Features
An Accent on Better Learning
History prof’s new book aims to help teachers, students look past language, cultural barriers to enhance learning
BY TERESA PITMAN
In 2006, with five years as an associate professor of African history under his belt at U of G, Prof. Femi Kolapo thought it was time for a little personal reflection.
“I wanted to assess my work and my professional competence,” he says. “I’ve had a long-term commitment to understanding educational processes and effective teaching, and I thought it would be good to look back and consider the areas where I could improve.”
When he took a look at the student evaluations he’d received during his years at Guelph, Kolapo noticed that many students in his first-year classes said they had difficulty understanding his accent. For his fourth-year students, with more experience in listening to speakers from different backgrounds, his accent was rarely a problem.
“Starting with the difficulty in understanding accents, I began thinking about the particular challenges that immigrants face in academic circles,” he says. “All immigrants face some challenges, but universities are a world of their own.”
What had started as an exercise in personal reflection and self-assessment began to evolve into a book. The result, published in April by Cambria Press, is titled Immigrant Academics and Cultural Challenges in a Global Environment.
To gather other visions and stories about people who move to a different country to conduct research or teach, Kolapo advertised on the Internet. In the end, he obtained chapters from 10 different authors and wrote the introduction and conclusion himself.
In the introduction, he addresses the issue of accents, describing a U.S. study in which students were divided into two groups and presented with the same talk read by the same man. One group had a projected image of an American on the classroom wall in front of them; the other group saw an image of an Asian speaker. Afterwards, when the two groups were asked to fill in the blanks in a transcript of the talk, the students who saw the Asian speaker made 20 per cent more errors.
The conclusion? The students’ expectations significantly influenced how well they understood the talk.
Student expectations also affect their academic decisions, says Kolapo. “Some studies have found that students will look at course descriptions, and if they think the instructor will have an accent, based on the name, they won’t take the course.”
He stresses that resolving these issues requires effort on both sides. The immigrant professor may need to talk more slowly, be willing to repeat things and encourage the students to talk more, but the students also need to listen carefully and be prepared to speak up if they don’t understand.
Another challenge for immigrants that Kolapo describes in the book is the differing roles that teachers play in various cultures.
“In Africa, the classroom is teacher-centred. Everything revolves around the teacher, and all knowledge comes from the teacher.” But in North America, “students want the classroom to be democratic. They want to help define the syllabus and do a lot of self-learning. Instead of all knowledge coming from the teacher, they see that they are creating knowledge together.”
Students coming from cultures where education is more “teacher-centred” may find learning in North American classrooms more difficult, says Kolapo.
“They tend to be quiet in class, so the teacher thinks they aren’t participating and lack initiative. It may not be until second or third year that they really start to understand the expectations.”
For Kolapo, there is real value in bringing these issues out into the open. “When we talk about the challenges and identify them, we can take steps to minimize the problems. It’s something both sides need to work on. This book can help us understand each other better.”