Lots of good stuff in this piece. On the importance of understanding the meaning and utility of Standard English: Standard does not mean proper: I can still remember when you finally convinced me that it was important to have a descriptive rather than prescriptive view of language. Suddenly, I was forced to examine so many prejudices and preconceived notions. It was that moment of understanding that sparked my passion for English as a living, evolving language. Now, as a TESOL teacher, I work every day to make sure that my students appreciate that the rules we study aren’t the right English, and that there’s a right English for the right situation. I tell them what their home languages have contributed to ours, and about the beauty of nonstandard English. On the legitimacy of teaching marginalized and historically discriminated against populations, standard English, rather than protecting them by making this optional within schooling: All dialects are equal linguistically, in that they are regular, rule-governed, and just as effective at communicating as is standard English. They are not, however, all equal socially. Coming from a position of privilege, it was indeed easy for me to toss off such a scenario of equal acceptance. Carla reminded me of the other side of the argument, that the field of linguistics was not going to change the privileging of the standard, and that those who choose to fight that fight without standard English as the medium, or at least as backup, are at risk, educationally and economically. On the difference of scholarly positions: Frequently arguments within, and outside of, the classroom are over differences in a descriptive stance and the prescriptive one. The descriptive stance is focused on understanding phenomena while the prescriptive stance focuses on operationalizing that understanding. If we dont make distinctions between whether we are being prescriptive or descriptive we will be in for a lot of headaches in social, cultural and political discussions. The main point of the piece, however, is that in order to be a good teacher you have to be a continuous learner. Nuff said. André Maurice #StandardEnglish
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 20:22:38 +0000
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