Dear AAUP Members,

Our colleague, Xiaotian Chen, has asked me to share this issue with AAUP for discussion and possible action.

Dear Dr. Doubt

As you know, Truman campus newspaper Index of 3/16 mentioned a Missouri legislature bill that may require foreign born college instructors to take an English fluency test before they can teach. I think all MO colleges and professors should work against it, because:

1. Quality control should be done at the school level, rather than state legislative level.

2. A lot of areas in language are hardly testable, and for those that are testable, foreign born professors often have higher test scores than native English speakers; they have had lots of tests and trainings by the time they get a job as instructor. Of course, there is no doubt that foreign born people like Albert Einstein would never speak English as well as native speakers in terms of accent and idiomatic usage. But these weaknesses are hardly testable.

3. It is hard to set the standard: what is the minimum score a MO school should have for this kind of test. As you know, all the foreign students need to take language test called TOEFL before they are admitted, because that's the only way the Admissions judge their English skills. Colleges across the country have all different minimum requirement: 500, 550, 580, 600, etc.

4. Junk law suits. Let's say Truman's minimum requirement is the the middle of the state. Can students file suits because it is not high enough? If there is a state wide standard, can students check the scores before they sue?

5. Would Albert Einstein want to teach in MO if he were required to take the test even if he is qualified to and has taught in Princeton U before?

6. Would only new faculty be asked to take the test? If yes, how you can ensure "No classroom course or other classroom instructional program offered by a state educational institution shall be taught by a faculty member who has not been evaluated under subsection 1 of this section or by a faculty member who has not passed such evaluation." (MO SENATE BILL NO. 875). If all foreign born professors were required to take, would the tenured Albert Einstein be fired if he refuses to take the test? At Truman, scholars like Yinfa Ma, who was "MO professor of the year", would not have problem finding a job in other states. Would MO gain or lose it loses people like Ma?

To get the text of the Bill SB875, please search this site: http://www.moga.state.mo.us/

Thank you.

Xiaotian Chen

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2000

Answers

Many of our midwestern students have had no familiarity with accents of any variety. They don't know that careful listening in context will -- over time -- generally allow them to understand a person whose pronunciation is unusual but whose fluency is good. (I recall having great difficulty with a Scots gentleman, my high school trig teacher, whose pronunciation of "triangle" was totally new to me but who eventually drew the figure on the board. The light dawned!) Experience in such "decoding" should serve as a valuable tool for our students, not a handicap.

The one problem that we do need to watch for, however, is the person whose _received English_ is inadequate. If the teacher cannot _understand the question_ a student asks, s/he cannot reply properly, no matter the dialect. But a deficiency in this area should show up right away if the person in question has an interview on campus, and should indeed disqualify the applicant.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001