Len Wyatt wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say here, David. And for me, theI teach my teacher-education students that it is OUR JOB to teach standard English in the schools, to assure that our students exit with the capacity to speak and write proficiently in formal, received Standard English.
contradiction is a serious consideration in my classroom. Do I teach
"Standard English" or do I accept as standard what the majority of my
students may actually agree upon as "correct"?
Now, that said, there is much involved in achieving this. Instead of teaching the Standard as the all and only 'correct,' 'good' English, I approach it as the Language of Wider Communication (Power Language; the language of business; school English; Book English, edited American English, Standard Written English -- SWE, etc. etc.), and work with the students to contrastively discover the contrasts between home/community verbal expression, and the structure of our LWC -- Language of Wider Communication.
The school systems have charged us with preparing our students to enter the wider world of business, government, and academia, and to do so they must be able to operate within Standard English. But that doesn't mean we treat it as a monolith; instead, we can treat it as the language VARIETY that it is -- one language variety, but one that they will need.
A student came to me recently and commented that he had talked to an African American mentor. The mentor had been accused of speaking "White English," but in reply, that teacher commented, "I don't speak White English; I speak GREEN English -- the English of money." Seems apt to me.
cheers folks
rebecca wheeler
I have often drawn attention
to a student's use of "I and John" when they should be using "me and John."
What fascinates me is that they frequently rush to change the phrase to
"John and I." I put it down to the elementary school training in "polite"
usage, which demands that you put others before yourself in a series.
However, I have NEVER met a student willing to use the first person pronoun
improperly ON ITS OWN. The fellow who writes "Me and her are having a great
time," would NEVER write "Me am having a great time," or "Her is having a
great time."As far as the subjunctive is concerned, I agree with Jeff Glauner that it
may be leaving us. I don't for a moment believe, though, that it is
happening by choice. People cannot choose to not use something that they
have never learned. The question for me is should we give up teaching it
because only a few will learn and use it?Always a pleasure to read this list -- thank you all.
Len Wyatt
Terry Fox Secondary School
Port Coquitlam
BC, Canada.
unctive
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Rebecca S. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Christopher Newport University
1 University Place
Newport News, VA 23606-2998
Editor, Syntax in the Schools
The Journal of the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar (ATEG),
an
assembly of the NCTE
http://www2.pct.edu/courses/evavra/ATEG/SiS.htm
phone: (757) 594-8891; fax: (757) 594-8870
email: [log in to unmask]
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