<p>Which schools tend to have a high number of immigrant professors who don't speak English very well? This is not a bigoted question, it's a very real issue. Higher education is hard enough without having to figure out what the teacher just said. I'm particularly interested if there is any difference among the top tier universities and engineering schools.</p>
<p>You are going to have the top professionals in your field, you are going to have some people who have accents. However, if you are worried about not understanding an accent or someone who speaks english as his or her second or third language, you are probably not looking at a top engineering school. MIT, Cal Tech, all have some of the top minds teaching, and many of these professors speak english as a second language. Personally, I’d prefer to learn from Einstein in his broken english, than Joe Dirt from Alabama (who I probably wouldn’t understand either).</p>
<p>Chardo- as a current college student, I can tell you that it is truly, much more difficult to learn a subject and the material that it entails from someone who cannot speak the same language as his or her students. You have asked a legitimate question, here. </p>
<p>I purposely go on rate my professor.com in order to find professors, who are passionate about the topics in which they teach. If a person cannot communicate effectively with his or her students, to get his or her points across, then the class is counter productive. </p>
<p>Verbal communication can be the difference between a C+ and an A. There’s a real difference. I’d rather learn from someone who can communicate effectively and help me understand the material, than have some ultra smart immigrant teach me a subject…in which I have to decode each word being said in a lecture, just trying to figure out what english words are being used. </p>
<p>It takes much more cognitive energy to listen to someone who you can’t understand. All that energy could have been wasted on comprehending the material and asking the professor more indepth questions about the subject matter. However, with a professor who barely speaks english, one has to struggle through out every class to figure out this “puzzle.”</p>
<p>I have posted this before, but at the beginning of last year when my daughter discovered that her calc prof was Russian, she called me and said, “I am going to have a really good accent by the end of the semester.” Funny kid; what a mimic.</p>
<p>Accents often require careful listening and most Americans are just not very good at listening. Sit up front. Give all of your attention to the prof. And if you don’t understand something, ask for it to be repeated.</p>
<p>IME, the only college students I’ve observed among friends’ college classmates who complained about professors’ foreign accents were some Americans who were mediocre/slacker students trying to make excuses for poor academic performance which were really of their own making and were also reflected in classes with “American” Profs. Some actual causes of their academic mediocrity included prioritizing partying over academics, feeling entitled to a high grade despite not doing good work/most of the work, and/or students who wanted easy peasy Profs who will give them “Easy A’s” just for showing up to class or even existing. </p>
<p>It is doubly amusing when it is no secret that most American-born college students show little/no interest in learning a foreign language…much less mastering it to the point of being able to try teaching using it. Worse, some Americans in certain regions of the country have a serious intolerance toward those who are multi-lingual as I have experienced firsthand from a few townies who yelled at me to “speak English” on a public street when I happen to be speaking Mandarin to a group of international Chinese and American students. </p>
<p>IMHO, learning how to understand/deal with people with differing accents, whether it comes from an immigrant or a fellow American with a strong regional accent, is one part of preparing for life in the “real world”…especially in an increasingly globalized marketplace. Failing to find effective ways to deal with this situation in an respectful manner, especially with more senior personnel, was one reason why some American college graduates at one financial company I worked for were let go within a year out of school.</p>