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I had an Indian lady teach Biology. Her grammar was awful. On top of that, she was a b*tch. We had to do certain assignments together, but turn in our own paper. Even though we had the EXACT same answers, we all had different grades.
I once took a history class with a very famous and well-respected history professor. There were two hundred people in this very popular class. When the professor started talking, he mumbled incohorently, with a very heavy foreign accent, and I couldn't understand a single word, even sitting in the front row. However, when I looked around, all the other students were taking notes and looking like they understood. I just dropped the class. Never did figure out how they understood or if they were all just faking it.
I also had same problems and one of my sons in late 90's. He was on an academic scholarship and failed Physics specifically because he couldn't understand the professor.
I recall professors and TAs who couldn't speak English well, but managed never to fail a class as a result. Failing is a huge deal, and to put it solely on a professor who couldn't speak English well...would you mind explaining a bit? There must have been at least one or two in the class who managed to pass the class; I wonder how they did so.
These ideas are all fine and great until you have someone apply for an instructor position who is deaf, mute, or speech impaired....
I did seriously have an absolutely brilliant computer science professor who could not speak above a whisper. Would hate to think the school would have fired him or refused to hire him over a speech impediment. Of course, he could have come back and sued them over the issue as well. And outside the ADA issues, such a policy would have to undergo some serious defense over discrimination on the basis of national origin. That is why English fluency among TAs is such a rigid test based policy rather than any subjective evaluation of their ability to speak English.
One of my sons went to college with a 504 plan in place. His adviser told him that he would work with him to make sure he was enrolled in classes with native English speakers whenever possible, as he would have a difficult time otherwise. Obviously the schools know heavy accents can be a detriment to students.
I had professors and TAs from various countries with many various accents. Sure, there were some words that were hard to understand but I'd probably sound even worse if I tried to speak their native language. None of them were ever mean about it, they recognized that their English wasn't great and tried hard to accommodate the students. I think it's silly though that people claim they failed a class because of a professors accent, that's ridiculous. There's many ways to work with a professor who has an accent and to work with other students in the class when you didn't understand. If you failed, you didn't try hard enough.
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