Language barrier

USG committee to seek solutions to student complaints of foreign TAs

Because some students say deciphering foreign teaching assistants is too difficult, the Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly has formed a committee to investigate complaints about instructors with foreign accents.

David Kayal, an assembly member who works on the investigation committee, said he took management science and information systems and mathematics classes with international teachers whose language skills impeded his learning.

"I would get lost just listening to her in class explaining about the different statistical definitions," said Kayal (junior-economics). "Good teachers have the ability to stress things, and with the foreign professors, they just don't understand the language enough."

As the assembly considers complaints from students, the International TA Support Group discusses its perspectives on language differences, academic support and student racism.

"I think people have realized that it's not politically correct anymore to say 'I don't like you because of your race,' " said Emily Kuntz, a graduate assistant in the department of speech communication. "People have become more clever in the way they discriminate."

While communication problems exist between international graduate students and undergraduate students, both sides should work together and avoid an "us vs. them" attitude, said Wanjirú Kamau, a senior diversity planning analyst who works closely with the support group.

When dealing with foreign-born instructors, the cultural and ethnic differences lead to confusion as much as any language barrier, Kamau said.

While probably nothing will change ethnic differences, the assembly hopes to convince the University to develop better support and instruction for international teachers, Kayal said.

"Just because teaching assistants know the material well, doesn't mean they're proficient at communicating the material to students," he said.

Alex Flanigan (sophomore-finance) said he also could not understand a math TA he had last semester.

"It was harder to get what you needed out of the class, particularly in a class you had trouble with already," Flanigan said.

But most international TAs come to the University precisely because they have valuable resources to offer, Kamau said.

"When people come (to the University) from other countries, it is not because they are stupid," Kamau said. "It is because they are brilliant."