chronicle.com/temp/email.php?id=wtvliaupi53925368fteve1ddzeo3q42

Here is an article that talks about the difficulties an international TA would face due to language barrier, cultural barrier etc. It also talks about a 0.2 drop in GPA for students taught by an international TA. So what to do. Cornell has a program called International TA Development Program. I work for it, and I think they do a great job of introducing international TAs to American culture, helping them with pronounciation and intonation. I also think ITADP is better than the “crash courses” other universities in the article implement because it runs all year long. TAs take classes, meet with language partners and are regularly evaluated during the year.

I think we(undergraduates) forget sometimes that graduate students who come to Cornell are very very smart. Their English is not an indication of their intelligence. If you read the article, you will see that trying to listen just a little bit harder to your TA who may be lost in this American culture might do some great things for your GPA, and you might even end up being friends with someone from another culture.