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North Dakota bill targets TAs with accents
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by Caitlin Kiley
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
The North Dakota state Legislature passed a bill last month requiring public universities in the state to address complaints about international instructors and students’ ability to understand foreign accents.
According to the bill’s initial proposal, if 10 percent of students in a class said they could not understand an instructor’s accent, the instructor would be placed in a non-teaching position. Individual students who complained would also be allowed to withdraw from their course without being academically or financially penalized.
Schools in the state will report to an interim committee by July to explain how they are addressing the issue.
Bette Grande, R-Fargo, who proposed the bill in January, compared receiving a satisfactory education to the rights of a consumer.
“The university can be seen as a business in that the student is coming here and they’re paying for a product,” Grande said. “And if they’re not happy with their product, they have the right to complain and have the problem corrected.”
But North Dakota State University Provost R. Craig Schnell said he doesn’t like Grande’s analogy.
“Education is not something you can come in and buy, you have to earn it,” Schnell said. “Tuition represents the opportunity to learn, but it doesn’t guarantee it. The student has got to bring something to the table.”
While some have blamed students’ bad attitudes and refusals to accept foreign instructors, Grande said she feels the issue goes beyond tolerance and open-mindedness.
“This is for all of us. Everybody’s supposed to work toward the best products,” Grande said. “It’s not just ‘students have to buck up and do it.’ I think blaming the student is copping out.”
Nancy Westphal-Johnson, University of Wisconsin associate dean for undergraduate education, said it is not always easy to distinguish between valid complaints and lack of tolerance. She added students should strive to understand their instructors’ accents.
“That’s part of becoming exposed to a wide variety of people and experiences,” Westphal-Johnson said. “At some point it crosses a line if it really seriously interferes with education.”
According to Westphal-Johnson, each department and college at UW may have a different way of assessing the language proficiency of non-native graduate students seeking teaching positions.
In the UW College of Letters and Sciences, international graduate students are required to take the Speak Test, which measures oral proficiency. Students who score a 50 on the test are qualified to teach while students scoring lower are required to take a class to improve their English skills.
New international teaching assistants in the Physics, Math, Chemistry and Statistics departments, all of which have a higher concentration of international graduate students, can prepare for a teaching position in a summer session. The six-week course prepares new graduate students for grading procedures, class dynamics and cultural differences they may encounter.
Westphal-Johnson said the CLS sidesteps many potential problems by observing new teaching assistants during the beginning of their first semester. Through observation, CLS can be proactive and ensure international teaching assistants get help with their English skills when necessary.
According to Schnell, students need to take a more active role in expressing their needs.
“One of the problems we’ve had with this is students often just talk to each other and don’t get it in to be evaluated,” Schnell said.
