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September 24, 2007
Advising Tip: Understanding Your Instructor or GSI
Are you having some trouble understanding your instructor? Here are some tips that could improve communication.
One of the great attributes of the university is that it attracts some of the best minds from around the world. Not only does this enrich the intellectual climate of the university, but it a gives us all the opportunity to live and learn from people from wide array of cultural perspectives.
This fantastic diversity, however, can lead to misunderstanding. More specifically, you may find yourself struggling to understand a person whose accent or dialect differs from yours. This can be particularly frustrating if you find yourself unable to understand your instructor or a GSI.
Here are some suggestions that might help you better understand your international GSIs and professors. You should know, however, that international students hired as GSIs have to take aptitude tests in English, and if they do not demonstrate proficiency in written and spoken English, they’re required to take special courses before they teach. While there is no formal language evaluation process when professors are hired, English is the international language for scholarship, and few professors arrive in Michigan without a command of English.
In fact, it’s entirely likely that the GSI or professor that you’re having difficulty understanding has been reading and speaking English since childhood. You have to keep in mind that English is a world language with many regional dialects. Most Americans can negotiate differences between American English and British or Australian English but may have more difficulty understanding Indian, Hong Kong, or African English dialects. It’s not that these speakers are “incorrect;” their English may simply reflect different accents, diction, syntax, etc.
But that doesn’t help when it’s difficult to follow your GSI’s explanations or instructions. Here are some suggestions to help you understand an international instructor.
First, be patient with yourself and with the instructor. It generally takes three-to-five weeks to become fully accustomed to someone’s speech patterns. Give the instructor an opportunity to settle into the course while you become more familiar with her/his speech patterns. Time will help you both become more effective communicators. Also, keep in mind that the complexity of the material, not the instructor’s ability to convey the information, might be causing you problems. Give yourself a chance to become familiar with the fundamentals of the course, and you might find it easier to understand the instructor.
Second, sit up front so that you not only can hear the instructor clearly but also pick up non-verbal cues such as gestures, expressions, etc. Actually, this is good advice whether or not your instructor is a non-native English speaker. All speakers, of course, consciously and subconsciously provide non-verbal supplements to their words, and this is particularly true of teachers when they’re explaining complex material. Also, by sitting close, you give the instructor the opportunity to read your body language and expressions as well, making it more apparent when you’re not understanding something.
Third, be assertive and ask questions, and again, this is good advice in every course. You can be certain that your instructor wants to know if you’re able to understand him/her. Help her/him and yourself out by asking questions. Not only will the instructor have the opportunity to clarify points that may confuse you, but having an opportunity to interact with the instructor will only help you better understand how she/he uses English.
Fourth, visit the instructor during office hours. Sure, you can use office hours as an opportunity to ask questions about the course, but office hours provide another chance for you just to get used to the instructor’s English. That can only help when you’re back in class.
Be patient and don’t be intimidated. Assume that your instructor is at least as interested in being understood as you are interested in understanding her or him. You may never again have the opportunity Michigan provides for you to get to know and to interact with people from around the world. You shouldn’t allow frustration or fear to prevent this from happening with your instructors.
Posted by skassner at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2007
Advising Tip: Taking a Course Pass/Fail
"Should I take a course Pass/Fail?"
Advisors are often asked this question, and the answer depends a great deal on the course and the student’s circumstances. Before considering these details, we should probably consider LSA’s pass/fail policy.
LSA allows you to take up to 30 credits pass/fail or credit/no credit, but I can’t think of many situations where a student should take up to one fourth of the 120 credits he/she needs to graduate without grades. Most advisors, in fact, suggest that the typical student take no more than 2-3 courses pass/fail.
There are some restrictions on the courses students can take pass/fail:
1. The fourth term of a language a student is using to meet the language requirement cannot be taken pass/fail.In order to pass a pass/fail course, you need to earn at least a C- in the course, and instructors have no idea (unless you tell them) that you’re taking their courses pass/fail. They just turn in their grades, and the Registrar’s Office will enter a P for a pass/fail student who earns at least a C- and an F for a student with less than C-. Pass/fail courses don’t have any impact on your GPA.
2.Courses that count toward a concentration or a minor cannot be taken pass/fail.
You have until the end of the third week of each term to go into Wolverine Access and modify a course from graded to pass/fail (or vice versa), and this term the deadline falls on Monday, September 24th. After September 24th, you have to live with your decision: exceptions are NOT granted to this deadline.
You can, however, “uncover” your pass/fail grades. For what’s currently a $5.00 fee, the Registrar’s Office will attach to your official transcript a letter revealing the grades for all your pass/fail courses. But note that “all”: if you want to show one pass/fail grade, you have to show them all. In fact, medical schools, law schools, other professional schools, and grad schools very likely will require that you uncover your pass/fail grades.
OK, so that takes care of policies, and we can go back to the question. When does it make sense to take a course pass/fail? Pass/fail can be a good option if you’re taking a course in an area that you feel shaky in. Also, if you need to take a tough course load or if you know you’ll have heavy non-academic responsibilities during a term, taking a course pass/fail might make sense.
But be careful. Let me give you an example from my past: I once took a course in American music history. The course description said that students didn’t have to be able to read music to be in the course but that it would be an asset. I can’t carry a tune much less read music; also, I was beginning a new job, so I decided to take the course pass/fail. Good decision, right?
It probably was a wise move given that I didn’t know that my lack of musical ability would never become a problem. I also didn’t know when I registered that the instructor was great and that I really was going to enjoy the course. Not only did I do well in the course, I got an A, an A that appears as a mere “P” on my transcript and that doesn’t count toward my GPA.
I made a choice; it seemed like the right one at the time, and I live with it. It’s one of the risks you run when you take a course pass/fail.
Posted by skassner at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2007
Medical School and Concentrations (Majors)
Do you think you need to concentrate in a science to go to med school? Think again! Click here to read a Newsweek article that shows how medical schools view non-science concentrators.
Thanks to my advising colleague David Smith for passing along this article.
Posted by skassner at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)