Dear Bob,

You responded to my last post:

>  ... if these kids listen to
> rap or other popular songs or if these kids have elaborate chants when
jumping rope, then they
> know something about language form.  My guess is that they know they talk
to a teacher
> differently than they talk to each other at lunch.  This means they have
some knowledge about
> language variation.

Yes, of course they listen to rap songs (I can't answer about the jump-rope
chants - these kids long ago outgrew that), and I guess in that sense you
are correct.  They don't, however, recognize the need for a difference
between the language they use in their neighborhood and that used in the
outside world - of work, of school, of the rest of society.  They DON'T
"talk to a teacher differently than they talk to each other at lunch" - in
fact, you might be shocked at the language that I hear in my classroom,
daily.  This is why I have considered my task so challenging - to open
these minds, and ears, to other linguistic possibilities and to teach them
how to use and choose language appropriate to a given environment.

As part of this challenge, thinking about language - metacognitively - is,
I believe, very important.  If my students don't CONSCIOUSLY consider how
they can use language, they will stay stuck in "the ghetto" all their
lives.

I have, incidently, tried many things, including your suggestion, and some
have worked - in paricular, an approach to _Macbeth_ that made the students
find ways to relate the characters and events of the play to their own
daily lives (they created a semi-improvised production of "Macbeth In The
Hood").  But these lessons are short-lived and do not seem to have a
lasting effect in and of themselves.  Only a long, concerted effort with
constant reinforcement can change their lives over time. I just think that
studying grammar (even for its own sake) is one more form of that
reinforcement.

Paul D.