How to ignore a presenter's bad english?

Question

I recently attended an average international conference in Computer Science. This was the first time I actually attended an international conference.

The level of English that I heard during the talks ranged from average to extremely bad (ignoring the native speakers/people that lived a long time in an english speaking country).

I am not a native English speaker, and I do not expect other researchers in the same situation to be as fluent as a native speaker either. But I have worked hard to improve my accent and my elocution to a point where I feel very comfortable speaking the language without stuttering every two words or mispronouncing a lot of things.

As such, I felt extremely frustrated during the entire conference: a speaker with bad English would quickly annoy me, because I felt as if they did not work hard enough on their English elocution, which I believe is an inherent part of being a scientist (especially in Computer Science, where conferences are very common). Therefore, I ended up not being interest in the vast majority of the presentations, even if the subject might have sounded appealing.

How can one improve at looking (or rather, hearing) past the researcher's English, and focusing on their actual contribution?

Answer 1

You need to get over this feeling, if only because there is nothing you can do about it.

The point of a presentation is to convey information and meaning. It is certainly true that some presenters fail at this, though more often than not these are issues of presentation and structure, rather than language. Indeed, while language issues are sometimes distracting, great pronunciation and use of elaborate grammar are not necessary to convey what you want to say. Most scientific papers are (often purposefully) written in relatively simple language. Most rap songs use grammar that would get at best a D- grade when used in high school. When you talk to friends, you say things like "say it ain't so" or "ain't no sunshine" and other sentences that are grammatically wrong. Yet, in all of these contexts, we communicate what we want to say just fine. In other words, while there clearly is a level of language discomfort beyond which a speaker is unable to convey meaning, this level is actually quite a distance from being a fluent and elaborate speaker of a language.

So, focus on what a speaker wants to convey, using his spoken words and what's on slides and other props, and less on the speaker's level of language.

Answer 2

So I'm a native English speaker, and I used to be kind of a snob about people whose spoken English was poor. I got over it. I remember the exact instant that I got over it, in fact. Here it is:

I was an undergraduate, and I visited a seminar on a subject that interested me but that I didn't know very much about. The speaker at the seminar had an impenetrable Chinese accent, and I wasn't able to focus on the talk at all because I could barely understand him. "This is terrible," I thought. "No one can possibly be getting anything from this."

The talk ended and the speaker took questions. The first question was long, thoughtful, and detailed: the questioner was trying to related something from a slide early in the presentation to a slide from late in the presentation. I did not understand the question because the gentleman who asked it had an impenetrable Polish accent.

After some back and forth, it became clear that the speaker thought the question was interesting but didn't know the answer. But someone else in the audience did: a long, thoughtful answer that I did not understand because the answerer had an impenetrable Russian accent.

Then it hit me: everyone in the seminar room had just learned something interesting, except me, because I was distracted by being an English-language snob. That was my problem, not theirs.

I eventually figured out to concentrate on what's maybe called "active listening": constantly rephrasing what the other person is saying into my own words, and inquiring occasionally whether I'm summarizing things correctly. You might not like to interrupt someone with clarifying questions during a presentation. Within reasonable limits, you should get over that --- if you're flummoxed about something, chances are that other people in the audience are confused about the same thing. Active listening has helped me to deal with native English speakers just as much as with speakers of broken English, in fact. For instance, when you argue with someone, they have a lot more respect for you if you can correctly state their position before you take issue with it.

(The happy ending of the story is that the Russian and the Pole both ended up on my PhD committee --- good people, both of them, from whom I learned a great deal. No recollection of who the original seminar speaker was, though.)

Answer 3

Learn to understand English better. The less effort you have to spend understanding the language, the easier it is to understand the contents as well.

Learn the speakers' native languages. The language of scientific conferences is usually not US English, British English, or any other form of English spoken natively somewhere in the world. The so-called International English is full of idioms borrowed from other languages. The better you understand those languages, the easier it is to understand what the others are saying.

Answer 4

You master the English language, but the language used often in conferences is the so called IBE (International Broken English), and the problem is that you don't fully understand it. Most non native English speakers have the opposite problem: broken English is easy to understand for us, but we had to work hard to understand actual English - specially when spoken from native speakers. Anyway the solution for us is clear: practice listening a lot. You can use the same solution: listening as much broken English as you can. Now Internet makes it easy and you can find a lot of videos in Youtube with academics speaking in broken English about a lot of things.

Another problem might be that you don't like broken English. Again, a lot of people has had the same problem with actual English and had overcome it. The solution is to practice listening until you stop noticing it. Maybe this won't make you to like it, but it could help you to stop worrying about it.

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Edit: I suggest reading in Rob's good answer the example of a conference where a Chinese, a Pole and a Russian could understand each other in different brands of poor English while he, a native speaker, couldn't. My point is that with very little practice the native speaker could improve his understanding of bad English and he would benefit from being able to understand a very larger pool of scholars.

Of course, non native speakers can benefit from improving our English, but that point is unrelated to the question.

Answer 5

I'm a researcher based in Japan which has some of the worst English language education in the world. The average Japanese university graduate cannot hold a conversation in English. I've attended many conferences and seminars here and overseas, I've organised meetings for students who've never given a conference talk before (in Japan and my home country). Suffice to say, I've sat through some talks in absolutely terrible English, not just from students without experience but also tenured professors who postdoc'd in the US or Europe and who really should know better. Some had redeeming qualities in terms of the content, others did not.

Here is what I've learned from my experiences.

• There is a difference between poor communication skills and a lack of effort to prepare or deliver your message
• A well-structured talk can still convey that message (and entertain your audience) even if your language skills are poor
• There are things that you can do (besides learning your target language you are presenting in) to help your audience follow you

As an audience member you should still be respectful and pay attention. It should be clear whether the person delivering the presentation really makes an effort or not. Someone with poor language skills or who is nervous is different to someone going through the motions and doesn't care if you follow along. Try to understand the key points, make eye contact with them, non-verbal communication is important as well. Let them try get their message across. Ask them questions to clarify points others may have missed too and give them feedback on how to improve privately afterwards. Yes it's easy to zone out through a talk in a thick accent but you know they've travelled a long way to do this and they're trying.

Do not mistake bad language skills for a poor talk. Often the real reason you can't follow is less obvious than they're talking to fast or too quietly in a strong accent. The structure of the talk matters, the visual aids matter, the logical flow matters. Giving them feedback on these is immensely more helpful that "your English is bad" because they probably already know that. This is especially common in Asian countries where they study written English and their spoken English is often really poor. They also lack experience with presentations as it's not required curriculum in their home country up until Masters courses. Even in their native language, they can give a terrible rushed mess of a presentation. Given the environment to practice, they catch up impressively quickly.

I know a conference doesn't feel like the best time to do that but these people often get little opportunities to speak out or present elsewhere. They often come from a hierarchical culture where the head of the lab presents their work and even Assistant professors rarely speak out. They're very hard-working, potential future collaborators or staff. Dismissing their work because of poor English skills or a lack of experience is a missed opportunity for both of you. An international conference will have people from a variety of cultural and scientific backgrounds. You chose to attend that instead of a more specialised regional meeting. Your job there is to engage with the international research community, not hang out with your mates.

Non-native speaker or not, there are ways to improve your presentations. My own presentations were once irredeemably terrible. With preparation, practice, experience, and feedback this can be improved. I know I have a soft voice so I include a lot of visual aids and summary text on my slides. A clear structure and well-timed breaks, anecdotes, or summaries helps to break up the pace of a talk and get your audience back in. You can do this to break up the "monotony" whether you have a strong accent or not.

Yes, I'm a native English speaker but I've employed the same techniques to give presentations in Japanese. I got help to put key terms in Kanji, I prepared relatable stories, a pop quiz, and even got some laughs from my audience. The biggest trap is to become to reliant on your notes or cues. I find this can lead to students reading from their notes and rarely using gestures or looking at their audience. Another key sign of this is that they will struggle going off-script during questions. They'll often need more time to answer and questions asked in simple vocabulary.

In the long-term, I think non-Native English speakers can become fantastic communicators. We should not discourage them when they are new to the research community. They understand what non-Native listeners are struggling with. They tend to speak slowly and clearly. If you are a Native speakers you can still have a strong accent. If I'm speaking in a New Zealand accent at my natural pace in Japan or the US, very few people will understand me. This did not occur to me as a student my home country until a professor pointed it out. It's easy to blame your own poor presentations (or someone else's) on language skills when there's a lot else we can do to improve our communication and presentation skills. I find complacency more common in Native speakers and they’ve given some of the worst talks I’ve ever seen in English.

Answer 6

As Wolfgang mentions in his answer, poor language might not be the only reason a talk is hard to follow. It can be hard to follow a talk that is outside your expertise, and many talks are just poorly prepared — cluttered slides, too much or too little technical detail, lack of narrative or motivation, etc.

My first suggestion is to remember that regardless of your comfort with the language, giving a talk is hard! The speaker may be nervous, embarrassed, or scared. Empathizing with the speaker (I’ve certainly been nervous, embarrassed, and scared while speaking) can help you be more patient with the weaknesses in their presentation.

My second suggestion is to remember that you can learn something from everyone. Even the worst talks will contain a few lessons for you. Ravi Vakil has a great suggestion for extracting these lessons from a talk. It might be a little harder to do if the speaker’s language is forming a barrier for you, but you can also learn these lessons from questions that you or other seminar participants ask.

Answer 7

I would deal with this as I would any talk: Concentrate on formulating a question to ask the speaker after the talk.

Answer 8

How can one improve at looking (or rather, hearing) past the researcher's English, and focusing on their actual contribution?

Writing and looking up published papers or materials during the presentation may help in filling in the blanks and reducing your level of frustration. Usually the frustration when listening to poor English is due to misunderstandings, so written materials may be able to help overcome this.

Drawing concept maps and outlines may help illustrate the wrong assumptions and help you recover in a less frustrating way rather than just doing it all mentally. Juggling concepts in the mind can be much more strenous than just going back and fixing the assumptions in your mindmap.

Answer 9

The researcher, given their poor English skills should have made the presentation more understandable by using other media. Whether this be referring to a Powerpoint, using websites, video, whatever.

I once managed a group of engineers that traveled the world to teach our other engineers. Quite a few of them from Asia had trouble with English, some did great.

I for one had to travel all over. Easy right because I am native speaker? No because in each region they had different English levels, used slightly different terminology, and had certain expectations.

Things the speaker needs:

• preparation - as mentioned above using cheat sheets, materials and media as aids.

• self-awareness - the speaker needs to understand their abilities. Don't use words that you don't fully understand, speaker louder, speak slower, and so on. There is nothing worse than someone butchering any language mumbling at a million words a minute.

• know your audience - if you have that much comment on your speaker's English skills part of the problem was them trying to cover too much in a short time frame for too big of an audience. The focus should have probably been narrowed and more interactive.

• the speaker has to care - I have gone up in front of many groups and watch their eyes glaze over. Sometimes I was not explaining something well, sometimes too fast, sometimes at too complex of a level, whatever. But as a speaker you can see your audience hit the wall. If you don't care enough to stop and change course or to ask questions to see where people's heads are then you are just clicking a checkbox and the session was useless.

• the speaker needs to confirm - once you have made major points make sure that your audience understands them and confirms that when you made point XYZ that they understand that was XYZ. Sounds simple but using slightly different wording or terminology/slang can put a 180 spin on things quickly.

The answer is you cannot fix bad communication, especially at a large conference. It is painful to watch anyone that is a poor communicator and language skills are just a piece of the pie. What you probably witnessed was a person with poor English skills but a few other presenting issues too.

Answer 10

Contrary to the many other answers here, no, you don't need to learn to "get over it". If you don't enjoy the presentations, you are under no obligation to enjoy them, or even attend. Clear and eloquent presentation is something that improves a talk in any language and English is no exception. People who are not native English-speakers are naturally going to take a substantial amount of time to develop their command of the language, and since it is unlikely that you have knowledge of their circumstances, there is no need to assume a lack of effort, or get annoyed by a presumed lack of effort. But results are results, and if the language of the talk is stilted and unclear, you don't have to like it.

An obvious thing to do here to get directly to the content and substance of material is to read published papers rather than attending conference talks. Published papers have gone through peer review and so they are likely to have at least a baseline level of clarity and accurate grammar, and most should be written to a reasonable standard. Conference presentations are massively over-rated anyway, and you can almost always learn much more by using that time to read high-quality peer-reviewed published papers in your field.