Campus reacts to assembly's vote about TAs

By KATE DAILEY
Collegian Staff Writer

The Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly's vote Monday night on a resolution to better select and prepare international teaching assistants sparked conversations on campus about the training TAs receive and the language barriers and prejudices that may exist between TAs and their students.

The resolution requires international students to score a 250 or better on the English Oral Language Proficiency Test before they are permitted to teach. It also calls for Penn State to provide more extensive training and communication courses to all TAs.

"I don't want to be seen as a prejudiced person," David Kayal, assembly president and author of the resolution said during a January interview. "(International TAs) are some of the most brilliant students we have . . . however, we're consumers, and if it's hindering our learning, it needs to be fixed."

According to a report prepared by Kayal, students have been concerned for years about language barriers between themselves and TAs, and many believe the resolution was long overdue.

"It's kind of hard to understand math when you don't understand the instructors," Jered Widmer (senior-architectural engineering) said. "We're paying good money to get an education. I don't have anything against them or their ethnicity, it just makes it harder for (me)."

Ying Huang (graduate-statistics), a TA from China, said while she agrees with the proposal, the issue is too complex to place blame solely on TAs.

"I feel that American students have some prejudices against international TAs, she said. "I know a lot of TAs try very hard, but at first sight, American students dislike them because they think they will not understand them. Of course, international TAs have accents, but American students need to work harder to understand them."

More than 1,000 international students have graduate assistantships, said James Lynch, director of International Students and Scholars, and about half of them are TAs. He said Penn State needs to recognize the problems presented by TAs who cannot speak English, even though the number is small.

"One who can't communicate is too many," he said. "We need to do the very best we can do to see that teaching assistants can communicate in English."

Lynch said the more important part of the resolution was the clause asking for more teaching courses.

"I think a lot of TAs don't have training in how to teach students," Huang said.

Rather than train TAs as teachers, the university should simply be more selective in its screening process, Jonathan Cohen (graduate-business) said.

"They should just choose the right TAs," he said. "They should make stricter controls on the process rather than train them."