Oh, boy. I guess listers who are familiar with my postings know where
I'll go with this one.
I realize that students need to learn formal standard English, because
that is the currency of professional and academic discourse. At the
beginning of each quarter, I hand out a copy of my grading standards to
all my students (college students) that says that all work must conform
to the conventions of formal, academic English. And I enforce that.
When my students challenge me on that (because I teach dialect equality
in my linguistics courses), it usually launches a discussion about the
truth of the situation, which proves enlightening for them. I know that
similar discussions might not be so easy for second graders, but there
are ways to adjust for that.
But do we
really have to continue labeling the use of nonstandard English 'misuse'?
A student who says 'had went' says that because she is following the rule
for the construction of the past perfect that is characteristic of her
dialect of English. Same with the student who says 'hisself'. Students
like these are not 'misusing English'; they are correctly using a variety of
English different from the one demanded of them in school. They are
following a different rule, stepping to a different drummer.
Treating a child's native usage as 'incorrect' or 'error' sends the child
a false message: that she has failed to learn language properly. Only
children with verifiable language acquisition deficiencies -- a tiny
fraction of the population -- fail to learn language properly for reasons
of cognitive dysfunction. It also denigrates the fabulous cognitive task
the child _has_ mastered -- following the complex rules of whatever dialect
he or she was raised with.
Too many children and adults think they are stupid because others
misunderstand that the language they use is different, not deficient.
'Basic writers' and children who have trouble with reading and writing
are not helped by innaccurate reinforcement of the notion that there is
something wrong with their English. Differences between their dialect and
the standard dialect do cause problems for _some_ children (not all, as
the many children and adults who are bidialectal show) in learning to
read and write, but dialect differences are not the only source of
difficulty for these children.
Sending children positive messages about their language by showing that
it is rule-governed and just as good for communication as standard
English usually works _for_ them: they realize the true nature of the
task before them (not to 'fix' their stupidly incorrect version of the
language, but to learn a slightly
different version of the language they have already mastered, and learn
to do new things with it, like read and write). They often find exercises in
comparison of their rules with 'school English' rules interesting and
motivating. If they know they have already mastered one kind of English
very well, it gives them confidence that they can learn another kind, if
they just pay attention and work at it.
The mess over Ebonics shows how widespread misunderstanding of variation
within English is -- the fuss over teaching 'bad English'; the hysteria
provoked by the idea of a child's reader in 'a dialect' (as if standard
English weren't a dialect!); the constant challenging of the notion that
the best way to bring a student to proficiency in school is to separate
the tasks of literacy from any particular language system; bring them to
literacy in their own language, then transition them to the standard dialect.
Children are language learning machines, and if you provide them with two
key elements: tons of exposure (lots of reading and writing) and
motivation (interesting material and a reason to learn), they will learn
whatever you put in front of them.
Reinforcing the notion that using standard English makes a child more
'mature' and 'educated' just reinforces prejudice against people who can't
or won't use standard English. Sure, the inability to use standard
English is sometimes an indicator of poor success in school, but we all
know that people fail in school for all kinds of reasons, not just lack
of innate intelligence. And suppose they _do_ lack innate intelligence?
Does that make them less valuable as human beings?
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Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184 E-mail: [log in to unmask] ~
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