EBONICS & LITERACY.   Term Paper ID:25582 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines relationship between students' use of African-Amer. dialect & ability to learn, speak & write Standard English.... More...

6 Pages / 1350 Words 16 sources, 27 Citations, APA Format $24.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Examines relationship between students' use of African-Amer. dialect & ability to learn, speak & write Standard English. Paper Introduction: EBONICS AND LITERACY Dialects in the United States are spread throughout the country. Not all members of a group speak the same dialect, and dialects among groups differ. The most controversial dialect in American English is Ebonics. In order to advance socially and economically, individuals must have access to the culture of power, and therefore, dialect use is often discouraged by teachers in favor of Standard English use. But, does sufficient reason exist to discard or devalue vernacular dialects in pursuit of literacy in Standard English? There is “scarcely a country in the world today that could claim to be monolingual in any real sense…Furthermore, historical linguistic conflicts reemerge as minorities assert their identity” (“Literacy”, no date, p. 1). In 1990, over 30% of the public school s Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. 1) When working with students who use dialects, educators must considerthe value of the dialect in the child's culture and community and also theeducational and employment needs of the individual. Washington, DC: U.S. Available:http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/classics/reading/section-one.htm. Areskills such as reading and vocabulary good indicators of how well asecondary student will write, especially in the case of minorities? Another successful approach with dialect speakers has a 1 -year trackrecord. CreoleOriginsOfAAVE.html. Sanchez, William; and Others. The most successful teachers taught all of theirstudents to listen for standard English distinctions, used rhythmic play,and generally engaged the entire class in discovering how to use standardEnglish correctly. Oliver, Eileen. (no date). Hornick, Karen. (1997, December). Ann McCormick Piestrup addresses thisquestion in her 1973 study of 2 8 African American first graders inOakland, CA. by S. Rickford, John R. Initially the program emphasized the differences between AAVEand SE, but "now stresses bidialectalism more generally, taking intoaccount the international backgrounds of many students...Last year,students who had taken the course improved verbal test scores at everyschool", including a 5.2 percentage point increase at one school (Cummings,as quoted in Rickford, 1997, "Letter"). The Creole origins of AfricanAmerican vernacular English: Evidence from a copula absence. Using the vernacular to teachthe standard. Literacy is defined as the ability to read, write, and create. Let the writing speak for itself:Assessing the composing skills of inner-city African American students.ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. These children had the highest reading scores in class(Piestrup, as cited in Rickford, 1997, "Letter"). Available: http://ericae.net/db/riecije/ed366944.htm. Available:http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/classics/reading/section-four.htm. Wittmer, Joe. (1992, December). The most controversial dialect in American English isEbonics. Available:http://ericae.net/db/riecije/ej415 2 .htm. Tove Bull, the researcher, concluded that: "With respect to reading and reading abilities the results above show that the vernacular children read significantly faster and better than the control subjects. These studies support teaching non-standard speakers intheir own dialects, but what about AAVE speakers who, presumably, have morein common linguistically with standard English than do dialect speakersfrom other regions or countries? (199 , July). Ima, Kenji, & Labovitz, Eugene M. Performanceof working class African-American children on three tests of articulation.Language, 21, 171-176. Mufwene, John R. Reading concerns. (1986, October). Language proficiency,ethnicity and standardized test performance on elementary school students.ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. Thus, learning to write StandardEnglish can mean mastering the patterns of an entirely new language system"(Hornick, 1986, p. Language of Literacy, The. Smitherman, Geneva. De Kalb County, Georgia stresses bidialectalism in its fifth andsixth grade classrooms in eight different schools. 1-2). REFERENCES Adger, Carolyn Temple. Rickford, John R. If engaging students of all dialects and languages indiscovering the differences and similarities among their languages leads toreading success, will conventional reading books enhance or detract fromthe process and eventual success? Cole, Patricia A., & Taylor, Orlando L. Language policy andpublic knowledge. In order to advance socially and economically, individuals musthave access to the culture of power, and therefore, dialect use is oftendiscouraged by teachers in favor of Standard English use. In short, they aretaught to "switch" from their "home speech" to "school speech", when it isappropriate. Rickford, John R. Available:http://ericae.net/db/digs/ed275792.htm. Rickford, John R. (In AfricanAmerican English, ed. The literatureinforms us that children who "speak non-standard or vernacular varieties ofa language tend to do relatively poorly in school, especially in reading,writing and related subjects" which require a thorough understanding ofStandard English (Rickford, 1997, "Letter", pp. Available:http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers. (1997, January 21). Washington, DC: AmericanPsychological Association. Available:http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/VernacularToTeachStandard.html. (1997, January 22). Available:http:/www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/SuiteForEbonyAndPhonics.html. EBONICS AND LITERACY Dialects in the United States are spread throughout the country.Not all members of a group speak the same dialect, and dialects amonggroups differ. Teaching children to use Standard English in appropriatecontexts while respecting and maintaining their native dialect may be thequickest and most successful route to literacy. ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment andEvaluation. Her study, Black dialect interference and accommodation ofreading instruction in first grade, concluded the following: 1. They bolster their argument withresearch that shows "that before they finish their elementary school yearsimmersion program, children show no significant differences in readingtheir mother tongue as compared to control groups in normal programs.Other studies suggest that the language of initial literacy is notsignificant to achievement in English literacy (Ramos et al., 1967; Cohen,Frier, & Flores, 1973)" (as cited in "Language", 1999). They made superior progress during the year compared with the poor readers in the control group" (Bull, as quoted in Rickford, 1997, "Letter"). The relationship between the teacher's teaching style, and the way s/he responded to their pupil's language, had a distinct correlation between the student's success and failure in reading (Piestrup, as cited in Rickford, 1997, "Letter"). The blacker the berry, thesweeter the juice: African American student writers and the NationalAssessment of Educational Progress. Interrupting and correcting nonstandard dialect speakers has theeffect of increasing their use of the dialect, while engaging the child inusing, comparing, and contrasting language use among all students has theeffect of decreasing dialect use and increasing the use of StandardEnglish: Hanni Taylor's 1989 book, Standard English, Black English, andBidialectalism, reports that the experimental group "showed a 59% reductionin the use of Ebonics features in their SE [Standard English] writing"while the group taught using traditional methods showed an 8.5% increase inthe AAVE features" (Taylor, as quoted in Rickford, 1997, "Letter"). Department ofEducation, National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education at GeorgeWashington University. There is evidence that "taking the vernaculars of students intoaccount can facilitate their mastery of the standard variety [of English],as well as the curriculum-central skills of reading and writing" (Rickford,1997, "Letter", p. Other research supports the conclusion that minorities often domuch better on essay exams than on multiple choice tests" (Oliver, 1993, p.1). It is estimated that in the year 2 approximately 43% of the population of the United States will be from aracial or ethnic minority group, presumably, with their own languages ordialects. There is "scarcely a country in the world today that could claim to bemonolingual in any real sense...Furthermore, historical linguisticconflicts reemerge as minorities assert their identity" ("Literacy", nodate, p. Available:http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed39 18.html. For 35 weeks a group ofdialect speakers were taught to read in their nonstandard dialect and thenwere later "transitioned" to standard Swedish. 1-2). (no date). This technique was better, that is, quicker and surer, in comparison to R group's [control]. D pupils [dialect speakers] also understood better what they read (p.136)" (Osterberg, as quoted in Rickford, 1997, "Letter"). 2). The control group wastaught first in standard Swedish. (1995). A study by Ima and Labovitz (1991) reports that academic "performanceis strongly related to ethnicity. It was thought not, consequently, theBridge readers were published by Houghton Mifflin in 1977 and providedreading materials in AAVE, in a transitional variety, and in StandardEnglish. Results reported in Tore Osterberg's 1961 book, Bilingualism and thefirst school language--an educational problem illustrated by results from aSwedish dialect area, support the dialect method. A testof students in three different states showed that "even students with lowskill test scores in grammar and vocabulary can score quite high inwriting. 1), with its attendant implications for the developmentof literacy. (1991). ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and StudentServices. Teaching writing to linguisticallydiverse students. Letter to Senator ArlenSpecter, Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services andEducation; Committee on Appropriations. Osterberg reports that: "the dialect method showed itself superior both when it was a question of reading quickly and of rapidly assimilating matter which comes fairly late in the course. Reading is the most sensitive toacculturation, while language is more likely to measure accomplishmentbased on memorization, and consequently effort" (p. (1993, November). But, doessufficient reason exist to discard or devalue vernacular dialects inpursuit of literacy in Standard English? (1997, September 17). Instruction in dialect has thus resulted in a good general reading technique in both dialect and standard language. 1).Unquestionably, linguistic diversity is here to stay. Washington, DC: U.S.Department of Education, National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education atGeorge Washington University. On the other hand, those who argue for teaching in the standardlanguage indicate that "children who learn to speak and read in a non-mother tongue language immersion program can easily switch to reading theirmother tongue language even though they are not taught to read in thatlanguage" ("Language", 1999, p. There are plenty of experts who favor teachingstudents in their own vernacular or mother tongue (UNESCO, 1953; Barrera-Vasquez, 1953; Osterberg, 1961; Modiano, 1968; as cited in "Language",1999); (Adger, 1997, pp. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Available: http://www.cal.org. ERIC Digest, 32. Rickford, John R., & Rickford, Angela E. London: Routledge, 1998). Available:http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/classics/reading/section-six.htm. Literacy in a multilingual world. Available:http://ericae.net/db/riecije/ed3818 3.htm. In 199 , over 3 % of the public school students were eitherAfrican American or Hispanic. (1998, March 25). This figure is projected to increase to more than 5 % of thepopulation by the year 2 75 (Locke, as cited in Wittmer, 1992, p. Washington, DC: U.S. It seems as if particularly the less bright children were the ones to benefit from this kind of teaching. Thisdifference has to do with the fact that students were "often unaware of theprecise points on which AAVE and SE differed; raising their awareness ofthis difference through contrastive analysis helped them to limit AAVEintrusions in their SE usage" (Taylor, as quoted in Rickford, 1997,"Letter"). 1-2). The least successfulteachers interrupted their students in order to correct their perceivedmistakes. 1). A Norwegian project, which was conducted between 198 and 1982,involved 2 7-year old students. Valuing Diversity in the Schools:The Counselor's Role. Working with diverse learnersand school staff in a multicultural society. (1999). Available:http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed347475.html. The dialect group was taught to read andwrite in their Norwegian vernaculars and the control group was taught thestandard language. Teaching techniques may be the route to success in helping AAVEspeakers to use Standard English effectively. Ann Arbor, MI: ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling andPersonnel Services. Available:http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/ebonics/SpecterLetter.html. Dialect readersrevisited. Once we accept that Ebonics (or African American Vernacular English)is a language or a dialect, then we must accept that children who speakEbonics should be taught like all other second language students: Teachersmust "realize that students' home language practices are fundamental to howthey see themselves and the world. Linguistics and Education, 7, 1 7-128.Available: http://www.cal.org/ebonics/ebrickfo.htm. The same applied to reading and reading- comprehension (p.135). Corroborating this evidence is a study which analyzed the degree towhich AAVE survived in the writing of 867 Black students between 1984 and1988/89 indicated that "no correlation existed between a discerniblyAfrican American discourse style and the production of BEV [Black EnglishVernacular] syntax, supporting earlier studies" (Smitherman, 1993, p. Field tests, reported in Geneva Smitherman's book, Black Englishand the education of Black children and youth, indicated that studentstaught by the Bridge method showed "an average gain of 6.2 months for fourmonths of instruction, compared to only an average gain of 1.6 months forstudents in their regular scheduled classroom reading activities" (Simpkins& Simpkins, as quoted in Rickford, 1997, "Letter"); (Rickford, 1995, pp. Available:http://ericae.net/db/riecije/ed3417 .htm. Rickford, Guy Bailey and JohnBaugh. (1993, November). 1). Suite for ebony and phonics.Discover Magazine, 1-7. 1). (1995). Children who used more of the features of AAVE had lower reading scores; 2. While this argumenthas been used to discourage dialect use, the literature does not supportsuch a stance. Departmentof Education, National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education at GeorgeWashington University. This caused the children to withdraw from participation in theclassroom activities. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.