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“Valerie Serrin still remembers vividly her anger and the feeling of helplessness. After getting a C on a lab report in an introductory chemistry course, she went to her teaching assistant to ask what she should have done for a better grade. The teaching assistant, a graduate student from China, possessed a finely honed mind. But he also had a heavy accent and a limited grasp of spoken English, so he could not explain to Ms. Serrin, a freshman at the time, what her report had lacked.
“He would just say, ‘It’s easy, it’s easy,’ ” said Ms. Serrin, who recently completed her junior year at the University of California, Berkeley. “But it wasn’t easy. He was brilliant, absolutely brilliant, but he couldn’t communicate in English.”
“Chances are that Valerie deserved a C since students from India and China tend to grade papers a bit on the tougher side and do not understand the concept of a grading curve in their first few months” (originally echoed by Abhi at Sepia Mutiny). Although I haven’t yet taught a class, plenty of my friends here teach undergraduate classes and labs. They make it clear in their first class that if anyone has a problem with their accent, they should inform them so that they can be more careful. Indians at least have a stronger grasp of the language than the Chinese and the problem is usually the accent or the rate of speech (we tend to speak faster). Most of the universities, however take adequate care that their teaching assistants are equipped with decent spoken English skills and recommend intensive ESL courses, if they are found lacking. Learning English isn’t all that hard. I have seen couple of my Chinese friends who didn’t speak English at all to speaking it almost fluently in couple of years. The secret is that graduate students who come to the US are hardworking people and generally brilliant people. They are conscious of their limitation and tend to work harder than people give them credit for.
If we can train our average youth in nuances of American-accented language for BPO purposes, I bet universities can do a better job. If Americans understand their computer helpdesk needs, they definitely will understand their biology lectures. I feel that everything lies in the attitude of the undergraduate students, if they are considerate enough to give credit that English is not widely spoken all over the world and willing to work even half as hard as their poor struggling graduate teaching assistant, then classes will not be that hard.
by Patrix | on Monday, June 27th, 2005 at 7:00 pm | 
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June 27th, 2005 at 9:17 pm reply
Hi Patrix
Chances are that Valerie deserved a C since students from India and China tend to grade papers a bit on the tougher side and do not understand the concept of a grading curve in their first few months.
Sepia Mutiny blogged about that here and Abhi (Tripathi) said “First, I have no doubt that Ms. Serrin deserved a C. Foreign TA’s are tougher because they are used to expecting more from their students and don’t understand that grade inflation is the norm in the U.S.”
I taught many classes at the U of Mn and the ones who needed English writing classes were the Americans. Some of the writing was truly embarrassing.
It is a challenge understanding the English of some of the East Asian T.A.’s, but then you’re not in high school anymore and you have to make the effort to bridge the communication gap.
June 27th, 2005 at 10:28 pm reply
Michael, yup I read that on Sepia Mutiny and agree with Abhi (actually should have linked to that…somehow forgot to).Understanding English as spoken by some East Asians is definitely tough but I don’t see much sense in blaming just the TAs. As you say, college is a tougher field and efforts have to be made by both sides.
June 27th, 2005 at 10:59 pm reply
Hi Patrix
What is your field?
June 27th, 2005 at 11:15 pm reply
Michael, check your email :)
June 28th, 2005 at 7:54 am reply
“American accent” is already out, simple because “America” is a pretty large nation and there are just too many accents out there. Also a newly “acquired” accent appears almost like a mockery. The new trend is to speak accent-nuetrally. It is not all that difficult - most commentators on the documentary channels speak like that. And it is also the right thing to do to save the English language from bastardization.