Johanna: Please, be so kind and provide the bibliographical information which includes research that shows evidence that children "know (unconsciously) what a noun [ or other part of speech] is." I haven't found yet such evidence in all the language literature I have read. Eduard On Sat, 2 Sep 2006, Johanna Rubba wrote... >Rebecca, > >I'd be very interested to know the ethnicity and social standing of the >children in the public schools your son attends (attended?) If they're >African American, and speak natively what is commonly called "Ebonics", >then it's natural that they haven't mastered spoken standard English. >However, they still know (unconsciously) what a noun is. African >American English may not always mark a noun for plural, but "a" and >"the" and "my" and so on will be used as they are in standard English. >Thus, these students could learn to identify nouns by placing a word >alone after "a" or "the" and checking to see if it "sounds right". Few >children come to school with conscious knowledge of what a noun is, but >all children are using nouns correctly (according to the rules of their >dialects). This means they have unconscious knowledge of what a noun >is. > >There is no automatic block to these children's learning standard >English. What usually blocks them is language-arts instruction that >informs them, directly or indirectly, that their English is incorrect; >that they have failed to "learn English" or , worse, "learn language". >Also, the criticism I made of the language-arts lesson for standard >speakers has a dark side: while those standard-speaking children will >get all or most of the answers right quickly and with little effort, >children who speak a different dialect will (a) need more time to do >the work; (b) need to rely more on the grammar terminology and rules; >and (c) are much more likely to make mistakes on the exercise. What >conclusions do teachers and kids reach in this situation? The kids >whose native language is nonstandard English must be slower and less >intelligent than the standard-speaking kids. If they are in a class >with standard-speaking kids, everybody comes to this false conclusion. > >Add in the other socioeconomic disadvantages, as well as the pressure >in their home community to remain loyal to it (and hence not "talk >white"), and you have quite a few demotivators to learning. > >Nonstandard English is also not _necessarily_ a block to learning to >read. Again, the teachers' mindset, their understanding of the >children's home dialect, and how the materials are used are crucial. > >If the children aren't Ebonics speakers, but come from other >working-class or rural dialect-speaking areas, the situation is >similar. Stigmatizing a child's natural speech is not only >scientifically incorrect, it is obviously unfair and psychologically >harmful. > >I very strongly encourage anyone involved with children from a >nonstandard-dialect background to read this excellent article: > >Rebecca Wheeler/Rachel Swords (July 2004) 'Codeswitching: Tools of >language and culture transform the dialectally diverse classroom.' >LANGUAGE ARTS. Vol. 81, No. 6. 470 - 480. > >What this article doesn't report is that Rachel Swords' 3rd-grade class >of Afr. Amer. kids brought their standardized test scores up to those >of the white children in the school (a significant improvement) after >just one year of the alternative instruction described in the article. >(The 3rd-graders who did not get this instruction retained the usual >achievement gap.) Not only that, the children's attitude towards >language arts changed dramatically, and their relationship with their >teacher improved. If you have trouble accessing the article, I can send >you a copy. > >This work is also expanded into a book, "Code-Switching: Teaching >Standard English in Urban Classrooms". You can see the publisher's >material about the book at this page: > >http://www.ncte.org/store/books/grammar/124190.htm > >Other versions of the work are cited on this page: > >http://linguistlist.org/people/personal/get-personal-page2.cfm? >PersonID=10755 > >An excellent, but, sadly, out-of-print book by Walt Wolfram and Donna >Christian, "Dialects and Education", has two chapters on dialects and >reading that are extremely informative. > >Maybe a lot of people don't read my very long posts. If they do, I am >dismayed that so few have responded to what I have said about children >in inner-city schools. This is a civil-rights issue. The futures of >hundreds of thousands of children are at stake. > >Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics >Linguistics Minor Advisor >English Department >California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo >E-mail: [log in to unmask] >Tel.: 805.756.2184 >Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596 >Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374 >URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba > >To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html >and select "Join or leave the list" > >Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/