Today's video, especially the part where we were introduced to the three African Americans who were students at the MLK School, made me think about how we can use Black English to teach African American children to use Standard American English.
As a psychology student, I have read many studies on the African American community regarding Black English (BE) and Standard American English (SAE). Through the years, researchers have found that African American students comparatively underperform white students in school. Studies have shown that one reason for the underperformance by African American students is due to a language barrier. The students maintain the use of their culturally acquired language BE while the teachers and school systems use SAE. The discrepancy of language hinders the potential progress and opportunities available to African Americans. Teachers must be made aware of this fact and be encouraged and instructed to use BE in their classrooms to assist the achievement of SAE.
It is vital that teachers of African American students realize that the process by which information is acquired is culturally determined. Different ethnicities acquire their knowledge through various means all the while trying to maintain their cultural identity. In order to facilitate the acquisition of SAE by African American students, teachers should be accepting of the BE vernacular. Teachers should incorporate BE in their daily lessons and general communication. When there is acceptance and respect of one’s native language, there is less reluctance to accept SE. The teachers who utilize BE in a respectful and accepting approach will have more success in teaching their students SAE and proper code-switching.
One way in which to teach African American students SAE is to teach in the relational learning style of self-centeredness. Teachers convey the teaching of SAE to their students in a manner that facilitates the desires of a self-centered learner to achieve an education will be beneficial and applicable to solving social problems. It has been found that “the demands of early adult socialization (job seeking, higher education, etc.) may encourage the acquisition of SE competency for the sake of survival or socioeconomic advancement” (Burnett). If teachers show their students the relevance that SAE has on their future, it may help the students to embrace the learning of SAE and learning to properly cod-switch depending upon the context.
Additionally, I have read research that found that children may regard BE as a test of in-group commitment, which would view BE as an acceptable form of speech and SE as selling out. Therefore, African American children may benefit when they learn communally. Teachers can form groups of students that can work together to understand and learn both BE and SAE. The students can work together to use their BE vernacular to translate and form sentences in SAE. By working in groups using both BE and SAE children will not feel that they are neglecting their culture or deviating from the group.
Additionally, teachers can utilize BE in an interaction, motion-filled manner to teach African American students SAE. By moving away from standard teaching methods and using games, songs, and dances that incorporate the use of both BE and SAE could be beneficial in teaching African American students SAE.
Teachers need to concern themselves with teaching African American students SAE and proper code-switching methods. To achieve these objectives, teachers need to step outside the box and use unconventional methods, particularly the incorporation of BE into the school setting. Embracing the students’ culture will only make the learning of SAE more acceptable and important to the students involved.
Do you all have additional suggestions?
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This is an interesting approaching to teaching SAE, although I am still a little confused about the logic of it. However, let's say that it works, how can it be implicated in a classroom where there are a mixture of students of different race and ethnicity, many of whom do not speak BE to begin with? Would it be fair to these students, who don't need to learn BE, but now pick it up from the teacher because she/he wants to help the African American students?
ReplyDeleteAlso, if teachers should use BE to invite the AA students to learn SAE, should they then learn to use all the other different types of vernaculars for students of other ethnicity and race (Asians, Latinos)?
The only way that I can see to implicate this method then without fairness being called into question is for teachers to have a separate classroom, occupied by only African American students who are struggling in SAE. However, that would be considered segregation.
All of this assumes, of course, that the teacher is comfortable and can use BE in the first place. What if the teacher never spoke BE before? Should they now learn BE for the sake of encouraging the African American students to learn SAE? Is that expecting more than is required from teachers?
Lastly, I know that in many schools, especially urban public schools, where there are a large group of African American students, the majority of the teachers are African American themselves and do speak to their students in BE sometimes. An example would be my middle school, which has an overwhelming African American majority. Yet, the rate of students underperforming in these schools are overwhelmingly high. This suggests that other factors such as limited resources and underqualified teachers have a greater or at least as great of an effect on the students' academics than the language barrier.
This makes me think that if the method of using BE to encourage students to learn SAE works, it's effectiveness is still limited a very small percentage of schools, where there are good resources and teachers to begin with, and the only problem is the language barrier.
At the end of the day, not only do I not know how to implicate this method but I don't know how widespread is it's effectiveness. I recognize the language barrier; I had and still have the same problem as an English as a Second Language student, but I don't think speaking BE is the right method to solve this problem.
Sorry, I meant "implement," not "implicate." That's what I get for not proofreading.
ReplyDeleteI guess I made a presumptuous assumption that most African American students who use BE are those that reside in predominantly African American neighborhoods. Therefore, it would be more practical and inclusive to use BE to teach SAE. I definitely see your point that it would be unfair for other students to have to learn BE. I guess maybe if we implemented a program that was similar to ESL or a circle activity, etc., then it would be more fair. I certainly am not advocating the use of BE at all times in the classroom, just some of the time. I guess I felt that if teachers could better relate to the student, then it would be easier for the students to learn SAE.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to teachers learning other types of vernaculars, I’m not that familiar with the area. I specifically studied and looked at the use of BE and SAE. However, I’m sure the results would be very similar.
And as to the fact that there are many other factors that contribute to the fact that many students are underperforming, I definitely agree. But we will never be able to mend all of the problems at once, why not start with language, even if its effects are limited?