Hooked on Ebonics

1
Hooked on Ebonics

• The Social Attitudes Towards African American
  Vernacular English (AAVE) in California's
  Education System

2
Origins of AAVE

• Different views of origin
• Incorrectly learned English
• Dialect containing many W. African elements of
  grammar
• 1700s to 1900s almost 90 of blacks lived in the
  South
• Blacks in the North lived in segregated
  communities and had ties to the South

3
Dialect vs. Language

• Dialect is
• Language is
• AAVE is categorized as both, according to who is
  authoring the decision

4
1996 Oakland District Decision

• Classified AAVE as a language most spoken by
  black students in their school district
• Different interpretations of ruling
• Ebonics to be taught in classroom?
• Supreme Court Decision of 1979
• Stigma
• Teacher population's perception as
  incomprehensible
• White, monolinguals

5
Attitudes towards AAVE

• STIGMA
• Said this accounted reasons for high unemployment
  rates in blacks
• Black children under-perform in standardized
  tests
• AAVE equated with ignorance and other negative
  connotations
• Categorized as bad rather than as different

6
Supreme Court Ruling 1979

• Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Black students were put into special education
  courses unnecessarily
• Result
• Teachers must take into account the personal
  language patterns of their students.
• Students have the civil right to be taught in a
  language which they can comprehend

7
Oakland Student Performance

• Schools failed to educate AA students
• Stigmatization of AAVE
• Turned their speech into a disadvantage
• Teachers perceived students as less smart
• What other dialect is equally stigmatized?

8
Supreme Court Decision 1979 Results

• Bilingual programs in the 1980s and 1990s
• Requires teacher to learn features of a language
  and how students acquire a language
• Make connections with what student already knows
• Very similar to how AAVE is used in Cali.
  Classrooms
• Use of nonstandard to teach the standard
• Mastery of language is impeded when learner is
  devalued
• Identity
• Psycho-educational principle

9
Federal Bilingual Education Act

• For the teacher, this means that differences in
  language usage among African-American students
  should not be ascribed to greater carelessness,
  laziness or stupidity on the part of Negroes, but
  rather should be treated as what they really are
  -- language patterns which have been in existence
  for generations and which their present users
  have acquired, from parent and peer, through a
  perfectly normal kind of language-learning
  process. (rationale point 3)

10
Statement from the National Council of Teachers
of English

• We believe that The Black language system of
  itself is not a barrier to learning. The barrier
  is
• negative attitudes toward the language
  system
• lack of information about the system
• inefficient techniques for teaching
  language skills
• and an unwillingness to adapt teaching
  styles to student learning needs
• Written before Cross-cultural, Language, and
  Academic Development (CLAD) credential

11
Educators of the Los Angeles Unified School
District

• THERE IS A NEED TO
• Recognize and value African American
  language (Black Language) as a viable
  language with its own system of rules,
  sounds, and meaning.
• Help students learn to switch from African
  American language to standard English, when
  appropriate.
• Use teaching strategies that capitalize on
  identified student strengths.

12
Basis

• Language is an integral part of one's
  identity and culture
• The dignity of a person is not guaranteed
  unless the dignity, of his or her people is
  preserved
• The unique history, culture, and language
  of each child must be recognized and respected
• Teaching methodology must accommodate the
  culture and language of the child

13
Ebonics in Classroom

• Use of Vernacular to teach the Standard
• Retain home dialect, not replace it (identity)
• Non-traditional teaching methods
• Word drills, translate from standard English into
  AAVE and vice versa
• QA drills to understand context

14
Citations

• Williams, P.J. (2001). The hidden meanings of
  black English. The black scholar,27(1).
• Croghan, M.(2000). History, linguistic theory,
  California's CLAD, and the Oakland public
  school resolution on ebonics what are the
  connections? World englishes,19(1).
• Perez, S.A. (2000). Using ebonics or black
  English as a bridge to teaching standard
  English. Contemporary Education, 71(4).