When Darla Moore School of Business professor Giuliano Marodin moved to USC from Brazil 10 years ago, he had to navigate a new culture and academic environment. The greatest challenge was teaching in a new language, he said.
International professors bring global perspectives for different types of classes and unique cultural experiences to the USC classrooms, according to some professors. Some professors find international academics unfamiliar at first. Navigating a new culture, language and academic style requires time and patience, Marodin said.
Marodin said the exhaustion of teaching in a non-native language stems from having to continually consider what will be said next. When he began teaching in America, this was his main concern, he said.
”My class was very bad when I started teaching here compared to when I was in Brazil because I couldn't do all those things at the same time,” Marodin said. “As time goes by, and then you're kind of learning more and getting into it, things get more mechanical.”
According to English linguistic professor Stanley Dubinsky, communication issues are common during the adaptation process for many international educators when teaching in a language that is non-native.
Dubinsky said he was once an international student and instructor himself. He understands how hard it is to learn and teach in a second language, especially when students have a foreign professor.
That being limited to conversing in someone's native language and not having anyone who could understand his English made him feel lonely while studying and teaching abroad, Dubinsky said.
“It was one of the hardest things I ever experienced, not just language-wise, but it was socially and psychologically difficult,” Dubinsky said. “It's very hard if you don't have ways to talk to people or communicate with people in your language.”
Sabrina Habib, a Brazilian assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said she has students repeat what they have just learned to ensure they understand it because she wants to make sure they understand the content she teaches.
There can also be unexpected and occasionally humorous learning moments when something is not said correctly, she said.
“I think finding the right words sometimes or using an expression maybe that doesn't translate well, you know, vocabulary and things like that can be a bit of a challenge,” Habib said. “But for the most part, we just laugh it off together.”
Associate professor Rafael Becerril, who teaches in the Darla Moore School of Business, adjusts by providing students with learning opportunities beyond a standard lecture in case students can't understand his Spanish accent, he said.
“Some of them prefer to read; some of them prefer to listen to it, and so I try to have the same content in both formats,” Becerril said. “If something doesn't go through, we need to just try to express it with different words or try to relate it to contexts the students may be more familiar with.”
Students taking foreign language classes can also struggle to understand course material delivered in a non-native language, said Benjamin Garcia Egea, a senior Spanish professor from Spain.
"There's a lot of times when I explain things in Spanish, and I can tell students don't understand me," Garcia Egea said. "Although we're supposed to teach everything in Spanish, sometimes I have to reword things in Spanish so they understand me."
Garcia Egea makes sure that students enjoy learning a new language by speaking Spanish with them while they are learning it and using English when needed, he said.
Garcia Egea said he likes to incorporate Spanish culture into his class so that students are more engaged with what they are learning. One of the ways he does this is by incorporating Spanish-language television into his classes.
“I have pictures of the show; I tell them what it is about because I want them to do what I did to learn English because I was very interested in learning a new language,” Garcia Egea said.
Second-year history student Dorian Burgess takes Italian 122 and said learning a new language is a fun challenge, but it can be difficult to remember the different variations of words.
"Later in life, I would like to go to Italy," Burgess said. "It's kind of cool to be able to call that back from a little bit of hard work here."
USC also offers the accent reduction program to help foreign professors adjust to their new environment, allowing ways for them to better communicate with students.
International professors make an attempt to engage with students, even in the face of the occasional language barrier, Marodin said. He said it becomes easier to understand with time, so students should have patience.
USC also offers the accent reduction session to help foreign faculty, professors and graduate students adjust to their new environment, allowing ways for them to better communicate with students.
“I know that students sometimes have problems with accents … If they have accents, they might have problems understanding,” Garcia Egea said. “I feel like sometimes it's hard, but we also need to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes,” Garcia Egea said. “It's not as easy for everybody.”