University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, July 24, 1991
5
Regents tighten standards for foreign graduate TAs
By Kelley Frieze
Kansan staff writer
When Greg Kahnk took Economics 140 his freshman year, he had a discussion leader who was incomprehensible.
"It it got to the point that a lot of people didn't show up just because they didn't get anything out of it," said Kahnk, Elkhorm. Neb. senior.
The only reason he went to the discussion was to learn what would be on the tests, but he never complained to the department about it.
Last spring, he took Economics 522 and again could not understand his teacher. This time the teacher wrote everything important on the board and slowed down his words to help his students understand.
"I just spaced off what he was saying and wrote down what was on the menu."
Both instructors were teaching assistants, and both were foreign.
"They'd talk the entire class time in English, but you couldn't really understand what they were saying," said. "I've grown to hate economics."
Students at the University of Kansas may have problems understanding teachers from foreign countries, but compared to other Board of Regents schools, they might have the most comprehensible teachers.
The Board of Regents last month passed guidelines basically bringing other Regents schools up to KU's standards in the area of hiring for faculty and graduate teaching assistants whose first language was not English.
Del Brinkman, vice chancellor for academic affairs, said new Regents standards would not improve the situation significantly at KU because the guidelines already had been in place several years.
The areas affected by the changes are the required Test of Spoken English score and the procedure for faculty members who receive complaints.
Addressing the issue
Last year, the Students' Advisory Committee, which is made up of Regents university student-body presidents, first decided to study the issue and to make recommendations for changes in hiring policies for teachers to the Regents, said Sara Scrubb, chairperson of the committee.
Despite evidence that indicates the situation has improved, the speaking ability of foreign teachers still is perceived as a problem, said John
Welsh, Regents associate director of academic affairs.
Because student leaders saw a problem, something else needed to be done about it. Welsh said.
Raising the required TSE score from a 70 percent to an 80 percent, establishing a formal complaint process for students who are unhappy with their teacher's speaking ability and having an interview with at least one student on it was the plan passed by the Regents.
After two years, when the guidelines are phased in completely, GTAs who score between 70 and 80 percent for a one-year probation period.
"I think it will take care of most of the problem," Scribner said. "The TSE is a standardized test, and like a standardized test it has its faults."
The biggest difference in the process will be having a student on the campus.
The problem was not that many foreign teachers needed to be weeded a teacher can affect 100 to 1,000 students in a single semester. Scribner said.
Dealing with problems
Students with a teacher they cannot understand should talk to someone in the department instead of being frustrated and receiving a bad grade. Students are in the best position to correct the problem while still in the class.
"Nobody knows about it unless students come forward and tell somebody," he said. "The worst thing they do is not listen, about it and wait until it is too late."
"I think our problems are fewer than they used to be because we have given it more attention," Brinkman said.
Many University faculty and staff are aware of the potential for this problem and are willing to help solve it, he said.
Students with a complaint should talk to either a department instructor or a faculty member who can try to help the instructor with teaching and speaking. Brinkman said. If a problem still exists, the department chairperson or dean of the school should be told.
"Somebody needs to look at what is the problem just as with any teacher I have ever had."
The Student Assistance Center offers students several options when they have a teacher who is difficult to understand, said Robert Turvey,
associate director of the center.
First they must decide how severe the problem is.
"A lot of people just haven't dealt with someone who has a different dialect," he said.
Although the center has not received many complaints in the last several years, most of the concerns it does hear come in the first few days of classes when students have not adjusted vet to the teacher's speech.
In some cases, Turvey advises students to change sections, sit in on another lecture, get a tutor or, as a last resort, drop the class.
Sometimes the teacher's speaking ability is only one factor in a student's class performance. If he or she does not understand the material or has not been going to class, the language factor may compound a problem that already exists, Turvey said.
Departments are being more cautious in hiring to assure that each person can speak understandable English, and fewer complaints have been filed now than five years ago, he said.
Preventing problems
Certain departments have a higher concentration of foreign faculty and teaching assistants, especially in the areas of math and science, because the University is a major research university.
Some preventive procedures — such as monitoring classes and requiring courses designed to improve English — help reduce problems.
New teaching assistants in the math department who do not speak English well are required to take an intensive course in English in July before they teach, said Charles Himmelberg, chairperson of math. All new teaching assistants take a teaching seminar in the fall.
In the microbiology department, teaching assistants who cannot speak English well are paired with people from other departments. The director of labs, Deborah Faurot,
Instead of trying to benefit from having teachers from other cultures, students often use them as an excuse when they do poorly in a class, or when students want to limit themselves to the familiarity of U.S. teachers.
"Some students use it as a crutch when they don't do well in a class." The instructor should name the instructor of the person she forms a non-English-speaking country."
LiAngel Keys, a senior from St. Louis MO, is double majoring in advertising and architecture. She would like to work in the creative department of an advertising agency following graduation. LiAngel is a member of the Psi chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and enjoys music, dance design and aerobics.
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