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Accent Monitoring: Innovation Or Rights Violation?
theodp writes "After almost a decade of sending monitors to classrooms across the state to check on teachers' articulation, the NY Times' Marc Lacey reports that a federal investigation of possible civil rights violations has prompted Arizona to call off its accent police. The teachers who were found to have strong accents were not fired, but their school districts were required to work with them to improve their speech. Interestingly, one person's civil rights violation is another's 'wonderful little phenomenon', which is how PBS described the accent neutralization classes attended by Bangalore call center workers who worked for the likes of IBM and Microsoft. On its website, IBM Daksh notes that 'To make sure that customers all over the world can understand the way our people speak, every new hire is trained in what we call voice and accent neutralization.' So, is accent monitoring and neutralization a civil right violation, as the U.S. Depts. of Justice and Education suggest, or is it an 'innovation', as IBM argues?"
WTF .. is this real? Wait, how about the language itself .. As a Vulcan, why shouldn't I have the right to teach an English Literature class in Vulcan ? .. And why should I be forced to teach English Literature if I don't know it .. so how about I teach physics in my English literature class, in Vulcan?
And to the DOE and DOJ, I ask how about coming up with ideas that make sense? My civil right to mental clarity and logic is being violated.
Innovation or violation?
Once again, context is everything.
"clear" is an interesting judgement call. I am pretty sure that when used by the state in Arizona, this amounted to selective cultural bias and harassment. That would be constant with the other developments in that benighted corner of the US.
I bet if you talk like Andy Devine or Beauford T. Pusser, no one in Arizona schools bats an eye at your "accent" or worries about the "clarity" of pronunciation.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
No. If you are paid to talk to people on the phone, you need to be clear. People whose accents are too heavy - even if they know their stuff - can be incoherent to callers. The employer isn't forcing them to talk that way outside of work, or necessarily even when not on the phone.
In other words, their neutralized accent is a job tool. It is no more a rights violation than being expected to know how to use MS Word.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If nobody can understand what a teacher is saying, then how much benefit do the students get from that teacher? Those students may be better off staying home and reading a book. Plenty of college professors fall into this category, but most of them aren't hired based on their teaching ability. For those whose job descriptions include communication, a thick unintelligible accent can be a serious hindrance.
That said, if someone has a trace of an accent but he or she is completely understandable, then there shouldn't be a problem. Some of the examples given in TFA I would consider ridiculous. But, if parents are complaining that their children can't understand their teachers, a remedial course to mitigate a thick accent might be beneficial.
It's embarrassing for the teacher, and embarrassing for the students.
I took a chem class in college where the professor was just horrible at teaching. I don't know if he just didn't give a damn, or if he was just a really bad teacher who did really good grant work, who knows. Either way, it was well known that you basically had to bring a list of "what the fuck was he talking about" topics to your discussion classes to ask the TAs to explain. I had a brilliant TA who who was saddled with the thickest indian accent I've encountered in my entire life. We'd ask him to explain a topic, and he'd explain, and none of us would understand his accent, we'd sheepishly ask him to repeat again, and he'd just speak louder.
I actually talked to a bunch of the other students about it after class, and we were all releaved to find out we were experiencing the same problem. none of us could understand the guy. We all agreed that when we could cut through the accent, we thought he was much better at explaining the concepts than the teacher, and he certainly knew what he was talking about, but at least half the time it was almost like he wasn't speaking the same language as us.
Now, that's just a single TA in a class that had A. the professor, and B. other TAs to ask questions to. If this was a single teacher instructing the class, and that person was all the class had to turn to for explanation of the topic, say what you want... a lot of people are going to fail that class who otherwise shouldn't have.
I'm not sure how widespread a problem it is, since I only encountered it once in my life, but "people's feelings" be damned, it WAS a problem.
"Sorry, but you sound kind of funny, go take this class and we'll try again"
What's wrong with that? There is a serious problem understanding some accents, to the point where it impairs understanding and become a block to learning.
I personally have a very difficult time understanding the sing song English speech of people from India. And I'm not alone.
If I were trying to learn anything, such as taking a class, I would be at a huge disadvantage.
If every kid in the class is giving each other the "Whaddie Say" head twist you aren't getting your money's worth.
The kids are getting cheated, as well as the tax payer.
A slight accent that does not impair understanding isn't what these monitors were looking for.
The ability to communicate is paramount for a teacher. They were there to make sure the kids weren't
being taught improper english, and that they were able to understand the lesson.
Lemmy AXE you dis?
Where would YOU draw the line?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I applaud the efforts of the Arizona officials. A smooth English accent makes the speaker sound smarter and more attractive. I hope my children can learn to speak with English accents instead of the muddled Mid-Atlantic American that is so common in these parts.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
BZZZT! I'm sorry, that's incorrect!
If the Democrats did it, The Republicans would say it's a leftist nanny state plot to interfere in our lives and destroy American individualism.
If If the Republicans did it, the Democrats would call it a xenophobic fascist conformism.
Either way, the Libertarians would insist that if the kids want an education, they can go work in the copper mines and hire a private tutor on their own time. The free market will fix it, it fixes everything.
According to the Tea party, nobody should do it, they're taxing me, we gotta quit taxing people and handing out these accent subsidies! Now where's my damned medicare check?
Thank you for playing KNOW YOUR POLITICAL MEME!
We have this problem at my university. Particularly with grad students, we get some with very, very heavy accents and garbled English. Ok well maybe you could try and argue this would all be fine if all the foreign students were from the same place. To them, the accent would be "normal" and you could say the native English speakers need to suck it up and deal, since when you natively speak the language dealing with accents is easier.
Things is, that's not the case. We have students from China, India, Europe, the Middle East, and so on. All of course have different accents, different problems with the language. So how fair is it to the undergrad from Kuwait to ask him to not just learn a second language, but then be able to deal with a Chinese grad student who is badly mispronouncing it, and then an Indian grad student doing the same, but in a different way?
Then think about the same situation for primary education, when language skills are less developed. How fair would it be to a third grader who immigrated from Mexico, who's still working on language in general never mind English, to be taught by someone who has a heavy Chinese accent and speech errors? How well do you think that child will learn?
Is even more serious. I work at a university with lots of foreign students so I get a lot of exposure to accents of all types. However for a good number of our foreign grad students, it goes beyond just an accent, it is straight out poor English skills. The easy way to tell is if the "accent" continues in e-mail, the written word. You, for example, do not. Your written word gives away no hint that you have anything but a mastery of the language. Someone would need to hear you speak to determine that you weren't a native speaker.
However we have plenty of students that is not the case for. They send in an e-mail for support that, well, has an accent. The language is misused and done so in a particular way that you can hear it in your head in the accent. Verbs are incorrectly conjugated, word order is mixed up, terms are used improperly and so on.
That isn't just an "accent" that means their English skills are poor. However you'll see people try to pass it off as such. "Oh they just don't like my accent." No, that isn't the real problem, the problem is you are improperly using the language. You are trying to lean on the fact that you are not a native speaker as an excuse for not improving your skills.
From My Cousin Vinny
Vinny Gambini: It is possible that the two yutes...
Judge Chamberlain Haller: ...Ah, the two what? Uh... uh, what was that word?
Vinny Gambini: Uh... what word?
Judge Chamberlain Haller: Two what?
Vinny Gambini: What?
Judge Chamberlain Haller: Uh... did you say 'yutes'?
Vinny Gambini: Yeah, two yutes.
Judge Chamberlain Haller: What is a yute?
Vinny Gambini: [beat] Oh, excuse me, your honor...
[exaggerated]
Vinny Gambini: Two YOUTHS.
Sorry, I can't stand it.
While many of the customers on that particular support line would of been American, I was not.
What you meant there was "would have been". Using "would of been" indicates to an educated person that you are practically illiterate, and don't understand what you are saying, and thus your entire point is missed because you portray yourself as not having enough of an education to respond adequately to any subject.
Seriously, look those two words up in the dictionary, and figure out why it's so retarded and infuriating to anyone with a decent vocabulary when people write things the way they are used to saying them without knowing what the phrase actually means, or how their accent has colored their ability to communicate.
I'm not saying that you are stupid, I am merely pointing out that you look stupid when you say things as you have spoken them, rather than as they are actually supposed to have been written.
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An accent that is detrimental to learning a specific language should not be allowed. Also, back in my day, we called that problem a speech *impediment*, because it IMPEDES proper and basic communication.
Then I suggest not immigrating to a country where you are incapable of speaking the language understandably.
But that's not the case here. Native Spanish speakers can learn English without advanced training if they want to. I'm betting her problem is more about wanting to push her Hispanic identity over American (very common). These people want the host country to bend for them, and I find that insulting to the host country. They have a duty to assimilate.
I knew a Hispanic girl, fom Spain, working among Americans. It took me a while to catch the barest hint of an accent. She learned English in regular school and while living with Americans. Same with Germans in the US, some pretty thick, some it takes a minute to catch it, some have no German accent at all.