Thursday, September 6, 2012
The Dialect Divide
As a kindergarten teacher, the minds I will be molding will be young enough that there may not be as great of a divide as one might see with a high school teacher. At the ages of five or six, they are still young enough that they have not been ingrained with the false beliefs that specific cultures, and therefore dialects, may be considered superior over others. Because of this, I will be given the advantage of having a jump start on teaching them that there are no correct or incorrect dialects before others have the opportunity to tell them differently. With that said, it will still be my job to teach them the rules and regulations of both speaking and writing in standard english vernacular. While I would encourage students to be comfortable speaking in their specific dialects, I would continue to speak to them in the standard english that I was taught in school so that they can become familiar with both ways of communicating. However, because children are so easily influenced by others, I believe it is the perfect time to teach them to be open minded. I would definitely establish that speaking differently from another person is in no way incorrect. It is certainly not my place to try and change the way a student would speak when he or she is around their friends and family, but it is important to teach the most socially accepted vernacular so that they can be fully prepared to excel when their time comes to face the professional world.
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I think you will be in an interesting position in this debate. Many of the blogs I've read (mine included) discuss this from a high school perspective and how we'll deal with it at that level. Dealing with it at an elementary ed level brings about a different sense of challenges. I think in your situation it would be a tight line to walk between teaching standardized English (which may be insisted upon from administrators and parents) and allowing children to speak how they do at home. I think for myself, I imagine me leading discussions with high schoolers about how they view dialects, but I wouldn't think you could do so at the kindergarten level (at least I couldn't when I was that age!) I'd like to hear more about how you would walk that line.
ReplyDeleteI am a little jealous that you get to mold minds at such a young age. As a future high school teacher I will be working with students who have already established a view point on various dialects. However, I believe teaching young students the nuances of various dialects will be difficult-obviously they will not be ready to tackle grammatical differences. I hope you are successful in fostering an open-minded attitude among your students so that by the time they get to high school (and me) they will be more accepting in learning various dialects!
ReplyDeleteThe golden rule, along with the simple educational rhyme of sharing is caring, you can apply your wonderful trade effectively. The great thing about youthful exuberance not only by the teacher and by the students at such an age, is that a blending of ideals and backgrounds is much more seamless to a not bigoted or stereotyped mindset of a prepubescent child. Thus, with your helpful prodding as a elementary school teacher, the students will be the better part of a generation that no longer ostracizes and segregates because of language barriers. The problem is, we need everyone to apply this standard towards teaching.
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