I will be a hypocrite if I say that I speak perfect Standard English at all times. I believe that there is a time and a place for speaking Standard English. In addition, I believe that all students should feel comfortable when conversing with their peers in the classroom. Through analyzing these studies, there appears to be one question posed throughout both articles: should students who speak African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) be allowed to speak their dialect in an English Language Arts classroom, or should they strictly speak Standard English.
The findings by Amanda J. Godley, written in 2012, focus on the fact that “learning formal spoken and written Standard English (SE) is essential to academic and professional success in mainstream U.S. society.” The article explains that AAVE is a type of dialect that is a “variety of English spoken in many African-American communities” (Godley 2012). This article notes that these students, and most speakers of AAVE, are low-class Black Americans. As expressed as well, these teachers are preparing the students for college and the professional world, and in the majority of the U.S., Standard English is the language spoken. Majority means most, not the small communities where AAVE may be acceptable and as unfortunate as it is, our country is not run by that type of citizen.
Most of the students observed understand that they should speak proper English when speaking to adults, going to a job interview, and in a professional or formal situation. It is understandable to view the ELA classrooms as “places to practice SE without being judged,” however as Godley also states, “teachers would benefit from developing an understanding of bidialectal students’ perspectives on code-switching a...
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...be interesting to see if students who speak other dialects have similar outcomes. The students in the Godley 2012 study are so concerned about their way of speech condemning them to a low-class job; my concern is what are they trying to do to remedy that outcome? We are taught that appearance and impression make a difference in the professional career world, but are these students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds working to push themselves above that gap.
Works Cited
Godley, Amanda J. and Adam Loretto. "Fostering counter-narratives of race, language, and identity in an urban English classroom." Linguistics and Education (2013): 316-327. Print.
Godley, Amanda J. and Allison Escher. "Bidialectal African-American Adolescants' Beliefs About Spoken Language Expectations in English Classrooms." Journal of Adolescant & Adult Literacy (2012): 704-713. Print.
Much research was completed for the making of this article. It was found that ELL’s need time to develop oral English proficiency, teachers need to use ongoing authentic formative assessments throughout the year due to
Lisa Delpit’s book, “The Skin We Speak”, talked about language and culture, and how it relates to the classroom. How we speak gives people hits as to where we are from and what culture we are a part of. Unfortunately there are also negative stereotypes that come with certain language variations. There is an “unfounded belief that the language of low income groups in rural or urban industrial areas is somehow structurally “impoverished” or “simpler” than Standard English” (Delpit 71). The United States is made of people from various cultures and speak many different variations of languages. As teachers we must be aware of some of the prejudices we may have about language and culture.
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In Schooltalk: Rethinking What We Say About - and to - Students Every Day, Mica Pollock provides readers with fact-based information to “flip the script” of the misrepresentation of students in the education setting. Pollock demonstrates how race, gender, and ethnic labels can be detrimental to student achievement. She, then, dives in to 600 years of myths regarding social race labels and how they continue to affect humans today. By correcting race, gender, and ethnicity label myths in our minds, we can effectively advocate for these students. To conclude the book, Pollock focuses on how to devise a plan to correct our own misconceptions and foster a supportive environment for diverse students. Throughout
Throughout history society has created many stereotypes and assumptions based on race and nationality to confine us into categories. The reality is, not every individual fits a specific category because we are unique even within the same ethnic group. In “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black person” Allison Joseph illustrates some speech stereotypes that come hand in hand with her racial background and how even people from the same racial background and house hold don’t all sound alike. The author portrays that race and linguistic has such a huge impact on our daily life and how society sees her differently to others when they see she does not fit in the stereotype of sounding “like a black person” and feels frustration to being compared
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Everyone has various styles of speaking and various ranges of vocabulary that they utilize depending upon with whom they speak. This concept, known as code switching, portrays an integral part of our lives in today’s society. The fact that different groups of people speak in different ways necessitates the use of code switching. One would not speak to a group of high school students in the manner that one would speak to a scholar, or speak to a prison inmate in the same regard that one would speak with the President of the United States. Speaking in standard American English and then in African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or Ebonics, portrays the most prominent use of code switching in today’s society, especially among American youths. Today, people utilize code switching to associate better amongst a group of people. In William Wells Brown’s Clotel, code switching plays an important role in the escape of two slaves, outwitting a train employee, and simply showing the difference between a slave’s behavior with other slaves and the slave’s behavior in the presence of his owner.
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Morton recognizes that the achievement gap goes much deeper than the education realm and she believes However, the students that are on the lower end of the achievement gap are caught between being members of a disadvantaged community and aspiring to be a part of the middle class. This causes them to have to adapt to the communities that they are a part of. This act of adapting to the difference in normative expectations is what Morton refers to as “straddling the gap” or “code switching”. These students not only have to navigate differences in language and dress codes but they have to switch dispositions to ones that are unfamiliar to them, which can come into conflict with those at home (Morton 276).
In 1996, the Oakland School District proposed the inclusion of what is known as "Ebonics" into its curriculum. Ebonics, or Black language, has been referred to in various ways over the years: "African American Vernacular English," "Pan-African Communication Behaviors," "African Language Systems," or "West and Niger-Congo African Language Systems." By any name, Ebonics, when studied over the years, has been proven to be a real language with its own phonology, syntax, morphology, sentence patterns, and double interpretations of words. The pattern that Ebonics speakers in the United States speak is highly similar to the patterns seen in both the Caribbean Creole and the West African languages. No one would have thought that comedian Bill Cosby would have an opinion on this subject, but as I read through essay I realized the logic and validity behind his paper.
Smitherman is certainly qualified to address her colleagues about the treatment of “Black English” in academia, but with such a charged writing style it is possible that her audience would not make it to her conclusion. Smitherman assumes that the general base of her audience are “White English” speakers that can understand “Black English”. She also assumes that all African Americans speak the same way. These assumptions are her first major problem. At the time of this articles publication in 1973, it is conceivable that certain scholars would have ignored the piece because of its hybrid u...
Our world is full of different cultures and languages. Many of these different languages are mainly used in schools. Most of the time, none English speaking students have a hard time transitioning between English and their native language. This could be a reason why school boards have provided programs like ESL, to help students adapt and learn American standard English. Recently, one of the main languages that have been giving students problems to succeed in their education is African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
The African influence of American English can be found as far back as the Seventeenth century. Although its influence may have began that far back, the influence of African American slang has arguably reached its peak (so far) in the last half on the 20th century. Evidence of this can be seen in magazines, music, television, and films. Perhaps more importantly, evidence can be seen in the way that people of ethnic groups, other than African American, have changed their speech due to this influence. The Equal Rights Movement lead to a paradigm shift in African American linguistic consciousness due to Black intellectuals, scholars, activists, artists, and writers deliberately engaging in a search for a way to express Black identity and the particular circumstances of African American life. Although there had been strides in Black pride in the past, this was the first one to call for linguistic Black p...
It is apparent that there are many types of dialect within American English. The coexisting of two or more languages, either serving together in the same area or servicing different areas, is as old as language itself (Pei 106). This has happened throughout time and appears to be inevitable. It is impossible to believe an entire country could conform to one language, and then only one dialect of that language. Throughout history societies have survived for some time using different languages until these language barriers tore territories apart. It is apparent how, in America, barriers between dialects separate black men from white men even more than physical conditions.