Meet 础诲茅峁Ｃ璶脿

This persona is a fictional profile of a U海角社区 student. It was created using data to reflect the challenges, successes, and overall experiences of some of our students.

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3/4 portrait of a young dark skinned woman wearing a black turban with gold motifs, a blue top with short sleeves and a red necklace and bracelet set, smiling at the camera while holding a saxophone, ready to perform.

Age: 22 years old

Work: Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) at U海角社区

Major: Ph.D. degree in Physics

Family: Single, second of three children

Challenge: Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI), First year in the U.S., non-American English accent

Language(s) spoken: Yoruba, Hausa, English, Russian

Location: Orono, ME

Home is: Ibadan, Nigeria

Pronouns: She/her

Assistive Technology: None

础诲茅峁Ｃ璶脿 was born and raised in Nigeria. Her older sister is finishing her Ph.D. in electrical engineering in Moscow, Russia, and her a younger brother is in elementary school in Nigeria. She is a proficient saxophonist and she traveled many times with her ensemble during her undergraduate studies. 础诲茅峁Ｃ璶脿 is excited about her first year at U海角社区. She has some experience teaching, but not at the college level, so running her own lab section is still very new to her.

鈥淚 am fully fluent in English. It is the official language of Nigeria after all鈥 but my students make a big deal of my accent and act as if I was not competent enough to be a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA). This is both frustrating and demoralizing, and I don鈥檛 know how to go about it.鈥

鈥淭he hierarchy is not very clear here. I can tell that I am more formal in my exchanges with professors than some of my peers. It is hard to navigate.鈥

鈥淪ome of my students made fun of what I was wearing the other day. I just thought this sweater was nice, but apparently people only wear these colors for the holidays? The whole class laughed and I don鈥檛 know what to say to these remarks. It鈥檚 like they are trying to find anything to discredit me and it hurts.鈥

  1. Given that many students at U海角社区 are not used to hearing people speak English with an accent other than an American accent, here are two suggestions to help students learn to understand your accent. The first suggestion would be to use a microphone in the classroom and make sure to face the students when speaking. If a student is using automatic captioning as part of their accommodation, or if you are on Zoom, this will help with the quality of the captions. The second suggestions would be to record videos to be posted in the course with corrected captions to introduce yourself, the assignments, the lecture topics, the work for the week, etc, and communicate to the students that you have made these resources available to them so they can learn your accent faster.
  2. Use templates for important emails, so communication is less of a barrier between students and instructors and between instructors and mentors. This can be communicated through the syllabus or informally between mentor and mentee.
  3. Prior to teaching a class, review your syllabus with a mentor, colleague, or instructional designer at CITL to ensure that everything is clear, free of jargon, and US centric as far as class management goes.
  4. Get familiar with the instructional resources CITL has to offer and discuss the specificities of teaching in a US and in a U海角社区 classroom. You can use our Meet Your Students page as a way to start this conversation.
  5. Find a community of peer within or outside the department to break the isolation. CITL offers programming for graduate students, the Graduate School as well as the Graduate Student Government also offer opportunities for graduate students to get together.

鈥淓vents organized by the Office of International Programs to help new international students navigate life in the U.S.鈥

鈥淲eekly check-ins with the instructor for whom I teach the lab section to discuss the content for the next class and lab but also whatever else is going on in the classroom, as well as classroom culture in the U.S., and more specifically at U海角社区.鈥

鈥淭raining programs organized by CITL for graduate teaching assistant where I can meet other GTAs from different departments.鈥

  •  by Leah Hakkola, Ming Tso Chien, Mr, and Karen Pelletreau (2020)
  • , a collaboration between the Fogler Library and the Office of International Programs, to learn more around immigration identities and statuses
  • Explore resources and training sessions offered by CITL by visiting the Events and Programs section of the .
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