If you teach students with fluency in nonstandard dialects, seek to learn the history and some of the most common structures of that dialect. Find texts (oral, written, or multimedia) that model effective communication in the dialect and incorporate these into your own reading and your close reading with students. This is a relevant opportunity to engage students in what is already called for in college and career readiness standards—a close analysis of the following questions: What is the audience and purpose for this text? How do the author’s linguistic choices impact tone and communication? Students with fluency in more than one dialect have increased background knowledge for this type of analysis and increased linguistic options for communication across diverse contexts for different audiences and purposes. What a gift!
Teaching “standard” English and valuing students’ primary language(s) is not an either/or proposition. Having a “yes, and” mindset means we simultaneously value students’ home language and the academic language we want them to speak in school. We can do this by being curious about the language assets students bring to school and making intentional connections to those assets in our teaching.
4. Value “Errors” as Formative Language Data
When students’ English use doesn’t sound or look right to you, be curious about the specifics. Be curious about what logical rules students may be applying from their first language. Why did the student make that language choice? Would that use of grammar or vocabulary make sense in the student’s primary language or dialect?
I put “error” in quotes for a very important reason: Error is a relative term. What sounds like an error in Standard English is often the result of students following the linguistic rules of their primary language. This is true whether a student speaks a language like Spanish, Chinese, or Arabic or a non-standard dialect of English.
When you hear an “error” or what sounds like an awkward use of English, reflect:
What can I learn from this about the language needed for success with this conversation task?
What can I learn from this about my students’ understanding of how to use language? Would that use of grammar or vocabulary make sense in the student’s primary language or home dialect?
How will I use these data to adjust my teaching? Will I provide one-on-one feedback or a whole-class mini-lesson in the moment? Will I adjust my scaffolds? Will I opt to change nothing in the moment (so critical thinking and risk taking get more emphasis than grammar in this task) and instead use these data to plan a follow-up language lesson to address this need?
If ELs use awkward grammar, is it because they are logistically applying a grammatical structure from their first language? Knowing this is powerful as it helps you validate what students know and teach clearly the difference between the two languages.
For example, when I lived in China, people would greet me with a question: “Ni hao bu hao.” The word-for-word translation is “You good not good.”
What?
“You good not good” sounds odd to my English ear for grammar. It is, however, logical and correct grammar in Chinese. If I translated “How are you?” word for word into Chinese, it would sound odd to a Chinese speaker.
Does this mean I have no concept of grammar? Not at all. I have a very strong sense of grammar from my first language and will keep applying those rules to every new language I learn until I see the clear difference and learn different rules.
If a Chinese-speaking EL spends some time with a bilingual dictionary, then says to me, “You good not good,” does the student understand grammar?
Yes. And the student also needs to learn the difference in English grammar for this context.
5. Use Contrastive Analysis to Build on Primary Language Assets
Contrastive analysis is a strategy of engaging students in contrasting two ways of communicating the same message for the same purpose, one in the students’ home language or dialect and one in the new language (LeMoine & Soto, 2017; Taylor, 1991). In my Chinese example, I guide the student in contrasting the two grammatical structures for “How are you?” by writing the two different versions one above the other, in English, as follows:
You good not good.
How are you?
I point to the first example and acknowledge that this grammar is correct in Chinese. I explain that in English we don’t use the same structure. Instead, we use a different structure (I point to “How are you?”) to ask a question. Then I say, “Let’s read it together.”
This is one way to have an asset mindset about students’ linguistic strengths. We don’t just correct what is “wrong” in English; we are curious about what the student already knows and can do in another language that directly relates to this learning. We look to see what grammatical rules the student is applying from the first language, then help the student contrast the two languages side by side to learn the specific difference. Whereas pointing out errors negates students’ primary language knowledge, a contrastive analysis approach helps students engage in the high-level process of analyzing how different uses of language are appropriate for different contexts. This is an important concept both for English language arts and for effective bilingual communication.
To learn more about contrastive analysis including specific strategies and texts that especially benefit SELs with fluency in African American English, read pages 39–46 of Noma LeMoine and Ivannia Soto’s book Academic Language Mastery: Culture in Context (2017).
6. Choose “Enabling Texts” for Your Classroom Library and Teaching
Choosing texts that positively influence and engage ELs and students of color is beyond the scope of this book. That said, the texts we choose are so critical to how we apply the value mindset to everyday teaching, and I recommend readers learn and use Dr. Alfred Tatum’s (2009) approach to select “enabling texts.” For a brief introduction to this concept, reflect on the following questions I co-created with Zaretta Hammond (personal communication, July 4–7, 2017):
Do my texts serve as a road map to help students socially and emotionally navigate their everyday lives and the world outside of their immediate community?
Do my texts focus on self-determination and self-reliance? Do they challenge the victim mentality?
Do my classroom texts recognize, honor, and nurture students’ multiple identities? For example, beyond thinking about one aspect of identity you see (e.g., Spanish speaker), consider how texts honor and nurture the diverse personal, social, academic, and cultural identities students navigate inside and outside of school.
For deeper exploration into choosing texts that engage and affirm students of color, please read Tatum’s Reading for Their Life: (Re)building the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males (2009).
Questions for Humble Reflection
What Are My Perceptions?
What are my perceptions about ELs in my classroom and school? How do these shape my expectations and my response to ELs as they engage (or are silent) in my classroom tasks?
What is my primary cultural orientation along the continuum of individualism to collectivism? Is it the same as, or different from, the dominant culture of the school? Is