Unintelligible Professors

[Saphire]

Our college freshman daughter started classes today. She is taking a physics class, and sat through her first class barely understanding what was said. The professor is Indian, and English is his second language. She promptly went to her advisor and switched to another class. She called and asked if that was ok, and I said absolutely. My oldest suffered through a Chemistry class and never understood the Chinese professor, and received a grade he was not happy with. So, I am glad she switched. But it does make me wonder a few things. Why don't these professors make efforts to try and improve their communication skills? Why does the college hire them? It is one thing to look great on paper, but teaching is communicating effectively too, isn't it?

 

[Soubrette]

Is she at a larger university? Particularly in the sciences these days, universities are hiring faculty primarily for their research skills, not teaching skills. This is what brings in the $$$, particularly when their research allows the university to partner with corporations. It's unfortunate, but part of the economic reality of today's higher education.

My guess is that it's not so much a language barrier (there are lots of fantastic international faculty teaching at the university level), but a lack of interest in teaching. They know they can get tenure on their research credentials.

 

[OceanAnnie]

You're right.

But it's not just professors. I was taking a business class in grad school & there was a Indian (?) student that was in our class. She was part of my group for an assignment. We all met at the library. We split up the task and she didn't speak. I asked her if she was ok with her assignment and she nodded. She looked totally lost. I tried to help her and ended up finding the books she needed for the task. Still, I couldn't understand her and I'm sure she could not understand me. We just couldn't communicate at all. I had no idea how she was admitted. She never participated in the task. We let the instructor know and that we suspected she didn't speak English. She was caught cheating on the first test in the course. It was so sad.

 

[Daxx]

You know, it's not only foreign accents! I had an Art History prof. w/such a strong/thick Boston accent that it was difficult to understand him. He also talked with his jaw clenched, so that on top of the accent made it more difficult!!

 

[HugsForEeyore]

In the college I attended, it was all about the professors doing research and being published. And counting how many times they were cited by other researchers who quoted their work. The professor with the most citations was considered god-like. That's how the game was played in upper education - sadly it had absolutely nothing to do with teaching or being an able speaker.

Our school also had the problem that all the teaching assistants were asian and hardly spoke any english and therefore were unable to help students, which was their paid job. It was quite a source of frustration. I doubt anything has changed since I graduated.

 

[txSleepingBeauty]

ugh. I've lucked out with my profs but have heard horror stories!! An unintelligible accent really makes it difficult to succeed in a class, especially a heavily conceptual class like the sciences....tell her to check www.ratemyprofessor.com next time. most people will add comments if someone's really hard to understand

 

[aynt79]

Try taking an English 101 class with a teacher (grad assistant) where English was her second language. We would get wierd comments and marks on our papers because she didn't understand any slang words or phrases, or really anything that wasn't considered formal English. English 101 has various writing assignments where formal essays aren't required, so she couldn't understand alot of we were writing. I dropped the class after a few weeks and took it again a year later, where I got an awesome teacher.

 

[DisneyPhD]

ugh. I've lucked out with my profs but have heard horror stories!! An unintelligible accent really makes it difficult to succeed in a class, especially a heavily conceptual class like the sciences....tell her to check www.ratemyprofessor.com next time. most people will add comments if someone's really hard to understand

My DH looks there every so often to see what people are saying about him. I couldn't resist, I gave him a hottie point, but since then so have a lot of other people.

He is rather well liked, but some of the other professors at his school get pretty ripped up. I wish they had a site like this back when I was in school.


I have a number of friends that teach so I have to look them all up to see what they are saying about them.

I remember when DH was getting his PhD he was the only TA that spoke English as his 1st language. All the students wanted him for that reason. In DH's lab group he was also the only one who was educated in America. Many came over seas to go to grad school. Maybe that is one reason too.

Anyway, if you think it is bad now, just try taking a class like that and being hard of hearing or deaf. Then things get really tricky!

 

[Cool-Beans]

I don't know if he's still there, but Princeton had a guy teaching math that didn't even speak English. Just came in and wrote stuff on the board.

 

[Saphire]

Well I find the whole thing very discouraging then, that the colleges cater to the personal pursuits of their professors instead of the practical issues in the classroom. At least you can switch, my daughter said half the class was visitng their advisors after class was over. If I were the professor, I would find that humiliating, and would be registering myself in a speech class.
The evaluations online are a wonderful tool and my two older sons took advantage of that. BUT, first sememster of your freshman year it is not possible...that is when my oldest had his trouble with the Chinese professor. I am just so glad she took control and got this changed on her first day. Wow, had no idea this was such an issue!

 

[Val]

As a college professor at a large state university, I can tell you that teaching ability counts for almost nothing! I have won many teaching awards and get high teaching ratings from students...but, my tenure, and now my pay raises are based not on how well I teach, but on how many publications I have each year, how many invited addresses I make each year, and how much grant $$ I bring in (and yes, I publish, have grants, and give lots of talks. I used to love teaching!). Universities give a lot of "talk" about rewarding teaching, but if you were to look into their faculty advancement policies you would find it is $$ and publicity that is rewarded, not turning out well-educated graduates. Yes, I "only" teach 3 classes for a total of 9 hours per week (plus 3 office hours)...but I do about 40-50 hours a week of research time in the lab (usually supervising undergrad and grad students and helping fund their theses and dissertations from my own research $$) because the lab work and publications pay the rent!

State and federal funding has decreased so much at most state universities that they depend on the grant $$ (universities take in 40-60% of the total cost of the grant to keep for "general purpose" funds) to pay the rent. Publications and invited addresses increase the likelihood of getting grants...professors, especially those in the sciences, have only so many hours to give and we give up what isn't reinforced- too often that is good teaching. We no longer have enough "teaching assistants" from general funds, so these TAs come from our research grants dollars. Thus, I will hire a student with good lab skills rather than good 'teaching' skills because I am paying their salary and need them to help me do my grant work. Even my teaching too often gets put on a back burner- that's what I do when I am not doing my 'regular' job!

Until the system changes, so it goes.....get after the state legislature and your elected officials to change the system and reward teaching at the university level and you will get better teacher- until then, we will continue to fund our universities off of the backs of professors and students alike.

Note: I love my research, and I have the BEST students....couldn't do my job, and nor would I want to, if I didn't have the best lab group in the Midwest (okay, maybe the whole darn country!).

 

[arminnie]

My senior year of college I took a bunch of Economics courses. I still remember this really cute guy in my classes named Tony.

We had one professor who was Dutch, one who was Asian and one who was something else I've forgotten. In the third class Tony turned around to me and just said "I'm dead - I can't understand any of these guys I'll never graduate". But we did.

 

[DemonLlama]

another reason why community colleges are a great bargain: you typically get teachers who are there to teach, not publish.

I suffered through a couple of awful professors who were unintelligible. It was so frustrating!

 

[momrek06]

Yes, certainly it can be difficult when your Prof is hard to understand due to different cultures BUT at the same time make it an enjoyable challenge....because your COLLEGE son or daughter may want to study a semester overseas.

My DS spent 4 months June-Sept (2006) at the American School of Classical Studies at ATHENS and then from there proceeded to the University of Glasgow, Scotland from Sept-Dec (2006). Yes indeed he was challenged everyday as some of the languages some of his Prof's spoke were very difficult to understand as the Prof's struggled to speak English. His choice to travel overseas. His major is Art History and like other posters have said he had one Prof that spoke Chinese at UG and yup there were issues but together the Prof and my DS worked through it!!

DS has been home since Jan 07 and speaks so often of what a fabulous experience it was to travel internationally attending college. Don't let the language barriers get in your way.

 

[YetanotherMouseFan]

Way back in the 80's, during the Iranian Hostage crisis, I had a Geology TA from Iran. I gotta admire the guy: first class, he told us straight up, that he learned his English from a book, and if we couldn't understand him, please say so. He also asked us to please not blame "them estupid peoples" in Iran on him. He would be our "personal Iranian" and try to explain it all if we wanted to know what it was about. We all finally got used to his accent and (lack of) grammar, and he ended up being a really good lab instructor. So, it does sometimes work out.

 

[pearlieq]

I did have one accounting professor who had some unholy hybrid of a Chinese and Southern accent. It was the oddest thing I've ever heard! Luckily I seem to be able to handle accents pretty well--I notice them but I become attuned pretty quickly.

 

[Papa Deuce]

I had an Indian guy teaching philosophy. I should have quit ASAP, but didn't... I had to settle for an INCOMPLETE....

I agree - if they can't speak clear enough to be understood, then they shouldn't be teaching at all.

 

[shortbun]

I don't know if he's still there, but Princeton had a guy teaching math that didn't even speak English. Just came in and wrote stuff on the board.

That's how I took one of my first Calculus courses at Ohio State years ago.

BTW, most People from India speak English quite well. I worked in an International Travel Agency at the Univiersity for 8 years and the people of India were NEVER a problem. China-another story as they would arrive with little or no English and Chinese has no similarity in any of the languages I know.
That was tough.

 

[Cindy B]

My DH does mostly online courses through a local community college. This semester he has a statistics professor from either India or Pakistan and since the course is online he has had no issues with accents.

He does remember having a Chinese computer science instructor in a large lecture hall though.

So far, I haven't had any problems with accents (I'm a senior!), but with my luck I'll have a doozy for my student teaching seminar!

 

[punkin]

Does anyone know what "odinwy weesqua" means? No, then you did not have Mr. Nawata for economentrics. Obviously it is "ordinary least square." I though I was going to bomb that class so I took it p/f and studied my butt off. Wound up with a B+ on my final, but unfortunately only a P on my grades.