One of the dilemmas for teachers is to field questions on how to guide students to begin (if they haven't already done so) to speak or write in "standard" English. Most people claim to know what that is, what it sounds like, and what it looks like. (Some schools--I talked to teachers in one in California--teach students about social registers.) Of course, teachers presumably know how to create curriculum that will lead students to learn to speak and write well and correctly. What I like about Wheeler and Swords' approach is that they suggest helping students to contrast different diction for different situations. As Mitra says, teachers do not always show students the complexities of "standard" English, especially when a writer elects not to use "it." So Mitra is suggesting that teachers should contextualize the approach.
The contrastive analysis approach links well with Lindblom and Dunn's grammar rants. Think about rants that you have when you hear particular constructions or words and let's talk about those. As Holly points out, Lindblom and Dunn's approach also encourages students to contrastively analyze grammar, etc.
Codeswitching
ReplyDeleteThe examples of codeswitching given in the article were derived from those of an urban environment. However, codeswitching exists in all environments and to a large extent goes unnoticed by others. For example, I periodically here educated people make grammatical errors. I've caught myself making the same mistakes and they are hard to correct. A friend may say, "There's bikes in the garage." making subject/verb errors. If we were to correct someone every time a grammar mistake was made we would probably see those around us disappear.
Rachel's use of contrast to solve this problem was successful for her students. I wonder how we could use contrast to correct ourselves?