Xref: utzoo comp.edu:1878 sci.math:5375 sci.physics:5552 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!agate!bizet.Berkeley.EDU!matloff From: matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics Subject: Re: Student preparedness Message-ID: <19145@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 16 Jan 89 21:47:21 GMT References: <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <558@mccc.UUCP> <3350@arcturus> <18958@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5314@pdn.UUCP> <19035@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5354@pdn.UUCP> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) Organization: EECS, UC Davis Lines: 98 In article <5354@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >In article <19035@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >>In article <5314@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >>* None the less, there are too many foreign instructors out there who >>**do* have very poor english skills. In fact, there are many foreign students >>*who enter US universities without adequate english skills as well. I know >>*that some universities are really pressed for help, but something needs to >>*be done to get these people to a level of english that does not inhibit >>*others or themselves. >>I think that by implication you were also referring to foreign-born >>engineers in U.S. companies, where they have even worse communication >>problems. > Yes, that too. However, not everyone is guilty of this. There >are foreign-born students, engineers, etc... who speak English better >than you and I! Of course, I was referring to the East Asians, especially the ones from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, which form the largest groups. I agree that the ones from India tend to have MUCH better English than the majority of Americans, at least in the case of Indians from Indian Institute of Technology. >>I agree. But again, I feel that it is much more a matter of GENERAL >>communication skills than a matter of accent, grammar and vocabulary. >>Most foreign (East Asian) engineers do very much need to improve on >>the latter aspects, but they need EVEN MORE to improve non-language >>specific communication skills. > I'll agree with you on this. Some folks that I worked with at >a former employer in New Jersey not only have verbal problems, but >socially they did not seem to feel comfortable dealing with other >people in English. Yes, and there are lots of reasons for this, including an anticipated (whether real or perceived) lack of welcome from the native-born Americans. However, what I was saying was that many of them don't communicate well in their own langauges either. [See next quote.] >>Unfortunately, they tend to do neither. I once took a survey of >>Chinese students in my CS program, and found that during their school >>years in their own countries (Taiwan, Hong Kong, China), they didn't >>pay much attention to their language courses, even their CHINESE >>courses; they put most of their effort into their technical courses >>instead. I know that high schools in Hong Kong tend to have separate >>"majors" for "arts" students versus "science" students, and the latter >>usually don't place a high value on languages/communication. > That is unfortunate. Years ago the same was true in this country. >The science and math courses were everything and who cares if you can >speak, read or write. However, communication skill play a very important >part in a technical person's life and should not be ignored. Agreed. But do you really feel that things have improved in this respect in U.S. education? >>In light of the foreign students' immigration goal which I have mentioned, >>it is ironic that they don't place more emphasis on improving their English. >>Good English would certainly enhance their job/immigration prospects very >>strongly. > I agree! I would never even think about trying to either attent a >university or land a job in France. My two years of high school French >are not enough. Yet, I get the feeling that many enter this country will >less preparation than that! Obviously, somehow they are hearing that it ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >is not all that important to get into an American university or to get a job. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It's not so much that they hear this explicitly, but they do hear all the success stories of others, and emulate them. Unfortunately, they do NOT hear that these people found it much harder to get their first job than it should have been, and that these people got jobs which were not quite up to their qualifications, and that these people had trouble getting promotions later on, all due at least in part to poor verbal skills. Moreover, I'm not sure that your example is directly comparable. There are so many Chinese immigrants working in the Silicon Valley that many of them don't have to speak English very much at work. My wife speaks Mandarin most of the time at work there. > I found out how one university screens applicants from foreign >countries. Traveling to the US to visit the university is not always >possible, so students must take some sort of English proficiency exam >and have one of their instructors write a letter confirming their skills. Actually, this has worked quite well for us for students from China. There are a lot of Americans teaching English in China now, and the letters from them have been pretty reliable (we've only had one disappointment). Norm