EFFECTS OF ACCENT, ETHNICITY, AND LECTURE TOPIC ON UNDERGRADUATES PERCEPTIONS OF NONNATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING TEACHING ASSISTANTS

The most common response to perceived lack of English language proficiency among nonnative English speaking teaching assistants (NNSTAs), has been to set up workshops to remediate their linguistic and instructional skills. However, many factors other than low levels of communication competence may contribute to negative perceptions of NNSTAs. Some of these factors may be more germane to North American undergraduates' stereotypical attitudes than to NNSTAs' classroom talk. A matched guise study of undergraduates' comprehension and attitudes toward NNSTAs revealed that 40% of undergraduates avoid NNSTA instructed classes. However, measured outcomes manifested few direct effects of actual accentedness in NNSTA speech. Instead, factors like instructor ethnicity and lecture topic, extraneous to actual NNSTA speaking proficiency, tended to be more potent determinants of undergraduate attitudes and comprehension. On the other hand, when students perceived - whether rightly or wrongly-high levels of foreign accentedness, they judged speakers to be poor teachers. Results warrant collective "university community" training programs that focus on undergraduate attitudes and listening skills as well as on NNSTA competence. © 1990.