British Professor Watches His Language in Job Swap

To his Oxnard College students, David Frayne seems like a typical instructor, except for the clipped British accent and occasional unfamiliar idiom.

But for Frayne, a visiting business professor in the Fulbright Scholar Exchange Program, monitoring his dialect is the simplest of changes in his yearlong transition from southern England to Southern California.

“I talk much slower to my students, and I make a point of being clear in my language,” he said. “And I’m still trying to erase my vernacular English.”

Frayne swapped the countryside of Sussex County for the Oxnard Plain in August, when he traded places with Oxnard College instructor Linda Crowl. She is spending the year teaching Frayne’s classes at the Brighton College of Technology.

He stepped off a plane in San Francisco with his wife, Julie, and their two daughters on Aug. 6, before driving down the coast to begin his Fulbright exchange at Oxnard College a few weeks later.

For the 1994-95 school year, Frayne will be living in Crowl’s house, driving her car and teaching in her classrooms. Meanwhile, about 6,000 miles away, in Brighton, England, Crowl is doing the same.

“I’m pleasantly surprised by how well-behaved the students are,” said Frayne, 44. “I had heard stories about the high school model of students.”

Most of the students in his introduction to business, business math and business accounting classes are more diligent in their studies than their British counterparts, Frayne said.

“The mature class is more motivated,” he said. “The older a student is, the more motivated because they’re more concerned about their future.”

Frayne admits he is a little fuzzy on the details of American business practices. In class on Wednesday, he was stumped when a student asked him the capital-gains tax rate in the United States.

“But I’ve been able to bring my own experience and knowledge of the subjects to them,” he said of his students. “I suppose I (bring) European and English flavors to it.”

Students in his introductory business class agreed Wednesday.

“I think he’s excellent,” said Adriana Gutierrez, a 25-year-old business major from Oxnard. “He’s got different points of view about the American ways of doing business and the English ways. I’m learning both, so it’s kind of an advantage.”

Tracy Stevens of Ventura said Frayne is one of his more helpful instructors. “Things he doesn’t know he is willing to take the time to find out,” the 30-year-old business major said.

Julie Frayne is a marriage counselor at home in Brighton. But she has been unable so far to find any work in California.

“It’s different being here for a year than just on holiday,” she said. “When you’re on holiday, you’re not getting homesick because you know you’re going home soon.”

But she is keeping busy, taking care of the couple’s daughters, Emma, 11, and Alexandra, 8.

“I’ve also joined the Gold Coast Choir, and I’m planning to do some volunteer work,” she said. “It’s all part of finding a way to get a place in the community.”

There is one aspect of the Southern California lifestyle that Frayne is still getting used to: having to drive virtually everywhere.

On a recent trip to Downtown Los Angeles, David Frayne and his family missed the turnoff to the federal immigration office, prompting a lengthy diversion through some of the less-glamorous neighborhoods.

“The freeways took a bit of getting used to,” he said. “You have to be very focused on where you’re going.”