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I'm all for foreign professors--as long as they're understandable! It is just so frustrating to have some guy launch into a difficult subject and you can't follow. By the time you get used to his accent, you're behind in the course! My daughters have grown up hearing a lot of accents since I taught ESOL for 10 years and the students seem to be over here 24/7 to this day; they're pretty frightened by these guys, though.
Hiring directors need to take ability in spoken English into account! Last year, our children's high school hired a Spanish teacher from Costa Rica. This lady couldn't speak English (well, she thought she could) and all these honors students were failing Spanish 2 because she couldn't explain anything. The parents were horribly frustrated because they couldn't communicate during conferences and I thought there was going to be some violence. Many of her students refused to go on to Spanish 3 because she ruined it for them.
Instead of getting rid of her, the school put her in charge of ESOL. Oh, great. She can hardly speak English and now she's going to teach what little she knows to them with a heavy Costa Rican accent.
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