<p>My son had two of these kinds of lab. In one, the student was from an asian country (not the usual ones) and had a tough accent to understand. My son has traveled around the world and has spent 8 years in chinese classes. I just suggested that he listen more carefully and that mostly worked out. The other students had the same problem. He wound up doing fine in that lab.</p>
<p>In the other case, the TA was totally incompetent. It was about 10 weeks into the course and he hadn’t graded and returned any lab reports. He was also pretty poor about administering the labs. I suggest that my son talk to the lab director. He had a one-on-one and the lab director spoke to the TA. The TA would grade the lab reports and get them back to the students and final grades would be bumped up one letter grade. That’s the best that they could do at that time.</p>
<p>It’s a problem but I didn’t really mind my son going through it. It is part of life in the real world - I have certainly had to talk to people around the world for my job.</p>