Johanna Rubba wrote:
>
> Bob Yates writes:
>
> "To think that our
> students already know a lot about language that has never been taught is
> good news for them and focuses our attention on what we need to teach
> and how we need to teach it."
>
> I am keen for some clarification on this statement. It _seems_ to assume
> that we don't have to teach students stuff they already know. This is true
> as far as un-self-monitored language performance goes.

> But if we want
> students to be able to _analyze_ all kinds of language performance, then
> we have to help them develop _conscious_ knowledge of the things they are
> not currently aware of, such as the rules for using articles in English,
> or why one can say 'I have been cleaning house since 5 o'clock' but not
> *'I cleaned house since 5 o'clock' (at least in standard English).

I didn't know that this was an issue.  How about this one:

To get to Kansas City, you take 50 Highway.
Everyone knows
To get to Kansas City, you take Highway 50.

> In other words, part of grammar instruction is making students consciously
> aware of their language competence, without necessarily _adding to_ that
> competence.

I agree.  And, I would add so that they can make conscious decisions
about the language they choose.

> As I have been thinking about it, we also need to add to the competence of
> many students. Many children today, for instance, have not developed as
> wide a range of registers as kids used to (or maybe this is just my
> generation misperceiving the younger ones??).

I am becoming very, very leery of making such comments.  I would argue
that kids are exposed to a much wider variety of registers on television
and radio than in the past.  For example, there are any number of
programs on television which make a great deal about different people
speaking different registers.  My examples would include The Simpsons,
South Park, any kind of sports show with a variety of athletes, and let
us not forget the registers in pop culture songs.

> The reduction in the amount of time spent reading has also meant that kids
> are exposed to much less formal and standard English than perhaps used to
> be the case (once again I may be idealizing the past); so kids have not
> had as much chance to internalize the grammar, vocabulary, and
> appropriateness conventions of that variety of English.

Again, I have no idea when this Golden Time ever existed.  When did all
kids regularly read the local newspaper or weekly magazines, etc.?  I
think what leads to the above perception is the need of larger
percentages of the population to demonstrate knowledge of
appropriateness conventions has increased.

> For children who have grown up in nonstandard-dialect speaking
> communities, and who have not become bi- or multidialectal on their own,
> quite a bit of new competence must be mastered if they are to become
> proficient and comfortable in using 'school English'.

I don't pretend to know how many children are like that.  We know that
regional accents in this country are getting stronger, not weaker.  I
strongly suspect that given how much easier access to examples of the
standard English and registers is becoming, those numbers are falling.

> It seems worthwhile and important to think these things through. We have
> to be careful not to fault children for not knowing what they have not had
> a chance to learn. And we have to recognize that, whatever background kids
> are from, they have wide-ranging competence in several social varieties of
> their home dialect.

I think it would be the rare exception to have a child who is not aware,
at least unconsciously, that language varies.

> These are issues, I feel, which have to inform our scope/sequence
> discussion. I have not really tackled the problem of speakers of other
> dialects in the teaching methods I am developing. This will be a big flaw,
> if I don't find a way to fix it. In fact, a thread of the SSS discussion
> should be how to best accommodate children from nonstandard-dialect
> backgrounds, as well as children who come from standard-dialect speaking
> homes, but have not been exposed to as many registers of English as they
> will need to be successful in information-age careers, and to be
> well-informed, critically-thinking citizens.

If I think kids come to school with experiences of language register, we
need to think about how to use those experiences.

Bob Yates