”Keshawn be needin' Bud Lite!”
Posted on 06/04/2006 8:37:55 AM PDT by wagglebee
NEWPORT NEWS - A student says, "Janae need a marker."
How does a teacher respond?
Usually this way: "We don't say, 'Janae need a marker.' We say, 'Janae needs a marker.'"
What the teacher needs is a new approach, according to two local educators promoting an alternative way of teaching grammar.
"I would say, 'We're in school right now. We're speaking formal English. How would you say that formally?'" said Rachel Swords, a third -grade teacher at Newsome Park Elementary School in Newport News.
Swords and Rebecca Wheeler, an associate professor of English at Christopher Newport University, have co-written a new book, "Code-Switching." They advocate a shift in teaching standard English to speakers of what is known as African American vernacular English - or what they prefer to call "informal English."
The old approach "demoralizes the child, and it's not effective," said Wheeler, who is on leave from CNU to work as a research scientist for Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education.
Instead, they said, teachers should recognize that those students speak a valid language at home and must learn how to translate "informal English" into "formal English."
"We don't correct," Wheeler said.
"There's no reason to correct," Swords said.
"We move from correcting to contrasting," Wheeler said.
The book includes several charts, many created by Swords, that illustrate the difference between informal and formal English in areas such as subject-verb agreement and past tense. One chart hanging in the back of Swords' classroom last week covered "possessive patterns," such as "The dog name is Jack" versus "The dog's name is Jack."
"I'm still teaching standard English," Swords said, "but I'm going about it in a way that respects the language of every child in the classroom."
The traditional techniques damage self-esteem, she said, and "put the child in a horrible situation where he has to choose between 'the teacher is right' or 'the parent is right.'"
Even more important, the educators said, the "code-switching" approach works better. Since she adopted it, Swords said, the racial gap in her students' test scores has disappeared.
However, the educators acknowledge that their technique is slow to catch on, both locally and nationally. "People are very resistant to going against the traditional way" of teaching English, Swords said.
Karen Aita , an eighth-grade teacher at Northampton Middle School on the Eastern Shore, has used the new technique for nearly two years. Early indications show that 97 percent of her students passed the state Standards of Learning writing exam this year, the highest ever at her school, she said.
"The thing I like about it is, it gets us away from the textbook," Aita said. "Instead of just hearing rules they don't retain, they can visually learn to recognize patterns in their writing. ... They're much more engaged in learning."
Althea Joyner , the senior coordinator of English for Norfolk Public Schools, has met with Wheeler and observed Swords' class. She said she came away impressed and wants to introduce their philosophy in the city's classrooms.
"This is starting in the earlier grades," Joyner said, "and is giving students confidence and an understanding of why they speak certain ways at certain times."
Two Virginia Beach school officials said Friday that they could not comment on Wheeler's and Swords' strategies until they read the book.
Rhonda "Nikki" Barnes , a former English teacher in Chesapeake who now serves as a senior liaison to minority communities for the National Education Association, expressed a mixture of praise and hesitancy.
"It shows that they are culturally sensitive to the students," Barnes said. "... But I think an English teacher should be able to say, 'This is wrong in terms of grammar.' " Colloquial terms such as "cat" and "big man" are not incorrect, Barnes said, but phrases such as "We be" or "I is" are ungrammatical.
Wheeler's response: "Yes, it's not standard English. It's something else."
She and Swords emphasized that they are not teaching students African American vernacular English and that they ask them to translate only from informal to formal English - not the other way around.
The approach, Wheeler said, also benefits students already fluent in standard English. They sharpen their critical thinking skills, she said, and erase misconceptions that their black classmates are uneducated.
Their book was recently published by the National Council of Teachers of English. The subtitle is "Teaching Standard English in Urban Classrooms," but Wheeler said the strategy could just as well apply to "Appalachian-speak or Brooklyn-speak or Pennsylvania Dutch."
And it doesn't take longer to teach. "I would say it takes much less time," Swords said, "because now my kids get it."
We are talking about teaching elementary school children living in the inner city who have to continue living in the inner city at least through the end of their childhood. They have to survive there without being beaten up or harassed daily by those who they live with. Children are shortsighted by nature- they are going to be more influenced by their friends, parents, and the media than by a teacher they have for one year. Teachers do not possess magic wands that can make everyone in a student's life speak only standard English at all times. They have to work with what they have, and if this approach works I really don't see the problem. People are capable of learning multiple language, "code switching" is certainly not impossible to learn.
I new teachers that taught this way here in Baltimore. They were not doing the children any favors. The results are clear to me.
new=knew :)
I'm not a chameleon. I believe people of any skin color deserve respect and the effort to speak PROEPERLY to them. Consistency is a beautiful thing.
Thankfully I'm NOT a liberal bigot!
You sound like the typical "compassionate" liberal.
If you are a teacher, leda, why are you posting without capitalization?
In my homeschool, I taught my children to practice correct punctuation and grammar in writing. Then when stressed or nervous, such as in a job interview, their practiced good habits of speaking and writing would be as reflexive an action as sneezing.
Keep smiling.
Philip.
The rest of my premise is that they are probably not giving the entire story. Is it not important to model correct speech?
yes! switching is something we all learn!
you do learn how to speak differently to your grandmother in
church and to a buddy in a bar. most learn this from their
parents and im sure your mommy isnt hanging out in the church
or in the bar reminding you!
this strategy emphasizes a real skill that people already use
every day!
Exactly what I told muh ma f*ckin students in English class: dat dey can speak as dey wish in da locker room or w/friends an' family, but woe unto dem if dey can't speak grammatical English when dey interview fo' uh job or on da job or in public anywhere. Therefore, dey NEED ta know an' use grammatical English if dey iz ta succeed. peep this sh*t
”Keshawn be needin' Bud Lite!”
you are absolutely right!
The problem is educational factories in the universities are preparing folks to be teachers and not really knowledgable on their real area of expertise. When you look at the troops-to-teachers scheme...bringing GI's in as teachers...they don't waste time with new programs...it's the old fashion educational plan...and just having expectations like any GI would have of their troops. This is a sorry mess to be in.
The traditional techniques damage self-esteem, she said, and "put the child in a horrible situation where he has to choose between 'the teacher is right' or 'the parent is right.'"
Suggestion to solve this problem: All teachers of english as well as administrators should be required to master ebonics as a second language. Instructions and text books should be written in ebonics and in english. Once enough students have graduated, ebonics should also be an included in the multilingual voter pamphlets, roadsigns, markets an elsewhere where necessary in order to include these people in our society.
It's pronounced "nu-cu-lar," dummy. The S is silent.
i just dont in casual writings, like here.
i'd be happy to post or send you examples of my more formal
writing that includes proper capitalization. i believe i've
even posted several pieces here recently. :)
they'll be at a disadvantage if they ever have the desire to leave their racial enclave and interact with others.
Don't you see? It's very simple. It is our responsibility to promote solutions that bring these students into the fold. It's obvious that educators, employers and others who will be interacting with these students today and in the future need to accommodate these students. To force them to learn english is racist and insensitive at best.
hey - don't be plagerizing my work again, dang it. lol.
The article simplifies the vernacular. "Black english" has different verb tenses than Webster's regularized English. It is not just further regularization, as in "we is"/"I is" versus the very irregular "we are"/"I am" for which Webster ruled. For example "I be being just fine." is a verb form for which Webster's English has no ready equivalent. "I am fine." does not suggest the intention to continue being fine against all attempts to dislodge that state of being that "I be being fine." conveys.
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