Diverse Dialects In The Classroom

Addressing Diverse Dialects in the Classroom

Dayna Wallace

Towson University

Addressing Diverse Dialects in the Classroom Imagine you’re a kindergartener sitting in your classroom on the first day of school. You look around the room and get excited about all the new friends you’ll make and experiences you’ll have. With the whole class gathered on the carpet, your teacher introduces herself and tells everybody what she did over the summer. The trend continues and your classmates go one by one saying their name and summer adventures. A handful of students share and then it’s your turn. In the middle of your introduction, your teacher interrupts you. “I can’t understand what you’re saying because that’s not how we speak

Even though classrooms today are filled with diverse students and faculty, education was only available to the upper and middle class when schools were established. Moreover, they set the standards for schools across the country, as well as regularized the use of SE in professional settings. While the expectations in schools have remained the same, the demographics occupying classrooms across the country has expanded to groups other than those who regularly use SE in their communities. Every student comes with their own unique background and culture, as well as their own difficulties in school language. However, the language used in school matches that of SE speaking students and not non-standard dialect speaking students. An estimated 80-90% of African American students speak African American English (AAE), coming from communities where SE is unlikely to be spoken (Redd &Webb, p.78), where as the majority of their peers speak SE regularly in their homes. As a result, non-mainstream students have had different social and learning experiences than mainstream students have, causing a gap in academic achievement (Zwiers, p.3). It’s the teacher’s job to close the achievement gap for non-standard dialect speakers, beginning with teaching them

With the range of diversity in the students of a modern classroom becoming larger, it is inevitable that the obstacles a teacher must overcome to reach this goal are becoming more difficult and complex. However, it’s important for teachers to remember that most students want to succeed just as much as we want them to. It’s only when we don’t set them up for success and lose hope in them that they begin to do the same. Teachers must be mindful of the evidence that teaching SE, while still valuing other dialects, will create the most inclusive and effective educational environment. Guaranteeing that all students understand the material and feel confident in the classroom may require more instruction, but it’s worth the effort. The academic successes of all students are on the