Discussion Post Required With 2 Responses - Urgent A+ Work Required. 10 Hours

Question 1. As a language educator/writer, what is your responsibility to teach or use standard English? Should you teach standard American English, or some other dialect?

 

It is my responsibility as educator to provide a language arts curriculum that represents socio-cultural diversity. I feel it is critical, especially with current events in our country, and ethically responsible to expose children to the many rich and beautiful cultures and sub-cultures that make our world so magnificently colorful. However, the reality of effectively teaching language arts in a classroom with children who have diverse sociocultural learning experiences, varying degree of parental education, with quite different learning styles and abilities, developing a curriculum that meets every child’s needs, represents a broad socio-cultural perspective, and provides applicable, relevant skills in a limited time-frame is a very tall order. It is my duty to help prepare my students for what is a likelihood of their future. Whether they be heading into the job market as young adults, or to college, or to wander the world, I do believe young adults greatly benefit from a solid foundation of Standard American English. From applying to jobs, colleges, or submitting forms for life such as insurance, driver’s license, etc., I would feel amiss not providing that foundation. With that said, language learning is such a complex process that is deeply rooted in a child’s unique familial and community culture, which significantly impacts his or her cognitive constructs for assimilating new information with previously learned information (Deane, 2018). To me, there isn’t a separation between how a child speaks and how a child learns, so there has to be a bridge between their current dialect and any new language material.

 

I also firmly believe that language is a very personal form of self-expression. Our dialect, vocabulary, and slang are as individual as is our choice of hair style, clothes, food. If we truly want to honor people for who they are, I don’t think we can expect them to abandon their language to meet a standardized version. To me, that is like telling someone you respect their individuality as long as they conform to your expectations. There needs to be a balance between teaching students to recognize and become proficient in Standard American English and providing them many opportunities to self-express with their unique voice. I can’t help but feel that if the educational institution were giving greater liberties for self-expression and socio-sensitive language development, there would be less resistance for also learning Standard American English. That is a personal opinion from parenting and working with adolescents for many years. 

 

There is a dichotomy of human beliefs where we want to be honored as an individual while being accepted in a community (Jang et al., 2017). One potential way to address this in education is to have curriculum blocks or assignments that has a Standard American English as a focus, with differentiated instruction that meets diverse learners where they are developmentally. Then have curriculum blocks or focused learning opportunities to explore and express individual diversity through literature, creative writing, and socio-culturally relevant communication. These subjects can be created to be very flexible with instructional offerings and assignment options. As educators, if we desire to promote true diversity, then we have to model it by allowing for diverse language expression, appropriately and abundantly embedded within the curriculum. 

Deane, P. (2018, October 26). The challenges of writing in school: Conceptualizing writing development within a sociocognitive framework. Educational Psychologist, 53(4), 280-300. https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1080/00461520.2018.1513844

 

Jang, S., Shen, W., Allen, T. D., & Zhang, H. (2017, December 20). Societal individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance as cultural moderators of relationships between job resources and strain. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(4). https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1002/job.2253