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(Accents, continued)
Students should focus on reaping the intellectual benefits from instructors instead of their accents, he said. " I think the diversity that these instructors bring is an asset, a vast amount of intelligence and cultural learning that will make us understand that the world is and will be a global village," Dey said. Tomoaki Nomi, a political science professor who came to the Unitd States 11 years ago, conceded that accents can pose problems for foreign-born faculty. "It's important for students to get used to different accents because once you get to the real world, you may encounter different accents and if you had experienced that in in college, it makes you better prepared for it." Nomi said. Nomi suggested a course in classroom teaching with an emphasis on English communication can be provided as part of graduate school education; moreover, it can also familiarize foreign faculty to the classroom culture here. Ping Liu, technology professor who has spent 14 years in America, demurred. "It's a bad idea that will prevent people from getting into the teaching field." Liu said. "If they take a course to be eligible for teaching, a lot of them will not be eligible for teaching. We will lose a lot of talents in the teaching field." "Foreign faculty here are motivated to improve themselves, I don't think it's a good idea to force them," he said. "The knowledge that a person has is certainly more important than language issues." Five students who interviewed for this article said there were some words they did not understand when they attended classes by foreign faculty during the first few weeks. However, as the course wore on, it became clearer to them. "There were words I didn't understand initially but I got used to it later." said Amanda Taylor, a political science major. Joseph Facchina, finance major, said it took a few days to understand, while some of his friends took weeks before they could decipher what was being said. None said it affects their classes now.
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