Timeline for A lecturer is hard to understand, what to do?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:12 | comment | added | snim2 | or ask them to spell out technical words... | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 11:45 | comment | added | cbeleites | Maybe it would already help to ask the lecturer to speak more slowly (make sure the lecturer understands that you are talking about speed of pronounciation and not about the "speed" in which the topics are presented)? There are several other factors such as the acoustics of the lecture hall or other studends getting noisy as they are impatient becaus they don't understand a word which can add to the problem. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 1:56 | comment | added | snim2 | It is not impossible for someone to be unaware of these problems. If everyone is too polite to say anything the lecturer may well be unaware. Or they may be aware but not sure what to do about it, and their management should be able to help them. Sometimes students think "I should not complain because the lecturer will get into trouble" but it is not a matter of getting into "trouble". It is a just a matter of the management supporting the lecturer to complete their duties as expected, which is a normal part of professional life for all of us. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 1:24 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | By the way: "I think students also have to be more patient and learn how to understand foreign accents." Yes, I agree. It is a notorious joke that at smaller (e.g.) Southern colleges, someone with dark hair and not speaking with the local accent is often assumed to be foreign. But there is a point beyond which someone's accent is too hard to understand, though locating this point precisely may be difficult. (I have colleagues X and Y; X is a native English speaker and Y is not. X cannot Y much of the time. I can. But still this means that Y's accent is too strong.) | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 1:24 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | So, while as an instructor I am less than thrilled with the idea of students complaining about their instruction, I think that if you find your instructor's English inadequate or even that it creates significant additional hardship, you probably should complain to the higher administration: they've screwed up. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 1:20 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | Some departments (e.g. mathematics) at some universities are notorious for having instructors with inadequate English skills. I remember well visiting Yale as a prospective undergraduate (more than 20 years ago). I sat in on a calculus lecture, and the lecturer's English was so poor that I couldn't quite explain to him that I wanted to sit in on his course for the day rather than transfer into his course. That made a bad impression on me then and still does now. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 1:17 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | "At least he is speaking YOUR language for you, not the other way around!" Well yes, but this suggests that a university in, say, the United States there is a perfect symmetry between English and other languages. There isn't, of course. While English is not the official language of any American university I know, it is the unofficial language of most such universities, and students should reasonably be able to expect that their lecturers can make themselves understood in English. That is what the job requires; it is not some piece of largesse on the part of the lecturer. | |
| Feb 12, 2014 at 23:51 | comment | added | socialsciencedoc | It is impossible for him to be absolutely clueless about the fact that his students are having a hard time understanding him. Most likely, the lecturer himself will be struggling with the issue and will know his problem better than anyone from having to constantly navigate the often discriminatory foreign academic landscape. Of course he will have to work hard to improve his communication abilities but I think students also have to be more patient and learn how to understand foreign accents. At least he is speaking YOUR language for you, not the other way around! | |
| Feb 12, 2014 at 21:08 | history | answered | snim2 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |