the department chair. And yes, I've had professors who required more effort on my part to understand, but who were much more animated and engaged in the topic, than some born and raised Americans who left me falling asleep in class.</p>
<p>for many of these TAs who arrive here as first-year grad students, their english can be anywhere from poor to easily passable. Unfortunately, at least in the sciences, it's in their first year that typically have TA responsibilities. H has his Ph.D. in chem and had to teach a lab section his first year in grad school. He admitted he was a horrible TA (evaluations reflected this) and his lack of patience in teaching is what led him to a career in industry vs. academia. But remember, most science Ph.D. programs are a minimum of five years, then many choose to do post-doctoral work, so by the time they're fully engaged in their careers, their english is much, much better. My H was one of those 'impatient with non-english speakers' grad students who had to learn to be a bit more tolerant. Now, he is surrounded by english as a second language co-workers, and has no problem with it, because he realizes these are the brightest of the bunch.</p>