Let Me Speak: Including English Dialects in the Classroom

by Jessica Jenson

There are at least 38 English dialects spoken in students' homes across the United States. As English instructors, are we doing our students a disservice by correcting their native tongue just because it varies from the standard dialect?

"Speak Now," an art piece I created for my multi-cultural education
 class, represents my hope that regardless of my students' race,
ethnicity, or dialect, their voices will be heard and valued.

My great-grandmother was a high school English teacher in a town with a population smaller than my graduating class. Her students were fresh from farm fields and oil rigs, and they spoke the dialect of their country upbringing. "Ain't" and other such offenses were the norm—except in Grandma's classroom. Her instruction became well known for cleaning up her students' English and transforming them from rough field hands to well-spoken intellectuals.

While I admire my great-grandmother and the English instructors like her, the emphasis on eradicating English dialects concerns me. As I have prepared to become an English teacher, I have come to believe that English instruction should focus on the development of the students' communication and critical thinking skills, not the destruction of their language. Teachers in today's multi-cultural setting should be more accepting of non-standard dialects. Although this shift will be difficult for many of today's educators, the inclusion of all English dialects will increase student engagement, aid comprehension, raise standardized test scores, and foster empathy between differing dialect speakers.

Validating Vernaculars: Five Theses

Each student uses letters like these to shape his or her thoughts. Should English 
educators punish them just because their letters are arranged differently?

Over the last two weeks, I have written about some of the trending topics of English education and linked them to historical and communication contexts. Today, I'm taking one of those topics—validating the many vernaculars and dialects spoken by students—and composing five claims to drive my argument.

First, a brief review. English education has largely focused on instructing students in the traditional dialect of American English, grading on "correctness" rather than actual comprehension and engagement. Researchers are now finding that when teachers accept the individual vernaculars of their students and focus on comprehension, student grades and standardized test scores rise.

Connecting the Dots: English Education Hot Spots

Last week, I wrote about three hot topics in my field of English Education. This week, I'm considering how these hot spots fit in historical and communications contexts.

Validating Vernaculars

English Education has typically taught "correct" language usage, but studies are showing that students who are allowed to use their native vernaculars in class perform better on standardized tests.

Today's students come with a range of ethnic,
 cultural, and language differences.

• Historical Connection:
  The validation of an individual's vernacular is a very Romantic-era-influenced idea. The Romantic time period emphasized the importance of the individual's original thoughts, ideas, and "genius"—all of which cannot be adequately expressed without the use of that individual's native tongue. It's not fair to limit our students' power of expression and educational success to the words we allow them to use.

• Communication Connection:
  Teaching and speaking "correct" English has long been an established path to gaining ethos in school, work, and society. However, we live in a digital civilization with access to instant translations, definitions, and other helpful tools; it makes very little sense to insist on a standard dialect when we have so many ways to easily understand each other literally at our fingertips. 

Hot Spots in English Education

Validating Vernaculars

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Traditionally, English instruction has focused on the "correctness" of students' use of language and grammar, which has marginalized every child who has mastered one of the many English dialects, such as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) or "Spanglish," for lack of a more official term. Educators and researchers are now learning that spending precious classroom time to rid students of their native vernaculars is harming their school and standardized test performance. In classrooms that teach towards comprehension rather than correctness, students enjoy their studies more, their grades pick up, and their standardized test scores rise. (See Moving Students Towards Acceptance of "Other" Englishes, NCTE 2016)

Sacred Things: Literature in Light of the Reformation

The Reformers' Views on Literature

Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash

In 1523, the father of the Protestant Movement, Martin Luther, wrote a letter to a friend to congratulate him on a well-written poem. Luther remarked that the only thing he wanted for the youth of his religious movement was education in literary arts, ultimately vowing “that there should be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see clearly that by no other methods is it possible to train men for the apt understanding . . . and felicitous treatment of sacred things.” Luther believed that art should be used to understand the sacred, rejecting the Catholic church’s tendency to replace the sacred with iconoclastic art pieces. Rhetorically, art's purpose was to bring the audience to a greater understanding of God.