06 April, 2006

Putting accent on "get used to it". In the new global economy this is a skill you need to acquire.

kare11.com :: KARE 11 TV - Professor sought: Must clearly speak English

Quote:
Stanton suggested the Heidgerken's bill [Heidgerken?; is he fresh off the boat?], if it became law, would allow any student failing a class to use the language barrier as an excuse to drop it without consequences.

And, he used a personal anecdote to suggest that the professor's "poor English" is often an excuse for poor performance."Last semester my daughter didn't get a very good grade in biology, and when I asked her, she said she had trouble understanding the professor," recalled Stanton."The only problem is, I know the professor - he served on my government relations committee - and I can understand him quite well."

Stanton went on to say that the language barrier is part of college life and that these students will have to deal with people with accents the rest of their lives, because of the increasingly global economy. In other words, he said having international professors is good training for real life.
Stanton's daughter was unable to speak to our inquiries. In an unpunctuated email she wrote, "wtf ur all ashats farku :)"

3 comments:

Tim Newman said...

We had a Nigerian lecturer for our dynamics module in a Mechanical Engineering degree. A lot of the foreign students, especially the Malaysians, struggled to understand what he was saying. They were considering complaining, until us natives pointed out that understanding every word he said did not help us to understand any of the subject matter.

Anonymous said...

Thumbs up for Stanton and his "get used to it" philosophy. English is fast becoming the lingua franca of the world and yet Heidgerken is complaining just because people don't have a perfect accent?!! Have you noticed how American TV news subtitles people speaking English with a non-American accent? . . . cracks me up.

John B. Chilton said...

A curmudgeonly economics professor taught a first year PhD macroeconomics course at UCLA.

Every other sentence was peppered with the phrase "rational expectations horseshit."

In late October an earnest mainland Chinese student went to a colleague in the class to ask for help with the mysterious concept of "rational expectations horseshit." He had dutifully copied it into his notes on every instance that it been uttered by the professor.

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