The International Herald Tribune covers the problem of teaching assistants who aren't fluent in spoken English:
With a steep rise in the number of foreign graduate students in the past two decades in the United States, undergraduates at large research universities often are in classes and laboratories run by graduate teaching assistants whose mastery of English is less than complete. The issue is found especially in subjects like engineering, where 50 percent of graduate students are foreign born, and math and the physical sciences, where 41 percent of graduate students are foreign born, according to a survey by the Council of Graduate Schools, an association of 450 schools. The issue has spawned legislation in at least 22 states requiring universities to make sure that teachers are proficient in spoken English.
Not surprisingly, the undergrads themselves come under fire for being too "insular" and "lazy" to learn to understand foreign accents. However, it's nice to see that most of the educators quoted understand that it's in everyone's best interest to increase the spoken English fluency of foreign graduate students.
Posted by kswygert at June 27, 2005 01:20 PM