The Chronicle: Colloquy Live Transcript

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

Thursday, April 7, at 2 p.m., U.S. Eastern time

Is the internationalization of the American university eroding or enriching the quality of undergraduate education? Classroom language barriers have become both a public hobbyhorse and a subject for scholarly study in their own right. Just this January, a state lawmaker in North Dakota proposed a bill that would have given students at state universities the power to remove instructors from the classroom if they did not "speak English clearly and with good pronunciation." Meanwhile, some linguists suggest that student stereotypes are what handicap classroom communication in many cases.

What are the best strategies to deal with classroom language barriers? Is accent the biggest impediment, or are factors like intonation, body language, and attitude more decisive? What is the best recourse for students who do have complaints about not being able to understand their instructors? Is there any place in the undergraduate curriculum for training in cross-cultural listening skills?

» Teach Impediment (4/8/2005)

Donald L. Rubin, a professor of speech communication and language and literacy education at the University of Georgia, has conducted pathbreaking research on the effects of stereotypes on comprehension. He also supervises preparation classes for international teaching assistants.

A transcript of the chat follows.

John Gravois (Moderator):
Hello and welcome to Colloquy. Our guest is Donald L. Rubin, a professor of speech communication and language and literacy education at the University of Georgia. I'm John Gravois, the reporter who wrote this week's article on classroom language barriers, and I'll be hosting today's chat. We're looking forward to a lively discussion, so let's get right to it.

Question from Zagros Madjd-Sadjadi, The University of the West Indies, Mona, research university:
I was struck by the fact that students shown a picture of an Asian professor and a description that he was born in China was sufficient to plunge comprehension scores. Yet, despite being a native-born American who was educated in the United States, invariably I found students who would believe that I was "foreign" because of my name. Has there been any research to see if the problem of comprenhension is one of blatent racial discrimination on the part of students? Has there been any research done to see if foreign students react similarly to American students in regard to their professors' accents?

Donald L. Rubin:
You raise key issues, Professor Madjd-Sadjadi, about attributed versus avowed social identity. Many speakers of South Asian Indian English, for example, AVOW identities as native speakers of English. After all, they may come from English-dominant households and they were educated completely in English. Yet US undergraduates often ATTRIBUTE to them identities as non-native speakers of English. And indeed, most US institutions of higher education require TOEFL scores for native speakers of Indian English.

You raise the issue of race as a factor in the attribution of "foreign-ness" to instructors. I, too, suspected that teachers who were identified as both foreign and also as persons of color would suffer the most severe linguistic discrimination at the hands of mainstream US undergraduates. We have conducted exactly such a study: comparing, for example, reactions to a Nigerian black instructor to a US African American instructor, versus a Danish (White) instructor as compared with a US mainstream (White) instructor. In our findings--yet to be published--race did NOT matter. Only status as an international mattered, and it exerted the same deleterious effects on ratings of teaching competence and on listening comprehension as we had been describing now for years.

So it was bad in this study for an instructor to be identified as a Nigerian, but equally bad to be identitifed as a Dane. And it was good for the instructor to be identified as a mainstream (White) US resident, but equally good to be identified as an African American US resident.

Next, you ask whether international students have the same reactions to non-native speakers of English as to US native-English speaking students. I cannot answer that question, as we have never had a large enough sample of international students in our experiments. In fact, we always simply exclude data from non-native English speaking research participants.

Question from Jon, Midwestern U.:
I have noticed that while speakers with Asian accents are often perceived as unintelligible and uninteresting, speakers with European accents are often perceived as worldly and scholarly. Have you studied that phenomenon?

Donald L. Rubin:
As I mentioned in my response to the preceding question, I also suspected that instructors from Western and Northern Europe would be advantaged relative to instructors from Africa or Asia. However, when we attributed identity to a speaker as "Danish," students had negative stereotypes and negative evaluations for that instructor just as they did for instructors whom we identified as Chinese or Nigerian. (And in fact the tape we played in every case WAS recorded by a native Danish speaker, if I recall correctly. We wanted a slightly off-standard English accent that most students would have difficulty placing, and could plausibly attribute to a whole range of speakers.

Of course native speakers of other Anglophone varieties of English (most dialects of British English, Canadian, New Zealand, Australian) may very well enjoy the positive stereotype you suggest. But speakers of German-accented English? Iberian Spanish accented English? They are subject to different and less positive stereotypes.

By the way, our findings and those of other researchers find that US students are often wildly erratic in placing accents. In one study--when we played a typical South Asian Indian voice (in the role of a physician) but made no geographic attribution, students guessed that the speaker was Greek, Turkish, French, Japanese...the variety was endless.

Question from Zoe Colley, University of Dundee, Scotland:
I would be interested in know if US students are as likely to complain about being unable to understand someone from, for example, Scotland as they are from China? A broad Scottish accent (as well as many types of British accent) can be very difficult to understand.

Donald L. Rubin:
Very true. I don't have an answer for that one, but I suspect that Scottish English may in fact be difficult for speakers of US English to understand in part because the typical intonation patterns (rising and falling inflections) of Scottish English differ so much from standard American English intonation.

Twenty-five years ago Howard Giles and his colleagues conducted a number of studies demonstrating that among UK listeners, the various dialects elicited very distinct social stereotypes. But US listeners are by and large naive to the nuances of accent which have been so important in the British Isles. After all, half of North America thought that 4 lads with speech thick with the coal dust of Liverpool were the classiest act we'd ever seen.

Question from Anonymous at Catholic University in Washington DC:
Are you aware of tenure cases not being granted because of a Professor's accent? Although I have an accent, my students never complained about it neither in person on course evaluations. Yet this was brought up (the fact that I have an accent) in my recent deliberations for tenure.

Donald L. Rubin:
I do know that some individuals have claimed that student end-of-term evaluations have been colored by negative linguistic stereotypes, and therefore those evaluations ought to be discounted in their cases for promotion and tenure.

I must say that the time or two when I have been asked to evaluate a tape of a professor making such a claim, I happened to find myself agreeing with the students that I was hearing an example of poor teaching--not because of accent or intelligibility, necessarily, but because of poor coherence, too few examples, and failure to project the voice (in terms of volume and animation).

That's not to say it couldn't happen; it's conceivable to me that in many cases students are systematically underestimating the teaching competence of a non-native instructors, failing to attend to or fully appreciate the instructors' coherence, examples, and vocal projection... simply because those students have refused to get past accent.

But there are two points I would want to make about such a hypothetical case, points that are in the end more important than whether the instructor dentalizes her /th/ sounds.

1) No promotion and tenure committee should be judging teaching competence purely in terms of student ratings. Student ratings are but one form of evidence; but independently documented student learning outcomes, faculty peer observations, instructional innovations, and currency of one's curriculum ought to weigh in at least as much as students' quantitative ratings.

2) If an instructor knows that students are irritated by aspects of her/his pronunciation, there are so many avenues available for compensating for and eventually diminishing the salience of accent. Teacher clarity, nonverbal immediacy behaviors, concern for student face (politeness), developing a spirit of collaborative learning, interactivity in lecture classes--all of these "best practices" in teaching are evident in the teaching of accented non-native speakers of English who nonetheless garner high student evaluations. And of course these are the same behaviors in which ALL teachers, regardless of language background, ought to be engaging.

Question from Harvey Blumberg, Montclair State UniversitySince:
Most Foreign professors speak too fast. Why can't they be taught/told to speak s l o w l y

Donald L. Rubin:
I don't know if I would say "most," but you are quite correct that many non-native speakers of English can increase their comprehensibility by slowing down. And indeed, those of us who teach classes for international teaching assistants often do try to help our students slow down by asking them to make a point of pronouncing word junctures, or just by thinking about which single word (or words) in each sentence to stress. One way to achieve word stress can be to "linger" over a word, reduce speech rate, introduce a pause. Repeating a key word or phrase also helps, but that technique can quickly become overdone.

Unfortunately, when people are under stress--as in trying to improvise on the fly an answer to a difficult question all the while functioning in a second language--they can revert to poor speech patterns.

But recent research suggests that even more important than speech rate (after all, most listeners can comprehend close to 300 words per minute, and even an auctioneer or carnival barker barely breaks 180)is using intonation (rising and falling tones) to signal the junctures between idea units. In standard American and most Anglophone Englishes, we raise our intonation as we are reaching "the point," and then we drop our tone of voice to signal "this is it; this is what I've been leading up to." But not every World English uses intonation in that same way. So in our classes for international TAs, we spend a good deal of time helping our clientele think about what point they are really trying to get across and how to use vocal pitch to "pitch" their thought-units.

Comment from Reena:
Just wanted to comment...having taken several courses with foreign instructors I know how frustrating it can be on the first day of class. Institutions really need to make more of an effort to help these instructors not just with their English but also with adjusting to the American classroom. But isn't part of the "college experience" interacting with different people? Shouldn't students also make more of an effort instead of just tuning out without even trying to get past the accent, especially in a country so diverse where they may very likely be working with people who speak with an accent? Students will always complain! What the institution should do is better prepare instructors, have someone check in on classes to listen themselves, provide the support to those who need it and include cross-cultural listening skills in some required freshman seminar or orientation.

Question from John Mathew, Baselius College,Kottayam,India:
How can the non-American students speak fluently in English as long as they think in their vernacular and speak in English?

Donald L. Rubin:
It's a very interesting question, in what language do bilingual people think? A number of authorities believe that you think in the language in which you've learned a particular subject. Thus, if you've learned calculus in Spanish but you've learned art history in English, you'll tend to solve calculus problems in Spanish, but think about Michelangelo in English.

Certainly recall of specific vocabulary words in the non-native language can be a problem. That's why many ITA educators try to give special vocabulary practice in the discipline-specific vocabularies of each field

Comment from Jeri Waggoner, English Instructor Free Lance, Berlin, Germany:
Comment, not a question

At Indiana Univ. in the late 60's I had an algebra T.A. from India who not only spoke unintelligible English, but faced the chalk board while speaking very quickly. None could understand. I fortunately had a friend in another class, who tutored me through the whole class. It never occurred to us that our tuition dollars gave us the right to better communication.

Ten years later at the same university a student sued the school and won because he got a poor grade in a required class from a teacher with poor English speaking skills.

As a graduate student in Library Science I had a professor who was American but spoke quickly with a southern accent. Several foreign students in the class couldn't understand him. So I took copious notes, told these classmates just to listen, copied my notes immediately after class, read them then and there to the foreign students, filling in any gaps. They were greatly helped, as was I.

Question from Gregory Anderson, U Southern California:
What evidence is there that bicultural/ bilingual undergraduates show more empathy toward TAs with imperfect English proficiency?

Donald L. Rubin:
I know of no such evidence.

The situation is complex.

I know of cases in which international students who come to the US have been disappointed to find an international teacher in, say, economics or history. After all, these students came to the US to be exposed to US academia. Had they wanted to study with nonUS teachers, they could have gone elsewhere.

On the other hand, it's also clear that expatriates share a good deal of solidarity with each other. A Korean student of my acquaintance has special empathy for her Korean statistics professor, and deliberately tries to be supportive to the professor in class

Question from Chris, large state university:
Dear Dr. Rubin--

As an American graduate teaching assistant in communication studies at a large state university, my department has many international teaching assistants. I have really mixed feelings about the issue. Many of our undergraduates do use language as an excuse for laziness and unfounded cultural xenophobia. I believe that the notion of "colleges as businesses" sets a dangerous precedent for academic freedom. Most of the international TAs in my department speak English reasonably well, and in some cases, could even pass for being native speakers.

But I must admit that I do sometimes sympathize with undergraduate students. Unfortunately, there are a handful of international TAs in my department who make basic grammatical errors when speaking English, and are difficult to understand even in simple interpersonal conversations.

Perhaps we ought to make a distinction between instructors with strong accents and instructors who truly lack basic English skills. What are your thoughts on this?

Donald L. Rubin:
Another really complex question. There is controversy in the field of English as a Second Language about the role of non-native English speaking instructors in teaching English language and communication skills. After all, there are certain elements of cultural knowledge (when to tell a joke, what kinds of allusions to make to Sex in the City, when to use a sentence fragment for dramatic effect) that require a lot of socialization. Some of this concern would apply to the teaching of public speaking, or even to the teaching of interpersonal communication.

On the other hand, as you say, simply categorizing ALL non-native speakers of English as incapbable of providing such instruction does a great disservice to those instructors. Even worse, it does a disservice to the US undergrads who are deprived of the cultural insights of an informed outsider.

One successful model of teaching communication skills by non-native speakers occurs when the non-native instructor adopts the mode of CO-LEARNER along with her or his students. The students get to assist the instructor, and in the process they learn a lot, because they must articulate the language and communication principles upon which their advice to the instructor is based. Of course, the instructor must be willing to give up any pretense to FONT-OF-ALL-KNOWLEDGE, in such a model.

Question from Pei-Jen Shaner, U of Virginia:
I am an non-native English speaker and an international graduate student who did teach several classes in my university. My experience so far has been OK. But I am curious, is there a way (in terms of speech and community research) to identify at what point our accented English is too difficult to understand? It will really help if there is certain standardized procedure that can help universities decide what is the problem in any given case (is this particular TA too accented to be be understood and needs more training? or are those particular students too lazy or too narrow-minded to tackle the challenge of "world" English?).

Donald L. Rubin:
I suppose the world would be a lot simpler, but also a lot less interesting were it possible to state uniform criteria for comprehensibility. But language features interact with subject matter, even with particular teaching tasks within the subject (e.g., explaining Bohr's constant vs. demonstrating how to use the centrifuge in the lab.)

Recently educators have been trying to validate the new speaking section of the revised TOEFL exam (called i-TOEFL, I believe) as a screening tool for international teaching assistants. So far, we have learned that each institution, perhaps even each department, must go throught the process of standard setting depending on its needs and expectations. There's a fair amount of variability in what the pilot institutions have determined might be an appropriate "cut score" on this new ETS speaking test.

Comment from Karen McRobie, Golden Gate University:
Comment: It seems to me that, in the quest for attracting the best students, universities have established the practice of offering financial aid in the form of teaching assistantships, regardless of the interests of the applicant. A brilliant engineering graduate student from Korea is not necessarily interested in lecturing an undergraduate class. However, the school is relying on the "cheap labor," and the graduate student is interested in pursuing his degree - many, if not most, foreign-born TAs are not interested in teaching as a profession.

Question from Soonhyang Kim, The Ohio State University:
In addition to the initial language and pedagogy traning, it is critical to provide on-going support to help ITAs be successful as TAs. Collaboration among academic department, teaching center, and ITA programs can be a solution. What have we done in terms of such on-going suppport and collaborations?

Donald L. Rubin:
Since you are located at Ohio State, you must be aware that your institution has one of the most venerable and venerated ITA training programs in the nation. Other fine programs (e.g., University of Minnesota) were mentioned in the Chronicle article that spawned this colloquy. At OSU, experts such as Susan Sarwark have developed great techniques for supporting ITAs, and as you mention, I believe that getting buy-in and input from departments is key. For example, I believe it is the case that the OSU exit teaching exam asks ITAs to give a talk about topics that have been selected by the departments for their presentations.

In my view, one of the components that characterizes effective ITA support programs involves undergraduate students--I'll avoid calling them "the customers"--in ITA training. Undergraduates can mentor ITAs. And in the process, the undergraduates benefit at least as much as the ITAs.

Question from Soonhyang Kim, The Ohio State University:
What can we do to raise U.S. students' awareness about English as an International Language? It is not an easy task and takes time to help them to be aware of their communication responsibility because they are traditionally and historically not educated to be patient and open-minded to differences.

Donald L. Rubin:
It's another tough question you pose. In my own research, I have NOT been able to document that participating in a short term conversation partner/mentor relationship with an ITA has long-term impact on undergraduates' world-mindedness. I would be happy to hear that others have found different results.

There is a huge literature on "the contact hypothesis." Is it sufficient to just expose US undergrads to internationals? Apparently not. One problem is that even in very successful undergrad-ITA relationships, the undergrad might not generalize his or her new appreciation for an INDIVIDUAL ITA to the entire GROUP of ITAs.

In my experience running undergrad international conversation partner programs, US undergrads are generous and open to their individual partners. And in a few weeks, they forget how poorly they originally thought their conversation partner spoke. But undergrads (as well as ITAs) are busy, sometimes age and family responsibilities pose greater barriers to ongoing relations than do cultural differences, and they often drift apart. In those one-in-20 cases (my estimate) when the cross-cultural relationship really bloom--magic ensues.

Comment from Dr. Barbara Laman, Dickinson State University, North Dakota:
I am a native German speaker, and still, after living for over 40 years in English speaking countries (I am now 60), I still get students who "cannot understand" me. I teach English--writing and literature. I honestly believe that what students do not understand is not my "accent," but the words I use, vocabulary with which they are not familiar. Because they do not tell me when they don't know a word, I also do not know when to use simpler language or when to provide synomyms. I am obviously not a TA in danger of being dismissed because of my language skills or lacking skills, but the bill is discouraging even in its watered-down form. I am thinking of adopting some local ungrammatical idioms to reduce the chance of more complaints.

Comment from Sarah Jane, Mills College:
I think this bill offers lazy students a chance to play their very own race card. Unengaged students will always find something to complain about at the end of the semester: the course wasn't entertaining enough, the material was too political, too difficult, too much....Where will it end? If college is a business, will students then have a say on what a professor wears, or on how much time a professor spends actually lecturing or doing other kinds of presentations in class, or on what a professor asks students to read? As it is, I think this bill allows lazy students to blame a professor for looking and speaking in a non-white manner. Well, what if the professor is Black and occasionally uses Black vernacular? What if the professor is from the Deep South and teaches in Fargo, or is from Fargo and teaches in the Deep South?

Comment from C Jacobson, Georgia Tech:
Comment: The new TOEFL is labeled iBT (internet based test).

Question from Linda Roth, Vanderbilt University:
International TAs here receive up to a year of training in Pronunciation, Listening and Speaking, Communication Skills and Teaching Skills. Do you know of any institutions that give intensive orientation to native students to help them develop skills in listening to international as well as to help them be more open to linguistic diversity and more accepting of differences?

Donald L. Rubin:
No. I know of no institutions that provide systematic training in listening to World Englishes. Some institutions (e.g., Iowa State) have developed some nice materials for first year orientation for undergrads. The materials explain how to get the most out of interaction with international instructors--including the issue of listening for meaning and with an open mind.

But do students at your institution pay much attention to the materials they recieve at orientation?

If I am wrong, and there are folks out there who do more extensive work with US undergrads in understanding World Englishes, I'd be delighted to hear about it.

Comment from Soonhyang Kim, The Ohio State University:
One idea about raising U.S. students' linguistic diveristy awareness I used.

Two years ago, I led a diversity training session for medical staff members at the student health center at Ohio State. Here, I introduced the concept of English as an International language/Word Englishes, providing specific numbers of diverse English speakers around the world. The session was very well-taken by the doctors and nurses. A modified version of this could be implemented, through a freshman orientation session or a class session to raise their awareness.

Comment from Diane Cotsonas, University of Utah:
A comment:

I'm glad to see this topic discussed in another context; as Past Chair of the ITA Interest Section of TESOL (the international organization for teachers of English to speakers of other languages), how to best screen and train international teaching assistants is our regular discussion. My concern with state university systems such as North Dakota's is that I saw no ITA training mentioned either in the article or when searching their website. It is no wonder that they have problems when placing internationals in the classroom without any oral English screening or orientation to the U.S. classroom. Clearly there needs to be more support for ITA training in our universities and I encourage administrators who do not have such a program to start one. They can go to http://www.ita-is.org to get information on some of the many programs running across the country.

Question from Soonhyang Kim, The Ohio State University:
There seems to be some level of confusion between having an accent and speaking with a poor pronunciation. Could you define these two? I also believe that proununciation is more workable than accent as an adult learner. What do you think?

Donald L. Rubin:
I hope I don't flunk this question!

Pronunciation is usually considered superordinate to accent,and includes paralinguistic elements like rate, tone (in English it's paralinguistic), word stress patterns and the like.

Accent, on the other hand, usually refers to the production of vowels and consonants.

I believe you are quite correct. It's easier to modify one's intonation and word stress patterns than it is to modify consonant formation. (Though the latter is by no means impossible.)

And the good news is that intonation and word stress are very critical to comprehensibility. We can get by with fairly pronounced accent so long as we conform to host language norms for intonation. Just listen to Henry Kissenger (or don't, at your discretion).

Question from Patricia Armstrong, Vanderbilt University:
I've heard it said quite often--and have repeated it myself--that undergraduates confuse comprehensibility of a non-native English speaking instructor with pedagogical competence or familiarity with cultural norms in the American classroom. In other words, it seems to me--and others--that when the accent of an instructor is noticeable, it can become a convenient locus for complaint when the issue may be that the instructor has cultural expectations for the classroom that are very different from those of his or her students. What are your thoughts on this? Is there any research proving or disproving such an idea?

Donald L. Rubin:
Our earlier studies found that students majoring in the Humanities had especial difficulty comprehending accented speech on natural sciences topics. International instructors often bear the burdent of gatekeeper courses. When I do poorly on any task, I tend to look for external reasons, don't you?

I recently heard a colleague give a presentation in which she said that one international teaching assistant received very positive end-of-year evaluations. She was judged high in rapport, warmth, clarity--all those good things. And another ITA had 10% of her students complain that she was unintelligible.

It was the same ITA in both cases. The difference? In the class in which 10% complained about her language, students had to cope with complicated software assignments. The other class was more of an overview of the field.

So there is at least anecdotal evidence that some undergrads do blame their difficulties in managing course demands on the most vulnerable target around: their ITA

Cultural expectations certainly do play a role. If I come from a culture in which students wouldn't consider posing a question to their professor during classtime (questions come only after class), then of course it wouldn't occur to me to pause and ask for comprehension checks from my undergrads. These differing cultural expecations are a major topic that are covered in the many fine ITA preparation programs available at many universities.

Question from Anonymous:
I'm curious if you know whether an equal, or proportionate, number of first or second generation students complained as much about professors with accents. When I was in undergrad those students complained the first day as they adjusted but after that they didn't have much trouble with the accents. I think they were used to hearing people (family & friends) speak with an accent so it was easier for them to listen and understand. I noticed it was mostly white students and some black that complained throughout the semester.

Donald L. Rubin:
In our research, we have never considered the language backgrounds of the students--but it's a good point to think about. Our studies do suggest that EXPOSURE to accented speech helps listeners in comprehending World Englishes. That is, students who report the most exposure to internationals score highest on tests of comprehension of accented speech.

And you raise one more good point: listeners have different rates of adjustment to accented speech. We don't exactly know how or why that happens. It's exactly the point of a research proposal for which my colleagues and I are trying to get support. Maybe someday we'll be able to answer your question more adequately.

Comment from Catherine Ross, University of Connecticut:
Since 80% of our freshmen enroll in a First Year Experience course, we have been researching the effect of having them read your chapter, Don, called "Help! My Professor Doesn't Talk English" in their class and then having both an in-class discussion of the reading and online webchats about their reactions to the reading. Last spring I compared (through before and after surveys) student attidudes in those classes that had read the chapter and those classes who had not. I am still writing up my results, but basically it seems that some students, not all, are open to self-examination of their attitudes towards having ITAs and their role in the communication process, but given that, even these students don't WANT antoher ITA. They do however, appreciate the proactive strategies suggested at the end of the chapter.

Question from Jay Jordan, Penn State:
In the last paragraph of the article, the ND legislator in question remarks that people she's met while traveling internationally just want to "communicate with the Americans." But does that mean "speak just like them"--especially if most nonnative speakers can never really acquire native-like proficiency?

Donald L. Rubin:
My own experience confirms that people around the globe are very pleased to interact with open-minded folks from the US. And there is some subset of internationals who are interested in "accent reduction" (a misnomer if ever there was one--since EVERYONE has an accent). But by and large, speakers of World Englishes are very proud of their accomplishments in a second (or 3rd or 4th) language, and very pleased to maintain the specific character of their West African or Bengali or Arabic inflected English.

Me too, I also appreciate the variety among World Englishes. It makes me shudder to think of homogenizing them all into a North American strait jacket

Comment from Soonhyang Kim, The Ohio State University:
This reminds me of a recent article from the Graduate Teaching Associate Development (?). The article, through survey with UGs, identified undergraduates' unwillingess to communicate with ITAs as one of the factors affecting ITA communication problems with students.

Donald L. Rubin:
After reading the Chronicle article which is the impetus for this colloquy, I felt that the positions presented were rather polarized. If I have a take-home point I'd like to make it's this: International instructors constitute a campus-wide resource. Any problems in teaching and learning that arise from international instructors require a campus-wide effort. Support for ITAs (and also continuing support for non-native English speaking faculty members) is key, and much progress has been made in many fine programs on that score. But also key is attention to undergraduates' listening abilities. Very few--if any--programs exist to support undergraduates as listeners of World Englishes. Improvements in intercultural teaching and learning--crucial for participation in the global community of knowledge and commerce--cannot be achieved by addressing only one half of the problem.

John Gravois (Moderator):
We've come to the end of our allotted time. Many thanks to Donald Rubin for sharing his expertise, and to all those who sent in questions and comments. I'm sorry we couldn't get to all of them. If you'd like to revisit some of the fascinating issues brought up in this chat, or else refer a colleague to our discussion, please note that this page will be archived on the Chronicle website.