🚀 go-pugleaf

"Paul Hovnanian P.E." <Paul@Hovnanian.com> wrote:
>> >>>I haven't read the entire LONGwinded thread, heh.  Just saw this post from
>> >>>you.  I know nobody's teaching it.  But how could anyone teach a language
>> >>>that changes so fast?
>> >>
>> >> Who is teaching the language?
>> >
>> >I have no idea IF it's being taught.
>> 
>> No one has yet posted information about an Ebonic program that was
>> intended to "teach the language".  The idea is to inform the
>> *teachers* as to what the differences between Black English Vernacular
>> and the academic standard language, so that the *teachers* can
>> understand what the students are saying and when an error might be due
>> to the nonstandard language rather than failure to understand the
>> concepts, in which case the job of the teacher is *different*.
>
>So, it appears that Ebonics is actually being taught. Not to the
>students, but to the teachers. Maybe it isn't being taught to them in
>the same way one would teach a foreign language, where the goal is to
>make the 'student' fluent in the language.  

It is being taught about.  It is not being taught.  And teaching about
the language isn't even a large part of the teaching.  The point is to
teach the teachers how to teach students who know the dialect better
than standard English.

>> When a
>> foreigner makes a mistake, the teacher likely will recognize the
>> difference between a conceptual misunderstanding and a language error,
>> but that is far less likely with a native speaker, especially one
>> speaking a dialect that is so much derided.  The teachers also tend to
>> have the same misconceptions about the nature of the differences as
>> the racists who post obviously phony "ebonics talk".
>
>So, why don't we have similar programs for some of the white dialects?

None of them have asked, and there is no evidence that any speakers of
those dialects are receiving a substandard education.  Generally
special "programs" are created only when there are large numbers of
people who need the program.  

But of course much of what would be taught in an Ebonics program is
equally applicable to any other dialect, since it is about how to
teach students who do not speak the standard dialect natively.

>The problems are very much similar in that teachers often can't
>understand some of the 'dumb hillbilly' talk and just write the speakers
>off as backward hicks. On the other hand, some teachers do attempt to
>work through their students communications problems, but in the case of
>the various white dialects, the approach seems to be the same. That is,
>to reinforce the students' use of 'standard english'. Why is Ebonics
>different?

It isn't.  And speakers of other dialects would benefit from Ebonics
programs as well.

lojbab
-- 
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org