Linguistics Issues

My statistics professor is Asian. Her grasp of the material and concepts is excellent by my account. However I am finding a similar issue with her class as I have found at the Admissions office, the Palo Alto Superior Court, and the DMV: English is not her first language.

This is not to say that she is difficult to understand, only that she has a difficulty understanding the students. I find the same issues when I must interact with admissions. The people working there are able to speak with very little impedence, but their recognition of what I say is not good enough.

Perhaps this is not limited to non-native English speakers. JLM and I stood with a man in one of the computer labs this morning. JLM explained what he felt the issue with the printing system was, and our lab proctor denied that, only to describe the problem with 99% the same language as JLM employed two minutes earlier.

Based on this second example, race is not the determining factor, and honestly be happier. I don't want to target immigrants as the source of stupidity. Regardless, why are so many people unable to interpret basic communication?!

Is it so difficult to stop, listen to what another human is saying, ask questions when necessary, and then answer effectively? I get the impression, both from our fearless lab proctor and our Stats prof, that there is a level of impatience that does not allow for dialogue. At no point in either instance today did these people ask for clarification on what had been said. Instead, the input received was dismissed as 'incorrect.'

I cannot understand why a simple question or two in order to better understand what has been said is so difficult. Perhaps we should start screaming at our superiors and striking them with cricket bats when they fail to inquire as to our meaning. Maybe that will encourage them to ask questions in order to better understand what we're saying.