Hearing and Speaking Problems for Non-Native English speaking participants.

[Martin Stiemerling]

Hi all,

I just wanna give my view on this:
I agree fully with the problem, since often non-native english speaker are 
somehow lost during IETF meetings (even me, mother-tongue is german). 
Native english speaker can go often very fast with their speech, sometimes 
without microphone and perhaps a very strong accent. So others might not 
understand about the ongoing discussions are.

Even the newcomers introduction is hard to understand for non-native 
speaker (those introduction I have attended).

Martin

--On Wednesday, July 16, 2003 09:23:39 -0400 Cyrus Shaoul 
<cyrus at ntt-at.com> wrote:

| Hi All,
|
| I have been lurking on the list for a while, but I wanted to contribute
| my thoughts on the problem of difficulties in participation by non-native
| English speakers.
|
| In draft-ietf-problem-issue-statement-02, it seems that the only place
| where a related problem is discussed in section 2.6.6 (Concentration of
| Influence in Too Few Hands). I support this section, as I feel that the
| second paragraph describes a real problem. I work with a team of
| Japanese IETF participants and they agree that this problem exists for
| them.
|
| There was also some discussion in a list thread called "Accomodating ESL
| speakers" recently about how non-native speakers have problems
| understanding other native and non-native speakers at the IETF meetings.
|
| I think it would good to add a little section about this problem to the
| problem-statement, unless it is already too late to do so. (I have ideas
| on how to solve these problems, but I will save them until it is time to
| provide solutions.)
|
|
| <SECTION.TITLE>
| Hearing and Speaking Problems for Non-Native English speaking
| participants.
| </SECTION.TITLE>
|
| At IETF meetings, many participants are non-native English speakers.
| Many of these participants currently have trouble understanding and
| following along with WG discussions when the person at the microphones,
| speaks very quickly, with a strong accent, or in a very animated way
| that can make it hard for non-native English speakers to understand what
| they are saying. Another problem is when speakers use excessive amounts
| of colloquial or idiomatic phrases. The meaning of these phrases, such
| as "water under the bridge" and "whatcha talking about" and unclear and
| can confuse non-native english speakers. A further problem for
| non-native english speakers is that the effort to simultaneously read
| slides with small letters on a screen and hear and understand the
| content of a speech can be too much to handle. Evidence of this is in
| the number of non-native English speakers taking photographs of the
| projection screen and making private recordings of WG meetings for later
| study (making it harder for them to interactively participate during the
| WG meeting.)
|
| This problem is amplified when speakers do not speak into the microphone,
| or use the microphone improperly. When the microphone is not used, the
| sound may be too soft to be comprhensible to non-native speakers even
| though it is marginally comprehensible to native english speakers. When
| a microphone is not used properly, for example clipping it to a necktie
| and then letting it drop, it can add small amounts of feedback to the
| sound, making it very hard to understand for non-native English speakers.
|
| There is also a problem with using the Jabber chat system with an
| official scribe as a support tool for non-native English speakers. The
| benefit of being able to read a summary of the WG meeting in text in
| realtime is undeniable, but haveing to constantly look down at a lap-top
| (if you have one) while listening to a presentation is difficult and
| distracting. Also, very few work groups use the Jabber system, and even
| fewer have good scribes.
|
| Another problem is the delay in getting the meeting minutes and
| presentation slides published electronically. This process is uneven and
| for some WGs, may take more than one month to complete, leaving some
| non-native English speakers in the dark on what was said, and what
| consensus was reached during the meeting.
|
| ------------------
|
| Does this make sense? I hope this point can get added in some form to
| the problem statement.
|
| Thanks,
|
| Cyrus
|
|
| Cyrus Shaoul
| NTT Advanced Technology Corp.
| cyrus at ntt-at.com
|
|



Martin Stiemerling

NEC Europe Ltd. -- Network Laboratories  Stiemerling at ccrle.nec.de
IPv4: http://www.ccrle.nec.de  IPv6: http://www.ipv6.ccrle.nec.de