We are towards the end of a graduate level course of about 20 students, and its time for course evaluation. The instructor is fairly new (just graduated from Ph.D a year ago) and is not a native English speaker. Overall the instructor is knowledgeable on the subject. However, the style of delivery is very monotonous and often sleep inducing. Instructor just reads off from slides, almost like a news reader, only with even less modulation. Sometimes the thick accent itself seems to require additional effort to listen more. However, comprehension has never been an issue. Also, instructor is in general a good person, very accommodating to missed lectures and wants students to succeed.

I am a bit conflicted if I should give an honest feedback about how the lectures were so monotonous, or just a cliche'd positive one. On the one hand, my reasoning is - if I do not give an honest feedback, the instructor would not realize to change the style of teaching. However on the other hand, I do not want to make a rather young and new faculty feel bad, since we can't say for sure how people react to negative feedback. I also think that the monotony is something other students also felt, so even if I don't give an honest feedback, someone else will. Some advice on what should be the right perspective would be helpful.

We are towards the end of a graduate-level course of about 20 students, and it is time for course evaluation. The instructor is pretty new (they just graduated with a PhD a year ago) and is not a native English speaker. Overall, the instructor is knowledgeable about the subject. However, the style of delivery is very monotonous and often sleep-inducing. The instructor reads off from slides, almost like a news reader, but with less modulation. Sometimes, the thick accent requires additional effort to be listened to more. However, comprehension has never been an issue. Also, the instructor is generally a good person, accommodating to missed lectures and wants students to succeed.

I am conflicted about whether I should give honest feedback about how the lectures were so monotonous or just a cliche positive one. On the one hand, if I do not provide honest feedback, the instructor will not realize how to change the teaching style. However, I do not want to make a relatively young and new faculty feel inadequate since we can't say how people react to negative feedback. I also think that the monotony is something other students felt, so even if I don't give honest feedback, someone else will. Some advice on what the correct perspective should be would be helpful.