> Many of them just can't speak English correctly.
I’m someone who loves seeing well written and hearing well spoken English. The standards I hold myself to are quite high.
However, I have never had a problem with people- native or foreign born- with less than perfect English communication skills.
Going down that route smacks of elitism, xenophobia and a hyper-normative mindset. The way you get good at standard English is by practice, which they are doing every day at work using the skills (technology) they have mastered. Some of my family are ESL and my place of birth (in the UK, for God’s sake) was and is looked down on for the dialect.
Is it really that hard to just ask someone to repeat or restate themselves?
I'm not a native English speaker. I've been practicing English pretty much every day for decades but speaking with someone who has an unfamiliar enough accent or dialect – or sometimes culture – is really hard for me. After asking them to repeat/rephrase a few times, I feel rude and/or stupid.
Me speaking with an Indian with a non-{US, British} accent means that very little information is going to get across during the conversation, because this problem shows up in both directions.
Of course, the issue essentially vanishes when the conversation is written down. Unfortunately, many native English speaker that I've been in touch with fail to understand the cognitive cost of oral communication.
I agree, though there’s a point at which no repetition helps, which is really awkward. And honestly stresses me out going into meetings with them (not Indians in my case).
I’m someone who loves seeing well written and hearing well spoken English. The standards I hold myself to are quite high.
However, I have never had a problem with people- native or foreign born- with less than perfect English communication skills.
Going down that route smacks of elitism, xenophobia and a hyper-normative mindset. The way you get good at standard English is by practice, which they are doing every day at work using the skills (technology) they have mastered. Some of my family are ESL and my place of birth (in the UK, for God’s sake) was and is looked down on for the dialect.
Is it really that hard to just ask someone to repeat or restate themselves?