"my English Professor told us that we had to speak in a manner that was understandable to all"
 
I don´t think that there is a manner of speaking that is understandable to all, nor a manner that is better than others. There are ways of speaking that may be more undesratnable to more, as you suggest. In cases of different accents and use of expressions, metaphors, etc., we should try to be as accomodating as possible to include all participants. However, there isn´t one way that will be understandable to all. 
Andres

________________________________

De: povertyracewomen-bounces at nifl.gov en nombre de Jackson, Wendy P.
Enviado el: mié 27/12/2006 8:06
Para: povertyracewomen at nifl.gov
Asunto: RE: dialect


This question not only applies to African Americans. I live in East Tennessee where our Southern dialect is tinged with a left over version of the Scotts-Irish. I was born here, but grew up in Atlanta. My dialect is tinged with the slow drawl of Georgia and the East Tennessee brogue. When I was in college at Berry College in Rome, Ga my English Professor told us that we had to speak in a manner that was understandable to all. He was from Connecticut and did not speak southern. The phrase "that dog won't hunt" meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of what was best, but what was most widely understood. Among family and friends, I tend to be very southern in my speech (minus the heavy Georgia drawl of my sisters who have lived in Georgia all their lives). At work and professional settings, I try to drop the parts of speech that would make it difficult to follow. My husband says "warsh" for "wash" and  allowed to learn reading skills under that rule would affect a great many pronunciations. I try to emphasize not right and wrong or best and worst, but most widely understood. Correction is required for them to be best understood outside of their cultural/ethnic group.
 
Just my 2 cents...
Wendy  
 
 
Wendy Jackson
Roane County Adult Education
Roane State Community College
1082 N Gateway Ave.
Rockwood, TN 37854
(865) 376-6013
jacksonwp at roanestate.edu

________________________________


Message: 2
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 08:07:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Kearney Lykins <kearney_lykins at yahoo.com>
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 137] Re: dialect
To: "The Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy Discussion List"
        <povertyracewomen at nifl.gov>
Message-ID: <20061224160719.49022.qmail at web39107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Daphne,

   If indeed it is true that "their dialect is their dialect and is just as
acceptable as standard english" then their pronunciation needs no correction.

   I would ask this teacher what her goals are for her students. If her goal is to bring them "up" to the norms of a culture that is widely recognized as substandard, then she should let them pronounce words anyway they like. After all, you wouldn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.
   However, if her goal is to  raise her students' abilities above the literacy norms of the society in which they have  been conditioned, then she should correct their every error without remorse.

I cannot believe you are axing this question.

Kearney Lykins




----- Original Message ----
From: Daphne Greenberg <alcdgg at langate.gsu.edu>
To: povertyracewomen at nifl.gov
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 10:31:09 AM
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 136]  dialect

I was recently asked a question from an adult literacy teacher and I
wondered what folks on this listserv think. She teaches basic decoding
skills to adults who read at about the 3rd grade level. In addition to a
language experience approach, she also spends quite a bit of time
systematically teaching them how to sound out words. Many of her African
American students, when reading and sounding out words, read certain
words, the way they speak them. So for example, they read "ask" as "aks"
and "strawberry" as "skrawberry". Since a portion of her class is
focused on teaching letter-sound correspondences and applying it to
decoding new and unknown words should she be concerned about the way
they read those words? She says that during nondecoding time, she is not
concerned, because their dialect is their dialect and is just as
acceptable as standard english. However, she wondered if she is teaching
decoding from a standard english point of view, should she be correcting
the way they read those words?
What do people think?
Daphne
----------------------------------------------------
National Institute for Literacy
Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy mailing list
PovertyRaceWomen at nifl.gov
To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen






__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com <http://mail.yahoo.com/> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/povertyracewomen/attachments/20061224/05fe8d8b/attachment-0001.html

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 10:48:02 -0600
From: "Catherine B. King" <cb.king at verizon.net>
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 138] Re: dialect
To: "The Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy Discussion List"
        <povertyracewomen at nifl.gov>
Message-ID: <001001c7277b$4810cdf0$cad2193f at YOUR85A8F7B8EC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
        reply-type=original

Hello Daphne:

This comes up in my classes frequently--where my teachers are "caught"
between correcting someone's treasured tradition (in how they express
themselves, their dialect, etc.) and what we mean by "Standard English."

The task is to maintain a high regard for their tradition, while introducing
them into what Jesse Jackson refers to as the "cash language" of our time so
that they can operate well in it.  It's not a matter of "either or," but
rather of knowing both, as if there were actually two different languages to
learn, and being able to "walk around" (discourse) in either/both at the
**appropriate** times.  Their other task is to know which is which.

As a teacher we just let them know that this is the general outline of their
task, and they will then be able to choose to do it--or not.  As teachers,
we need not make what amounts to moral or qualitative judgments about
someone's treasured dialect (or suggest that they must make such judgments
about themselves)--the language that most in their home environment still
speak, and will continue to speak.

It's sort of like learning how to discourse in technical language (in any
theoretical or professional field) after having learned "common" language
and the meaning of its terms.   That is, using common meaning and its terms
is one thing, and is appropriate when spoken at home or at the grocery
store, etc.; however, using technical meaning is quite another; and when we
discourse in our field, or in a specific technical-theoretical field, we are
very specific and defined about what we mean; and we use completely
different meanings for sometimes-similar terms that, to the grocery clerk,
would come off as sounding completely "weird and foggy."

Like we would not want to replace common with theoretical discourse in the
grocery store (how awful would THAT be), we often do not want to suggest
replacing a learner's dialect with what we mean by "Standard English."
Trying to do so puts the learner in the position of having to choose between
what is "better" (presumably Standard English) all of the time, and what is
"worse" (presumably, their own dialect and "home language) all of the time.
And there is often some shame involved--which has been a topic here on this
forum recently.   This situation is entirely UNnecessary.

On the other hand, there is a great and necessary value to standards, and of
course to Standard English or any other written language--it's becoming a
worldwide language.

This is not all there is to it; however, if a learner is going to operate in
the "cash language," i.e., work in an office, etc., they need to **also**
know how to speak "Roman as the Roman's do."   <--we must make it what it
is--to THEIR advantage to do so.  We add a differentiation, and not an
either/or choice tinged with some sort of arrogance associated with "white"
standard English.

In brief, one way is to treat Standard English as if it were another
language altogether, which in some cases and sense, it is.

I hope this helps,

Catherine B. King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA



----- Original Message -----
From: "Daphne Greenberg" <alcdgg at langate.gsu.edu>
To: <povertyracewomen at nifl.gov>
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 9:31 AM
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 136] dialect



>I was recently asked a question from an adult literacy teacher and I

> wondered what folks on this listserv think. She teaches basic decoding

> skills to adults who read at about the 3rd grade level. In addition to a

> language experience approach, she also spends quite a bit of time

> systematically teaching them how to sound out words. Many of her African

> American students, when reading and sounding out words, read certain

> words, the way they speak them. So for example, they read "ask" as "aks"

> and "strawberry" as "skrawberry". Since a portion of her class is

> focused on teaching letter-sound correspondences and applying it to

> decoding new and unknown words should she be concerned about the way

> they read those words? She says that during nondecoding time, she is not

> concerned, because their dialect is their dialect and is just as

> acceptable as standard english. However, she wondered if she is teaching

> decoding from a standard english point of view, should she be correcting

> the way they read those words?

> What do people think?

> Daphne

> ----------------------------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy mailing list

> PovertyRaceWomen at nifl.gov

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen

>





------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------
National Institute for Literacy
Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy mailing list
PovertyRaceWomen at nifl.gov
To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen

End of PovertyRaceWomen Digest, Vol 2, Issue 20
***********************************************


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/diversity/attachments/20061231/208703d9/attachment.html