The New York Times has an article today, about some foreign graduate teaching assistants who have difficulty communicating in English. I would say this is a legitimate beef in certain cases -- a student should be able to understand what his or her TA is saying in class discussions, or in feedback regarding exams, papers, and other projects. This is apparently a big problem in certain disciplines where there is a high proportion of foreign graduate students and PhD candidates, such as engineering and science.
The article does not mention another side of this issue ... if the students can't communicate with their TAs, what about the professors? Does this pose a problem for them in terms of giving instructions to TAs, or discussing a certain student's paper? What about evaluating the TAs own written work, or the oral defense of a dissertation?
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