Back when I was a sophomore at UNC-CH, I remember having a Korean teaching assistant (TA) who had a really tough time saying Cuba (“Choo-ba”), Mexico (“Mech… Mech… Mechi-co”), and several other Latin American countries. This was really unfortunate because it was a class about Latin American politics.
One possible solution to this problem–and a number of other problems, such as classes that are too large–is having TA’s who are undergraduates in the university. Today on the Pope Center site, our intern Ashley Russell concludes that having undergraduate students teach recitations (weekly discussion sections outside of class, usually led by graduate students) is a win-win situation. “It pleases students on both the giving and receiving end.”
You can read her article here.
