Holly's response for Codeswitching and Grammar Rants

I really enjoyed both the Codeswitching article and the Grammar Rants article.  When I was working as a peer tutor in a writing center during my undergrad career, I worked with several Deaf students and many ESL students.  One of the strategies that I used with them was to try to make correlations between languages (something I obviously did better with the Deaf students than the ESL students).  It was interesting to watch the students begin to understand a concept.  In Deaf education there is a model called Bi-Bi (Bi-lingual -- Bi-cultural).  The Bi-Bi method works towards using the Deaf culture and language to teach English. This is essentially the same concept as presented in the codeswitching except with language variations instead of two different languages.

As I was reading the article one of the questions I had before I had even finished the article was if there is a way to start with the culture that the linguistic choices come from and then move toward what is considered standard English.  I think Rachel did a wonderful job translating culture into classroom and working with her students and the language cultures they come from. I also thought it was interesting how Rachel had the students do the work of comparing the two language variations.  The students observations were thought provoking.  I thought it was interesting that for such young children they really did seem to have a frame of reference to understand the language variations.

I thought the premise for "Grammar Rants" was interesting.  I know that I have a few grammar rants of my own and I thought it was interesting how the students were taught to analyze the rants and infer from them what a person's impression of them might be.  The way the students were also taught to analyze the speech of the people around them was interesting.  I think that this could perhaps be a good way to increase the students' observation skills and I wonder if this has happen because the students are being asked to be more observant.

Overall, I enjoyed the thought of having the students do the research and making the connections between the common language variations and what some of the common grammar/usage misuses are. I think getting the students involved could be very beneficial to the students and I would be possibly interested in seeing what other benefits the students might receive from being involved in the process of learning.