Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers

This semester I had two Chinese professors who taught in English. I'm sure they are smart individuals in their native languages, but their English was really terrible.

I found it very difficult to listen to them during class. My International Communications professor's English wasn't that bad, but she still had the fobby accent and made grammatical errors on the PowerPoint slides.

Now, my Chinese Culture and Its Philosophies fill-in professor (the original American professor was hospitalized with an illness) really spoke poor English. It was so surprising because she had gone to the University of Hawaii for college; I thought that would have improved her English. But she would conduct lectures without a microphone and would be shouting with her high-pitched, monotonous fobby accent. I could hardly bare sitting through class. Many a time I felt the urge to cover my ears.

In addition to her terrible accent, she couldn't pronounce several words she included in her slides. Even the local students knew the right pronunciation and would quietly say the words correctly after she said them incorrectly. It's a good thing the students know the right pronunciation, or the professor would be teaching these kids the wrong pronunciation of words!

I think the most memorable word from the last lectures was "annihilation." When it came time for her to read it off the slide, she said, "a-nih-hi...a-NIH-hi-lation." I almost burst out laughing.

I wonder what the criteria is for CUHK to allow Chinese professors to teach in English. Do they even test the professors to see if they can pronounce English words correctly? It would be a terrible thing if the local students were learning how to pronunciate words from them.