<p>^^ I think you are on to something. </p>
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This is true only if customers exercise their purchasing agency and refuse to buy from producers who don’t deliver on their promises. But we don’t.</p>
<p>Why don’t we?</p>
<p>I think that we hear it most from freshman because 18 year olds are used to being spoon fed in tiny high school classes that they’ve not taken seriously. They get into a large intro class (at most universities these classes will have a 3-digit number of students) and they can’t understand what’s going on, regardless of accent. If there’s an accent, that gives fuel to the complaint, but I’m guessing that those same students are having problems understanding regardless of accent. The schools I’m familiar with use their <em>best</em> lecturers for intro courses, but those are also schools that are not trying to “weed-out” students for the major.</p>
<p>@WasatchWriter - This is not the situation here; the purchase has already been made.</p>
<p>And the fact that businesses are continually going out of business indicates people, as a whole, do exercise discretion in their purchases.</p>
<p>This is not really a new problem, when I was in school I had a phycis teacher who’s accent was strong from Indian but he could teach</p>
<p>My oldest had several math teachers who had heavy Spanish accents but being in Miami that is expected</p>
<p>I do believe that students or anyone on the listening end of anything should also make an effort to understand. If writing it all on the board, using a computer or other devise or having an interpreter there, or sitting with a student or person and making the personal effort to get that communication complete and successful is done, that’s a whole other story. </p>
<p>@Katvis and @Hunt - I am with both of you this is not a new problem. That is important to put this into context.</p>
<p>However, what is a new problem is paying $60K/yr for college. It is one thing to have to deal with this paying $10K/year, but at $60K anything lost in perceived quality is much harder to ignore. And rightly so because the loss is greater given the higher expense. </p>
<p>Not unlike Romani, I grew up with many accents as my family is a mini-version of the UN. Four languages were spoken at our house. My best coaches were deep-accented fellows. But there is a huge difference between training athletes and … teaching at the tertiary level. The issue is not only about the accent but about the cultural differences and the lack of communion with the students. </p>
<p>It is not an overblown problem. It is simply massively ignored by the schools who enjoy the lower cost or free labor and fully know their paying customer has little recourse. Universities KNOW they hire people who can’t speak or teach, but they only weigh the benefits to the protected insiders. </p>
<p>The reality is that, except to decide where to send your tuition payments, students and their families have almost no real rights and no voice that is heard. </p>
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<p>Well, does that not show the lack of concern by the school in the first place. Why was this excellent faculty member not kept away from the students who complained but left to teach the upperclassmen? Was he replaced by another “cog” with similar characteristics? </p>
<p>And HOW did a hard to understand ever become a FACULTY member? Where were his students’ evaluations at the freshmen level? </p>
<p>There are many foreign grad students because American students are not choosing to be grad students. How would you solve this problem? You can’t force Americans to go to grad school. The vast majority of foreigners have accents.</p>
<p>oh please.</p>
<p>There are native English speakers whose lectures are incomprehensible. There are U professors whose lectures consist of droning out of a textbook (which they wrote or edited).</p>
<p>Help your kids figure out how to be good “consumers” at college. That may mean taking an 8 am class with a fantastic lecturer over a noon class with someone who can’t communicate. That will likely mean NOT being able to shove all your classes into T, W and Th so you can have four days to party. That may also mean signing up for 9 classes at the beginning of the semester so you can adjust/drop once you get the lay of the land. And that may mean sacrificing some personal time to actually show up at office hours each and every time you don’t understand a core concept covered in class.</p>
<p>But waiting until midterms or finals to complain that you haven’t understood a word in class? Not buying it. Focus the irritation on your OWN kid who is so cavalier with your tuition dollars, not the professor.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine a large university which only has one section of Psych 1 or Intro Bio or the survey course “Western Civilization”. If you can’t understand the professor switch sections. Do the reading- you will understand the lecture 300% better regardless of the professors communication skills if you are already familiar with the material. Go to review sessions.</p>
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It is massively ignored by everyone. Except for a few well-known brand names, the university is almost certainly more interested in research and graduate education than it is in undergraduate education, especially if it is a public university. Your state legislation knows exactly what’s going on (except for a few legislators who just don’t care) but they are also more interested in other things, even when they claim that undergraduate education is a priority. The news isn’t talking. Guidance counselors don’t know or don’t care.</p>
<p>In sum, there is absolutely zero pressure for most parents and students to research the quality of instruction (and I’m going beyond accents here) until it’s too late. But they should. We all should. I know this isn’t much help for students who are already enrolled, but for the prospective student, it’s very important.</p>
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Exactly. And as long as everyone goes into this thing well-informed, that can work.</p>
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<p>Why is there an assumption that grad students should be lecturing or … teaching in the first place? Are we really running out of competent university teachers? How about refocusing their activities from researching, publishing, and living a life of protected leisure to be … active and full-time professors? </p>
<p>Do we expect surgeons to spend their time writing articles and delegate surgeries to a bunch of nurses? The need to train graduate students who WANT to be teachers is real, but the reality is that our k-12 would NOT accept teachers who have no training, qualifications, or certification but our universities find the practice acceptable and necessary. </p>
<p>A disgrace it is.</p>
<p>@blossom stated, “Help your kids figure out how to be good “consumers” at college.”</p>
<p>In general, I hear you and agree.</p>
<p>Oh, if it were that easy was my other thought. </p>
<p>Like I said, my kid never had this issue, but interestingly I just had a conversation of two classes my son needs to take next semester (for one of his majors) because they are not offered again until the next Fall. Luckily, no issues with the professors, but it is not always as easy as running to another class.</p>
<p>I still have nightmares about a partial differential equations course where the prof spoke very rudimentary English. His vocabulary was maybe 10 words, including yes and no. He wrote in the board for the entire class for the term. The class formed study groups to learn the material, as we learned absolutely nothing during class time. Questions went unanswered. </p>
<p>“Why is there an assumption that grad students should be lecturing or … teaching in the first place? Are we really running out of competent university teachers? How about refocusing their activities from researching, publishing, and living a life of protected leisure to be … active and full-time professors?”</p>
<p>@xiggi, there are plenty of colleges where teaching undergraduates is the main job description for professors. People who choose to attend research Universities need to understand that those professors are expected to conduct research and train graduate students. If you don’t like that, then choose something different. You can attend cc or an undergraduate college instead. </p>
<p>xiggi, you have absolutely no idea of the responsibilities of professors at research Universities. They are expected to be advancing research and scholarship, not just teaching material that someone else wrote or figured out. That is difficult and time-consuming. </p>
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<p>However, students who go anywhere other than local schools that attract predominantly local students will need to get used to different accents. The US is a big place, so any school that attracts people from outside the local area, even just from within the US, will have students with various accents of English.</p>
<p>The same applies to many workplaces.</p>
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<p>There are brilliant people born everywhere, including poor countries (or poor parts of the US).</p>
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<p>Haha! </p>
<p>You asked for a solution to the problem! Why is it wrong to expect a college or university to have a staff dedicated to teaching? </p>