Bias-Free Teaching as a Topic in a Course for International Teaching Assistants

Abstract

0 ESL professionals working with international teaching assistants (ITAs) can help shape the future of science and technology in the United States. Three interrelated trends lead to this conclusion. The first trend is the increasing shortage of scientists and engineers in the United States (Malcom, 1990; Shortage, 1990). This trend is accompanied by the second, an increasing shortage of faculty in the scientific and technological fields (Mooney, 1989). The third trend is the increasing recognition, based on a growing body of research, that many potential scientists and engineers are discouraged from pursuing careers in these areas by the behaviors--probably mostly unconscious-of science and engineering faculty (Malcom, 1990). The unconscious discriminatory behavior begins early and lasts beyond graduate school: As Shirley M. Malcom (1990) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science writes, there exists a vast and strangely invisible talent pool that remains virtually untapped. This pool consists of minorities, girls and women, and the handicapped, who, according to her, have received education in science that has been most dismal (p. 112). ESL professionals working with ITAs may have a significant impact on the training of future scientists and technicians in the United States because the shortage of science, mathematics, and engineering faculty is predicted to lead to a greater proportion of foreign-born faculty being hired (Mooney, 1989). Many of these faculty will have been teaching assistants in U.S. universities, as is clear from the sheer numbers of foreign students earning PhDs in science and engineering-in 1988 about 50% of the recipients of PhDs in engineering were non-U.S. citizens (Watkins, 1990). How can ESL teachers make a difference? We can help by introducing into our ITA training programs lessons and activities designed to