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From: matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <19153@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 17 Jan 89 02:43:01 GMT
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Reply-To: matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff)
Organization: EECS, UC Davis
Lines: 43

I had written:

>>>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.

George had replied:

>>      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.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I responded:

>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 had intended (but forgot) to add:

It should be noted that the English-to-French transition is much easier
than the Chinese-to-English transition, so your example of your going to
France is again not very comparable.

On the other hand, I have some Chinese immigrant friends with really
outstanding English, so it can be done if one really makes a commitment
to do so.

    Norm