While Minnesota's legislature is considering a bill to deal with professors with low English-speaking skills, Ohio already has similar laws regarding international teaching assistants.
Minnesota's proposed law would affect both professors and teaching assistants by requiring the University of Minnesota's Board of Regents to develop a written policy to ensure instructors hired to teach undergraduate courses speak understandable English.
The bill also suggests that if 10 percent of students in a course file a complaint about a professor, the instructor should be shifted to a non-teaching position.
In Ohio, a language requirement originated in 1986 under the Pringle Law, which mandates that only international teaching assistants be evaluated before teaching, said Greg Kessler, director of Ohio University's Academic Oral Communication program and a professor in the linguistics department.
International (teaching assistants) have to take some sort of test or evaluation of their proficiency to speak English
Kessler said. (The Pringle Law) just says there has to be some sort of evaluation.
At OU, international students who want to be teaching assistants take the Speak test, which is produced by Educational Testing Services, Kessler said. That company also markets the Advanced Placement tests, the SAT and the GRE.
Students who score very poorly on the test take classes to improve their speaking ability and learn teaching skills that can complement their English, Kessler said. Students with slightly higher scores are allowed to teach if they simultaneously enroll in one of the classes.
The proposed Minnesota law could be a way for students to complain about issues other than language comprehension, Kessler said.
It's an interesting proposition he said, adding that it could potentially be used to remove a professor who taught a course a student thought was too difficult.
It opens up opportunities for axes to be grinded he said, adding that he could understand having an instructor go through an evaluation process if 10 percent of students complained.
Some OU students said having an instructor who spoke with an accent was initially difficult.
It was difficult
kind of frustrating
said Michael Goode, a freshman biology pre-med major who took Math 115 Fall Quarter. It was probably like a week or two into it and I caught on to what (the instructor) was actually saying and then I could figure it out.
Other students said the language differences did not bother them.
I've had a couple teachers (who spoke with an accent)
but I haven't had any problems with them
said Sara Daniels-Witchel, a freshman marine biology major.
Daniels-Witchel suggested students talk to their instructors after class or send e-mails.
When taking a course with an instructor who speaks English as a second language, students should try to develop a multicultural attitude, Kessler said.
I think often American undergraduates don't have a lot of patience for a variety of accents so they might give up as soon as they hear someone has an accent
he said.
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