<p>You have to expect many/mostly foreign-born TAs at any school, not just a public school. There aren’t enough native-born graduate students, and that’s the “fault” of those living here. In addition, our graduate schools are still attractive to students from overseas, even though they can’t stay here and work as easily as they used to. </p>
<p>The schools and the individual professors need graduate students. In the same vein, you shouldn’t expect the school to address a TA language/teaching problem unless it’s truly bad. The graduate student is there to conduct research and finish a thesis. There is little to no emphasis on training good teachers. Same as for professors; some are good teachers but the first priority is always research and publication. That’s just how it is. I was a TA at Pitt many years ago and received no instruction from school or department related to teaching or interacting with undergraduates. My purpose was to take some load off the professor. Just so you know.</p>
<p>The most helpful thing is for an undergraduate student to change mindset. It’s his/her responsibility to learn. Not the school/professor/TA responsibility to make sure they learn. As other posters have suggested, when there is a really bad language problem, find some other avenues for help. In most cases, though, you can get past the language issues with a proper mindset.</p>