Does your preschool/pre-K teacher speak using correct grammar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

OH MY GOD -- YOU JUST SAID BLACK FOLK LEARN TO SPEAK STANDARD ENGLISH FROM THEIR WHITE TEACHERS AND PEERS!!
Newsflash black people are not born speaking "ebonics!
How ignorant can one person be

That's not what I meant to say. There are plenty of black people who speak in Standard English--it is a class thing more than anyone else. But since people on here are concerned about the poor minority kids who don't get exposure to standard English at home, I was just saying that in the schools that people are discussing here, even if the teacher doesn't use standard grammar, they get plenty of exposure at school. There are plenty of upper middle class black people in DC in particular who speak standard English. And there are plenty of white people who have rural accents and grammatical constructs that sound "uneducated."

The term "African American vernacular English" comes from what linguists describe it as in academic literature instead of "ebonics" which is riddled with controversy. Essentially, if you talk to a linguist, as a dialect there's nothing "wrong" with it. It has internally consistent grammar, although it isn't the dialect that is associated with the wealthy and powerful in the country. Many of the issues with it being English that is "wrong" rather than English that is correct but a specific dialect has to do with longstanding racial and class undertones in this country. In Switzerland, for example, there are a number of regional dialects that deviate significantly grammatically from Standard German, but people use those spoken dialects and embrace it as part of their heritage (and written and formal communication is done in Standard German).

Did you listen to Rachel Genteal during the Martin trial? Lots of people could not understand her. That's the problem.

I am a white person, and I didn't have any issues understanding Rachel Genteal during the Martin trial. Unlike some of my peers, I didn't need to turn the subtitles on when watching the Wire. I think in large part it is laziness on white people's part saying "OH THOSE DUMB POOR GHETTO BLACKS WITH THEIR INCORRECT ENGLISH" rather than trying to understand what they are saying. And I think this has a long history of unfortunate racial undertones that people sound be less judgmental of. In the black community, the status quo is the status quo, so I think they should be encouraged to speak in a fashion that is consistent with how people speak in upper middle class America if they want upward mobility. But there is a side of me that fails to understand how other nations (like Switzerland) can have cultures where dialect is spoken without these undertones of "my way is the best way."

What black community?

There are black folks in communities all over this land, so which community and which standard.
I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, just you keep coming off like the White Saviour, even if un intended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I repeat what the AA teacher said when we were told to "accept" Ebonics::These children will never get good jobs if we don't teach them to speak properly.

I completely agree! But this is a loaded issue. It's something that should be addressed within the AA community.

Yes it should be because:

1) all of the millions of black folk in america live in the same d*** community

2) all black folks accept the concept of "ebonics"

3) all black folks not only accept but speak in "ebonics"

4) white folks do not have and never use any type of slang, colloquialisms and at all times and in all the VARIOUS white communites speak PERFECT STANDARD ENGLISH

5) a lot of you are on some OLD BULL**** (HOW IS THAT FOR EBONICS??)

That's not what I meant. Someone else wrote that there's no way for a white person to address this because it seems racist to do so. She went on to suggest having an AA professional broach the topic with another AA teacher. That seems reasonable to me. Of course I know that not all AA people speak this way. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I wasn't trying to imply that all AA people speak this way.

[Anonymous]

What black community?

There are black folks in communities all over this land, so which community and which standard.
I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, just you keep coming off like the White Saviour, even if un intended.

Well sure. I don't mean to be a "white savior." My husband is from the rural South, and I get that how you speak has ramifications how how people perceive you. But obviously there is a specific way of speaking that is associated with black people, especially areas that are predominantly black and inner city. Having lived in Chicago and DC, I am familiar with this phenomenon, and there are pockets of community that are predominantly African American where speaking this way is common. Is this so controversial to say? I get that many professional black people believe that it is important to teach their kids to speak in "standard American English" because how you speak impacts how people perceive you. What I don't get is the amount of shock and vitriol that some white parents have when a teacher speaks in a way that is stereotypically black, and why they think their special snowflakes will be completely destroyed if they try out using some constructions that are not "correct" in preschool. I also grew up with an immigrant grandmother, and I'm used to understanding English that isn't completely "correct," and saw how people judged her as less intelligent, even though she is very bright. Of course it is impossible to talk about this as a white person without coming of as racist or classist on one side, or pedantic and overly PC and academic on the other side. I just wish people would be less dismissive about how others speak who are outside of their communities, because when you actually listen to people, even if people use grammatical constructions you are not terribly familiar with, it's not so hard to understand people (see the Rachel Jeantel case).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What black community?

There are black folks in communities all over this land, so which community and which standard.
I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, just you keep coming off like the White Saviour, even if un intended.

Well sure. I don't mean to be a "white savior." My husband is from the rural South, and I get that how you speak has ramifications how how people perceive you. But obviously there is a specific way of speaking that is associated with black people, especially areas that are predominantly black and inner city. Having lived in Chicago and DC, I am familiar with this phenomenon, and there are pockets of community that are predominantly African American where speaking this way is common. Is this so controversial to say? I get that many professional black people believe that it is important to teach their kids to speak in "standard American English" because how you speak impacts how people perceive you. What I don't get is the amount of shock and vitriol that some white parents have when a teacher speaks in a way that is stereotypically black, and why they think their special snowflakes will be completely destroyed if they try out using some constructions that are not "correct" in preschool. I also grew up with an immigrant grandmother, and I'm used to understanding English that isn't completely "correct," and saw how people judged her as less intelligent, even though she is very bright. Of course it is impossible to talk about this as a white person without coming of as racist or classist on one side, or pedantic and overly PC and academic on the other side. I just wish people would be less dismissive about how others speak who are outside of their communities, because when you actually listen to people, even if people use grammatical constructions you are not terribly familiar with, it's not so hard to understand people (see the Rachel Jeantel case).

I hear what you are saying, just hate the proliferation of the idea that all black folk are alike. And live in the same community and speak alike.
That is all.

[Anonymous]

"African American Vernacular" being referred to as though it was any kind of standard or dialect is a hoax. What is referred to as "African American Vernacular" today in DC is different than what is spoken by African Americans in Detroit, which is different than what is spoken by African Americans in Atlanta, which is different from what is spoken by African Americans in New Orleans or other parts of the country. Additionally, it is also different than how African Americans spoke in DC 20, 30, 40 years ago. As such, there is no "standard", and there is no "dialect."

[Anonymous]

19:32 I think you know that MOST people don't think ALL black people live inthe same place and speak alike. It annoys me when I see a black person getting all nit-picky when white folks say something about the AA community. We all know what that term means. My mother talked about it all the time growing up. In case you can't guess, I'm black.

[Anonymous]

"African American Vernacular" being referred to as though it was any kind of standard or dialect is a hoax. What is referred to as "African American Vernacular" today in DC is different than what is spoken by African Americans in Detroit, which is different than what is spoken by African Americans in Atlanta, which is different from what is spoken by African Americans in New Orleans or other parts of the country. Additionally, it is also different than how African Americans spoke in DC 20, 30, 40 years ago. As such, there is no "standard", and there is no "dialect."

Well, just because there are regional and temporal variances, doesn't mean there are not common grammatical constructions that are linguistically related. For example, dropping the "to be" verb ("he tired," or "she ugly") is a pretty unequivocally "African American Vernacular" grammatical construction. Like all language, it's not stagnant, and there is no standardized form of speaking, but most linguists I speak to consider it a dialect.

[Anonymous]

^^I speak with

[Anonymous]

I hear phrases like "I don't have no..." from both black and white people, and fundamentally I think your grammar choices reflect your level of education and not your race, but I agree that a white parent in DC raising this about a black teacher could/would come off as classist or racist. For no good reason other than that it reflects the sensitivities of the world we live in, especially in DC. As to whether it is ok for a teacher to speak to students in a different dialect, I don't get it. Shouldn't teachers model the behavior (whether it is grammar or something else) we expect to see in our children? And when your kids take English tests in 3rd grade, "I don't have no . . ." is going to be marked incorrect, whereas "I don't have any..." is going to be marked correct. Why should it be ok for a teacher to speak in a form of English that would be marked incorrect on a test? It's sort of like saying it would be ok for a teacher to casually mention during class that 2+2=5, while expecting students to understand that the REAL answer is 4, if they are every asked about it on a math test. Sure, kids can figure it out, but I think those kids who are consistently exposed to correct grammar in the first place are going to have an easier time understanding grammar rules when they start learning them formally in Language Arts class. That's part of the reason that we speak correctly to children at home, right? And, from personal experience, I grew up in a very middle class midwestern town where the schools weren't necessarily great, but I don't remember hearing any poor grammar from my teachers and I remember my parents being horrified when I used "snuck" rather than "sneaked," much less double negatives, etc. I don't remember being exposed to much AA vernacular as a child. That said, I have no problems understanding AA dialect as an adult. I don't buy the argument that hearing "different" (ie, incorrect) grammar is helpful in any way. And if you are hearing your AA teachers speak in a way that is different from what you learn in your grammar books, isn't that reinforcing a notion that the AA community is less educated?

[Anonymous]

PP at 22:44, when I was little, my family spent a year in Germany. At school, everything went on in High German -- the teachers spoke it, the kids spoke it (in class; not at recess), the books were in it, the written assignments were in it, etc. At home, everything spoken went on in the local German dialect.

Nobody thought of the local German dialect as the language equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5. Kids knew how to speak High German at school despite speaking the dialect at home. Nobody said, "People must stop speaking the local German dialect! It is incorrect!"

[Anonymous]

Nobody thought of the local German dialect as the language equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5

Lived in Germany for seven years. That is absolutely not true. The Germans I knew mocked people who spoke "village" German.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Nobody thought of the local German dialect as the language equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5

Lived in Germany for seven years. That is absolutely not true. The Germans I knew mocked people who spoke "village" German.

How about it is not true of your experience, you cannot tell her that her experience did not happen.
You do realize that people can have different experiences don't you??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Nobody thought of the local German dialect as the language equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5

Lived in Germany for seven years. That is absolutely not true. The Germans I knew mocked people who spoke "village" German.

OK, PP, you're right. Some people did think of the local German dialect as the language equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5 -- specifically, the snobby, ignorant ones. The reason most of the Germans I knew didn't mock people who spoke the dialect is because most of the Germans I knew spoke the dialect.

[Anonymous]

Those "snobby ignorant" Germans that I referred to earlier were teachers. I guess they were disturbed that the kids couldn't speak properly.

[Anonymous]

I guess it is sad that people are judged by the way they speak, but it is a fact. Same with clothes, "you never get a second chance to make a good impression."