Linguistic Bridges to Prior Knowledge

As I have suggested in a previous post, linguists have long argued that there are no inherently superior languages. A people’s native tongue serves them just as they need to be served, and it changes as they need it to be changed. Why then, have so many speakers of nonstandard dialects of English or even other languages been made to feel inferior simply because Standard English is not their mother tongue? I have taught on the Navajo reservation and spoken with parents who, when they attended public school, were struck for speaking Navajo. None of my immigrant ancestors fought very hard to ensure subsequent generations held onto their native languages. When I moved to teach in North Carolina, the very first thing my students asked me was if I would stop them from saying ‘ain’t.’ I explained, prior to any reading or research into the current debate over literacy in America, that I would not stop them from saying ‘ain’t.’ I did, however, mention that there was both a very good reason for them to keep and honor their home language and culture as well as a very good reason to learn and hone their skills in a common English, and we would honor BOTH in our English classroom.

While I understand the rationale behind the assumption, perhaps well intended, that students must make a choice between their home language or dialect and Standard English, this is both morally and effectively a serious mistake. Standard English, while useful as a national or global common language, should not be seen by disenfranchised students as an attempt to insult and eclipse all local languages. If it does so, it will function as usurper, alienating all those who do not grow up in its cultural midst.

“English in our schools seeks to establish standards for aesthetics and to establish a national cultural heritage based on it. Instead of thinking of ‘standard’ as common or ordinary, ‘standard English’ is thought of as a standard of quality. The effect of this thinking is to subordinate any alternative and to label that alternative inferior” (Hilliard 87-105).

“For many…students, speech is important to their expressions of their identity (Fordham, 1999; Milroy & Milroy, 1991; Ogbu, 1999; Rickford, 2000)” (Gayles, and Denerville 16-23).

If the words of their families are not accepted as valid, how are these minority students supposed to develop the confidence or the desire to adopt Standard English?
“Jesse Jackson fired out with his customary passionate oratory, ‘You don’t have to go to school to learn that garbage’… The even deeper secret was that even those of us that had acquired the “standard dialect” still loved and used aspects of Ebonics all the time. From the call and response rhyming speeches of Reverend Jackson…to all of our mothers, brothers and ourselves, our language has always been part of our very souls” (Delpit 31-48).

No people should be expected to forgo their language that reflects their home culture and identity. The good news is they should have to do so. The promotion of literacy across America hinges on this very notion of academically rich, cultural and linguistic exchange. “I have come to realize that acquiring an additional code comes from identifying with the people who speak it, from connecting the language form with all that is self-affirming and esteem-building, inviting and fun” (Delpit 31-48). As all languages share common elements and, as we all know as educators, it has been proven wise to try to connect new learning to a student’s prior knowledge, shouldn’t teachers of literacy in America use the nonstandard forms of English many students bring to class with a fluency that simply must be a source of motivation and confidence as an introduction, a bridge to Standard English instruction. Students will have their fluency validated and experience the motivation of success while they are then explicitly shown how common English works through the same basic concepts. Once again, the very same general concepts, whether we are speaking of grammar or aspects of language, exist in all modern languages. There need be no wasted time or diversion.

“any linguist (and thus far, apparently, only linguists) will tell you that student vernacular grammar has nothing to do with mistakes in Standard English” (Green, 2002). Instead, we linguists see the patterns of African American English, the most extensively studied American English dialect across 50 years of sociolinguistic scholarship. We know that correction does not work as a method for teaching the Standard dialect to speakers of a vernacular” (Gilyard, 1991; Piestrup, 1973; Wolfram, Adger & Christian, 1999). We know that the most effective way to teach Standard English to speakers of a non-mainstream, stigmatized dialect is to use an ESL technique – Contrastive Analysis. In Contrastive Analysis, the practitioner contrasts the grammatical structure of one variety with the grammatical structure of another variety (presumably the Standard) in order to add the Standard dialect to the students’ linguistic toolbox (Fogel & Ehri 2000; Rickford 1999; Taylor, 1991; Rickford, Sweetland, Rickford 2004; Sweetland, ms.; Wheeler & Swords, 2006). Indeed, the research is robustly clear: “teaching methods which DO take vernacular dialects into account in teaching the Standard work better than those which DO NOT” (Rickford, 1996)” (Wheeler 16-33).

Assuming you are willing to consider the idea; what would this class look like? Are there other methods, in addition to Contrastive Analysis, that would engage students to learn and become fluent in Standard English?





Gayles, Jonathan, and Daphney Denerville. "Counting Language: An Exercise
in Stigmatization." Multicultural Education. Fall. (2007): 16-23. Print.

Delpit, Lisa. "No Kinda Sense." The Skin We Speak. Edited. Lisa Delpit and
Joanne Kilgour Dowdy. New York: The New Press, 2002. Print.

Hilliard, Asa. "Language, Culture, and the Assessment of African American
Children." The Skin We Speak. Edited. Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour
Dowdy. New York: The New Press, 2002. Print.

Wheeler, Rebecca. "“What do we do about student grammar – all those missing –
ed’s and -s’s?” Using comparison and contrast to teach Standard English
in dialectally diverse classrooms ." English Teaching: Practice and
Critique . 5.1 (2006): 16-33. Print.