Unorthodox Teaching: The Fake Asian Accent, part 1

This is all Kyle's fault, really. He was the one that started me on the path to the Dark Side.

It started back when I was an undergraduate. My friend Kyle came back from Calculus class, fuming. "My TA's accent is ridiculous," Kyle grumbled. "His lectures are like, 'oh, take-a the rimit, sig-ama go impinity.'" Kyle is Caucasian and was a dead ringer for Axl Rose at Halloween, so to hear him speak with such a thick Asian accent was hilarious to me. "You HAVE to teach me that accent," I implored him. It wasn't hard, really: replace l's with r's; mangle a couple of verb tenses, add in hesitant filler "uh" and "um".

A new semester was about to start, and I was scheduled to be the lecturer for Math 1443, a freshman math course; I decided to try out my newfound accent on my students, as a joke. I knew I didn't have to get the accent exactly right, either; being Asian myself, I LOOKED the part of a Chinese TA struggling with the language, and the Math Department sadly DID have students from China who were gifted mathematically but for whom English was not their first language. Still, I prepared, trying to come up with an introductory talk that would make the most of my mangled "Engrish."

The first day of class arrives, and I show up to class about 10 minutes early. Students are already starting to file in, some looking at me curiously. I give them a nervous half-smile, but I don't say anything. The class fills up, about 40 students. I glance at the clock: 1:30. Show time.
I pull out my wallet, as if checking a scrap of paper I had left in there. "Ah, harro, crass," I say in a high pitch voice. "Is this, ah, math-uh-matic four-teen forty tree, Finite Mathematics?" The students were startled; some nodded hesitantl. "Ah, good, good," I smile. I start passing out a syllabus and attendance sign-in sheet. "Prease to take copy of syrrabus," I continue. "Prease to sign rorr sheet."

At this point, I see some students literally pulling out their yellow drop forms and start to fill them out.

I ask, "Ah, how many you, this on-ry math crass you take?" A few students guessed what I was asking and raised their hand. "Ah, and how many you, pran, pran to take business car-cur-us?" A few other students raised their hand. "Aha, have fun business carcurus!" I laugh, nervously, as if this were a good joke. No one else laughs. The tension is palpable; there's nothing more awkward than the uncomfortable silence after a failed joke.

At this point, I'd guess that about 80% of the class is in despair. About 20%, though, are starting to already plan insurrection. I could practically hear their thoughts: "hey, we don't understand a word he's saying; which means he's not going to understand a word we're saying; we're going to OWN this class." I see the students snicker to each other.

"Ah, uh, ret's begin recture," I say. "Ah, before I begin, how many peo-purr, my accent, be trou-berr?"

One of the would-be troublemakers raised his hands. "What did you just say?", he drawled.
"I say, uh, how many peo-purr, my accent, be trou-berr?"

He smirks. "I got a problem with it." His buddies nod.

I hold his gaze for a second, and then I reply, in perfect English, "Fine, I'll work on it." I turn to the board. "Section 1.1, solving mathematical equations."

There is a momentary pause, and then 80% of the classroom erupts in relieved laughter. The other 20% -- the wanna-be troublemakers -- are chagrined, wondering just how crazy their professor is.

I tell the students, "Okay, look, you didn't understand a word I was saying. *I* barely understood what I was saying, and I was the one speaking. And yet none of you stopped me. Why didn't you stop me? If you don't understand what I'm saying, please interrupt; it's not going to do either of us any good if I give a lecture and you don't understand a word of it. If you don't understand what I'm saying, stop me."

That was going to be my defense, in case I was hauled before the Department for unprofessional behavior; I was going to plead that "well, I admit it was an UNORTHODOX way of encouraging the students to speak up, but I think it was EFFECTIVE", and then I was going to throw myself on the mercy of the Court. I need not have worried, though; the Department thought it was pretty funny, so I dodged a bullet there.

In fact, it went over so well that I decided to try this trick again when I was in graduate school in California; but that's another story.

But none of this would have ever happened if Kyle hadn't taught me the accent. If the un-PC-ness of all this offends you (and this story certainly is un-PC), blame Kyle.