From the reading Honoring Dialect and Increasing Student performance in Standard English I learned that students should not have their cultural identity taken from them in the classroom. All children are different even if he or she is from the same place. Another good point I took from the reading was that the "wrong way" is not always wrong. Some children need his or her home culture to boost their learning of something new. The students assimilate and accommodate new ideas into the things they already know or rearrange their thoughts to learn. Third, I learned that a dialect can go from being a hindrance to fostering success. I thought the idea of code switching was very interesting. When I thought about it I realized I code switch when I write all the time. I would not write a paper of this blog in the language and manner that I would write a comment or text message to a friend.
Home voices are important- it is who we are the way we communicate. Teachers can build off of student's language to creatively write and build new skills.
"When we encounter linguistic prejudice, some of us dismiss it while others adopt the stereotypes attached to our dialect." Students need to realize that their dialect and culture is never "stupid" or "incorrect" it is a way of communication and should be embraced. Teachers should not try and stop a student from communicating because they may stop communicating altogether for fear of being "wrong."
Why do we have dialect? This is an important question to discuss with students. It would be very interesting to hear student thoughts on the way an area speaks and writes. This is important to the discovering who we personally are socially. People should know his or her heritage because it is a beautiful thing to know who you are.
Students need to know and understand that stereotypes are not all bad; misconceptions make stereotypes bad. Appalachian dialect is a stereotype but Appalachia is not the only region with a prominent dialect.
With a dialect or with out a dialect students still have distinct learning styles that have to be addressed. Teachers will have to be aware of dialect and how his ir her students react to learning "standard English." For example I am visual and auditory; I have to hear it being spoken and see how it is written.
If teachers do not use a wide variety of methods to teach "standard English" students may turn from the desire to learn the concept. Students may also be under the impression that they already speak/write in "Standard English."
Students should be encouraged to embrace his or her culture. Some teachers may try and void students of his or her culture in a school setting and this seems hindering to me. we are all different no matter how similar we are. Those with cultures very different from the norm of the area should be even more encouraged to share his or her culture with others.
Students could research his or her culture and use their new skills to create a more formal presentation about it. This could teach children to embrace their culture while embracing new skills. Students could present their finding to the class to show how different we all really are from one another.
Teachers should know his or her own background and show true interest in all cultures.
The more knowledge students have about our world the more children will learn to be open minded citizens in our ever changing society.
Students can learn from each other. Some students are actually more receptive to learning from his or her peers.
When teachers group students in learning groups he or she can work closer to students and hear opinions in a smaller setting. Students may open up more to others in a smaller setting.
Student perspective should be heard and discussed. Students all have thoughts about subjects and this should be embraced. Classmates can talk and discuss issues but there needs to be rules and boundaries to discussion.
Students can also write about their perspectives and share perspectives if they wish.
Students need to learn to be listeners. Teachers could do listening activities and listening sessions.
Teachers could do lessons on listening skills.
Literacy instruction in the elementary/middle school consisted of basil readers, weekly readers, worksheets, story writing (stories were corrected completely when handed back and a final copy rewritten using the teacher's corrections.) This is all we really did that I remember until we began the Accelerated Reader program. This consisted of reading a book on our "level" and testing for points and if we did not reach our point goal we were given a bad grade that in no way reflected our abilities.
I found the website: http://knowledgeloom.org/practices3.jsp?location=1&bpinterid=1110&spotlightid=1110 . This site explain Culturally Responsive Teaching and thing that teachers should be aware of when teaching in this manner.
Works Cited:
Epstein, P., Herring- Harris, L. (2011, September 15). Honoring dialect and increasing student performance in standard english. Retrieved from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3655
Culturally responsive teaching. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://knowledgeloom.org/practices3.jsp?location=1&bpinterid=1110&spotlightid=1110
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