John Gorgone

Dr. Womack

English 15

6 October 2013

Evaluation Essay

So there have been debates and discussions on College Professors. This brings me to my topic concerning foreign Professors instructing the students here at Penn State Brandywine. I am currently taking five courses my first semester here at Brandywine and so happens, three of the five professors do not speak fluent English. This is a low blow in my point of view for various reasons. I am almost positive every student here at Brandywine is encountering the same problems that I am having. Foreign Professors should not be able to teach at a University where young adults are striving to make a career for themselves.

To start off, the first reason and argument as to why I feel foreign Professors should not be teaching at a college level is simply because it is very hard to understand and comprehend what they are trying to say. For example, my math Professor, Professor Smith, speaks with a very hard Greek accent. As a student, for me is very hard to comprehend what she is saying. Majority of the students in my class feel the same exact way. To try to solve the problem, I tried to move closer to where she teaches from so I could hear her better. But moving to the front of class gave no better understanding. With her accent, it seems that she is talking a million words a minute. It is way too fast to jot down notes, let alone understanding what is being said.

 

Various students in the class ask her to slow it down a notch, but it seems even when she does slow down, it is still a thousand words a minute. Coming out of Elementary, Junior High, and High School without ever having a Teacher with a foreign accent makes me highly unprepared. I have no experience learning from a foreign accent so I feel this could affect my grades effectively.

In math, my grades have been affected due to the lack for understanding of a hard accent. Math was my favorite subject through-out High School, and now it’s about the worst possible subject to be taken. I, not understanding what Professor Smith is saying, are taking a beating on my overall grade that will affect my GPA. If I would have known this would have been this big of a deal, I would have dropped the class within the first ten days for this semester. But for some odd reason, it is just the math Professor I am having the problems with. My Economics and Introductory to Jazz Professors are also foreign with accents. Their accents are more comprehensive than my math Professor’s is.  There could be solutions to this problem concerning my math Professor and I. I could go to the Stem Lab and join a tutoring class that will catch me up with my work and simply explain to me the math so I could understand it better. Another solution that could be made is to email your professor with any questions regarding the course. An email does not have an accent on it so you could understand the message one hundred times better. But in College levels, I feel that all Professors should speak very fluent English. Why? Because College is the real deal and each student should get the best possible education considering the cost to attend a College is outrageous in prices.

 

Another reason is looking into the future. Having a foreign Professor instructing me could turn out to be a good or bad thing heading into my future or career. I will start off with the bad. So these foreign Professors with hard to understand voices could affect my future in College because if I am not understanding what they are saying, how am I going to pass the courses or receive the full amounts of credits to graduate? This will be a big issue because if I don’t pass my General Education courses, I cannot pursue my major until all “Gen Ed” credits are obtained. Having to go retake your failed “Gen Ed” courses should not be an option if the student was having problems with the person teaching the course, not the actual course itself. There is one main solution which is that all General Education courses come with a text book. The text book is written in all English so if there is any trouble with the Professor and how he talks; it might just be the verbal aspect. With the text book as a solution, you could use it as the visual aid to get through the class. But looking at the good side of having a foreign Professor for the near future could help you highly in the work place. There will always be accents everywhere you go. In the work field, there could be employee’s that have a hard time speaking fluent English. Some jobs require you to talk on the phone a lot with costumers or even other companies. What I am trying to say is that working with foreign accented people could help you out in the long run when it comes to being in the working field.

On the flip side, I do have one counter argument concerning the accents of College Professors. Other than the example of life after College, my counter argument is based on foreign accented people teaching foreign language courses. I feel like this brings great life to the Professors themselves, as well as all the students on campus here at Brandywine. For example, I

 

feel that a Spanish Professor teaching Spanish or a Chinese Professor teaching Chinese would be suitable and beneficial to the students taking those courses. Why is this beneficial? This would be helpful because the students will learn the culture and language of that specific course from a person that has been around it since the day they were born. In my opinion, I would rather learn Spanish from a Spanish cultured Professor than learning Spanish from an American or French cultured Professor. I’m almost positive everyone could agree on that with me.

In the College level, considering education is at its highest, professors that do not speak clear English should not be teaching. All education in all grade levels is important, but College is more unique because it is the last step before a working career. After High School, you enter the so called “real world” where everything becomes more serious. In this so called real world, decisions and commitments are made. For example, students decide whether College is the right choice for them, or what College they want to attend. A big decision before College is what the student wants to major in. It is the real world, so why juggle with a student’s education?