XPost: soc.culture.asian.american, misc.education, nyc.general   
   XPost: soc.culture.china   
   From: hrubin@odds.stat.purdue.edu   
      
   In article <1133796784.512914.141050@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,   
   NYC XYZ  wrote:   
      
   >Yajyuam wrote:   
   >> NYC,   
      
   >> I think you are very insensitive to the Chinese instructors.  Don't you   
   >> ever think that they are trying very hard to speak English to you?  At   
   >> least give them respect for their effort.   
      
   >I think you are very insensitive to the English-speaking students.  Why   
   >should they have to try so hard to understand what is being spoken to   
   >them?  We're in an American university, after all!   
      
   Do American students speak English?  Do they even speak   
   American?  No, each speaks his own idiolect.   
      
   There WAS a time when the schools tried to teach good   
   English, but now the idea, not just among educationists   
   but among many linguists, that everyone knows his own   
   native language.  This is nonsense.   
      
   Chinese students do have problems with idioms, but many   
   American students are not much easier to understand than   
   "Waltzing Matilda".   
      
   >I don't disrespect them, believe me -- this isn't "personal."  But I   
   >just don't think it's right that they're hired to "teach"...when folks   
   >don't understand them and they actually don't understand us students!   
   >Even accounting for the fact that most people don't read textbooks or   
   >study along as the course progresses but only cram last-minute -- even   
   >for all that, these instructors still have to speak English beyond a   
   >grasping good-enough-to-order-food level of competency!!!   
      
   They do speak English; the students do not try to understand,   
   but want the TAs to "teach them how to do the problems which   
   will be on the exam".  Any decent college course is not like   
   that at all.   
      
      
   --   
   This address is for information only.  I do not claim that these views   
   are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.   
   Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University   
   hrubin@stat.purdue.edu         Phone: (765)494-6054   FAX: (765)494-0558   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)