2.20.2009

New Policy

I just read my college's new policy on non-English speaking students. Apparently, they are not "providing accommodations" for these folks. That makes sense to me in so many ways. It's already annoying to hear and see Spanish everywhere - why should we have to bend over backwards to cater to people who haven't made the effort to speak the language? Besides, they offer English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. In short, the new policy says that no electronic devices can be used during any graded assignment. So if they are relying on audiotape for notes, they can't use it during exams or quizzes. I like it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Me too. You don't want to get me started on this subject. Although it's probably worse around your area, being in Texas.

selzach said...

It's funny, I always have sort of mixed feelings about stuff like this because my dad was born overseas and spoke almost no English when he came here. He worked hard to learn the language, and sadly speaks and writes better than a lot of American-born folks. His attitude: you move to a new place, you learn the language.

Bottom line, I agree. If you want to pursue a higher education, you should be competent in the language.

Along the same lines: one of my coworkers, with a PhD from an American university, who has lived in the US on and off for probably a decade, speaks Spanish much of the day and complains she has difficulty communicating with the Americans in our lab. If she made more of an effort to speak English I wouldn't mind. I converse better with another post-doc from Spain who's only been here for 5 months.

StaceyG said...

I agree with your dad. If you enroll in community college here in Texas, USA...either enroll in ESL or learn to read/write English. Believe me, lots of the students I have that were BORN here can barely write coherently. It wouldn't be that hard to "catch up" to them.

MD Johnson said...

I am so glad that your administration made this decision! One of the unfortunate problems is that the US has never adopted English(or any other language for that matter) as its "official" language. We have become so scared of hurting someones feelings and being politically correct that we have become soft as a nation! This had better change, and fast, or we are going to be finding ourselves in a real pickle!!