<p>My daughter has a lab class that meets once a week and the TA has been in the US 3 weeks (she told the class this). None of the students can understand her. My daughter went to her advisory and was originally told that this lab was the only one available for the class. My daughter showed her another lab that was available and the adviser's solutions was to send her an email telling her to talk to the professor for the class. (pass the buck)</p>
<p>My daughter emailed the Prof and asked when his office hours were so that she could discuss an issue with him. His response was an email that said he preferred email contact over office hours. She then sent him another email explaining that she could not understand the TA and that many/all of the rest of the class was saying the same thing when they left the classroom. His reply was that she should give it a couple more weeks because the other lab section was full. (pass the buck)</p>
<p>She is very concerned that she understood NOTHING that was covered during the first lab and unless she suddenly learns Mandarin (or the TA learns understandable English) that two more weeks will just put her farther behind in the class. </p>
Not the advisor’s job to deal with things like this, so why shouldn’t she “pass the buck” to someone who IS responsible? What is it you think the professor should do? Teach the lab himself? He probably did not assign the lab TA and doesn’t have the power to give her the boot. </p>
<p>Anatomy and Physiology. Whose job is it to help a student transfer from one class to another if the TA cannot be understood? The Adviser…the Prof…someone else? Do you have a suggestion?</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to work with the TA. Insist that everything be repeated until you understand it. In my experience you can learn to understand an unfamiliar foreign accent with a little practice. (That said, yes perhaps the professor should be in the lab making sure it’s running properly.)</p>
<p>I was a TA in a graduate department that was about half people from other countries. This was a common complaint early in the semester. HOWEVER, what usually happened is that the students became accustomed to the particular accent of the TA after a few weeks. I really need to point out that, at least for my department, these were extremely well-educated individuals who had a lot to offer their undergraduate students. I’m not sure that in this world you can expect to only have to interact with anglos. Time to practice a little tolerance and patience.</p>
<p>" I’m not sure that in this world you can expect to only have to interact with anglos. "</p>
<p>Umm…WHAT?</p>
<p>Socially that’s a fine attitude, but if you go to college in America I don’t think it’s too much to ask for all involved to speak English. Certainly that is considered a basic level of competance. You can’t teach English-speaking students without that skill. </p>
<p>I’m paying too much money for my son to have to teach his teacher to speak the language!</p>
<p>The fact that the TA has been here only three weeks is actually a good thing, because that means she may improve rapidly. Your daughter can help by going to the TA’s office hours both for clarification and to help the TA improve her English skills.
Math TA: mglmph.
Student: The Mean Value Theorem, right! Thanks.</p>
<p>I do wonder why graduate schools do not insist on better English skills in their students, but once the foreigners are here, might
as well help them out.</p>
<p>^^
Amen. Tolerance and patience with your classmates is one thing, but $500+ dollars a credit requires that the party accepting the money perform at a reasonable standard. Speaking understandable English in an US college would be considered by most to be “reasonable” in exchange for American money.</p>
<p>Have I mistakenly posted in the forum for college union reps or shop stewards? Who said that the TA was anything other than knowledgeable and well educated? Unfortunately if you cannot communicate that knowledge to a class of US college students you shouldn’t be a TA in an US college. My interest in starting this thread was NOT to get help kicking a TA under the bus, it was an appeal for suggestions on the best way to get my daughter into a lab where she could understand the TA and learn the subject material.</p>
<p>Not sure what college the OP’s D is at, but this is a common problem at large universities. And it has been going on forever… 25 years ago I got low grades in Chemistry and Finance at a large university primarily due to TAs that I could NOT understand, no matter how carefully I listened. This is not a solution for the OP, but one major reason my D goes to a LAC where professors teach all the courses is to avoid this issue. She has had no problems like this in her first two years of college. </p>
<p>I assume the TAs are supposed to pass an English proficiency course; I suppose the OP’s D could complain to whoever administers that test for her University or verifies those scores for TAs. But my guess is that they won’t get rid of the TA or switch the class over to someone else.</p>
<p>Mathmom, my experience is that the problem with making the TA repeat everything is that often the section meetings the TA runs are lecture format (like a smaller version of the lecture component the professor gives, with as many as 20-25 people in the room), so you are asking in front of the whole class for the TA to repeat themselves. Although many people in the room probably aren’t understanding it, this is very embarrassing for the TA, and could negatively affect your grade due to that. We used to whisper in the back to try to come up with a “translation” among ourselves, but by then the TA would have gone on to some other topic and we would be lost…</p>
<p>OK. I have one suggestion for continuing “as is” and hoping that my daughter eventually understands the TA…and if she doesn’t then “hoping” that does not fail.
One for helping teach the TA English while going to the TA’s office hours to review what should have been understood in the lab.
One for more tolerance and love in the world.
And one to continuously (if necessary) interrupt the TA while she is teaching and make her repeat everything that is not said clearly.</p>
<p>Thanks. Anybody have any ideas of who to go to in the college hierarchy to get the lab changed to one taught by a TA who can be understood? I appreciate the help.</p>
<p>No magic wand… if the class is full, the class is full. The ONLY thing I can think of is for her to go and see the TA in the other class and ask to transfer in. That is probably the only person who can override the system and allow the change. It is very unlikely that the other TA will do it, though. This is such a common problem at universities, and they don’t seem to have any real interest in fixing it. Like I said, been going on forever… and will continue to. Especially at colleges that are more interested in research than good teaching. Colleges that brag about being a “research institution” ought be required to put a warning label that says “and teaching takes a back seat to research” on their literature!</p>
<p>Lesson for your D going forward – if her college shows who is teaching each section (including TA names) during registration, take the time to use ratemyprofessor.com to check them all out. It takes some time to check them all out, but is worth it. Even if she has to take a section at an inconvenient time, this experience has probably taught her that it is better to have to get up early than to have a teacher she can’t understand.</p>
<p>If you want them to offer another TA in the course, you would start with the course organizer, then the department head. I just don’t think you are going to have much luck with that route. </p>
<p>My favorite professor in college had a really strong German accent. I didn’t understand half of what he said at the first lecture, but I got used to it. I took every course he offered and wrote my honors thesis with him. </p>
<p>If asking for explanations in lab is too disruptive. (I wasn’t imagining lab as a lecture with 20 to 25 people) then by all means go to office hours. That’s what they are there for. If the TA office hours aren’t helpful, go to the professor’s office hours.</p>
<p>I’ve told her to go to the department head. If that doesn’t work then I’ll have her find the other TA and ask about transferring into her/his class. If none of that is successful then I will personally by-pass the department / college and go to the university administration and share my opinions on the quality of their TAs. She may be forced to tolerate a non/poor English speaking TA but it will be a memorable experience for some of those that make the decisions to force feed her this unacceptable teaching method.</p>
<p>OP, I sympathize with your frustration/dismay. In an ideal world the TA should speak at least understandable English. </p>
<p>In the real world, not enought Americans are pursuing the sciences/math at the graduate level, leaving foreigners, often from Asia, to fill the vacant TA positions. The issue of TAs speaking accented (often heavily accented) English will not disappear quickly if your daughter is a science major. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, just as your daughter’s options are limited in how to deal with this - so are the university’s.</p>
<p>Good solution but out of reach to many. Also, it’s hard to find more qualified TAs with that kind of pay. </p>
<p>Going to the TA’s office hours could be the best solution for 2 reasons. 1). To help the TA correct a few key pronunciations that benefits all fellow undergrads today and next semester; and 2). to understand better the not perfect English speakers now and later. I was told 25 years ago that some students from the North couldn’t understand professors from the South. Too much to learn at college, not only the courses.</p>
<p>If there is a blackboard in the lab, aglages, your daughter might ask the TA to write things down. Foreign TA’s sometimes have difficulty with understandable pronunciation, while they can write English reasonably well. </p>
<p>My advice about this situation depends on the set-up of the lab. Is there a clear lab manual, that can be followed? TA’s in my department do not provide any essential instruction. The material is covered in the lab manual (and lectures and text). The function of the TA’s is primarily to ensure students’ safety while they are performing the experiments. In a case like this, the TA just has to have sufficient observation and communication skills for safety purposes. Or is the TA actually supposed to provide information that cannot be obtained in any other way? (That would be relatively rare.)</p>
<p>Professors are generally required to hold scheduled office hours, to be accessible to students. Email wouldn’t be sufficient, at my university. Your daughter could go and ask questions of both the TA and the professor at their office hours.</p>
<p>Lab classes tend not to have space (and sometimes not enough equipment, either) to allow students to over-enroll. There is a possibility that some students in the other lab section will decide to drop the course, though. Is there a wait list for it?</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with having to interact with anglos. It has everything to do with receiving an education from someone who is both qualified and prepared to be part of an educational system. </p>
<p>The comment about tolerance and patience is simply insulting. Just as insulting as the practice of robbing students of a decent education has been, as well as cheapening the process. </p>
<p>What should not be tolerated is placing a person with three weeks of experience in the US in front of a class or a section. This is a losing proposition for all involved, including the poor TA. I suggest that, as parent who is paying the bills, you take the time to write a letter to the President of this school and, if this is a public school, to your local politicians.</p>
<p>I am in this class, and have no problem understanding the TA. She is a very sweet person who went around the class and asked how we were all doing. She was also more than willing to repeat herself when asked. Also, this particular anatomy lab reinforces the class lecture, so I recommend your daughter read the text book and understand the lecture material beforehand, so the lab will just be repetition and practice. It is very uncommon at a university the size of Pitt that you won’t have at least one TA or professor who speaks less than perfect English. Welcome to academia.</p>
<p>To the OP - at my college (UNC), there is usually a lab director who is in charge of the labs and the TAs teaching the labs. The lab director could be a professor teaching the course or it might be a different person. Your daughter should contact them - I suggest showing up in person over email. Departments usually have people who handle academic affairs as well - I once approached a woman in this office and was super nice, and she added me to a full lab (she could override the enrollment). Dealing with things in person can really pay off.</p>
<p>I’m speaking from experience here - my physics TA barely spoke English, and although it was obvious he was very smart, we could hardly understand a word he said. My advice:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Tell your daughter to find out if there is a lab director - there is someone out there who is in charge of the TAs, I promise. Tell her to go see that person or the department’s academic affairs person - somebody who handles enrollment in the labs.</p></li>
<li><p>If all that fails, then tell her to go to office hours and have the TA repeat anything she can’t understand. I had to do this every lab with my TA -he wasn’t always nice about it, but at least I understood what was going on! You have to be forceful.</p></li>
</ol>