Educational Issues

Early learning
AAE is learned via the same language acquisition mechanisms as any language, based on exposure to a relatively consistent model, in two-way interactions with speakers and only incidentally from exposure to national media. Young learners internalize very subtle aspects of the language system, with complicated constraints governing the acceptance or rejection of sentences for grammaticality. Such constraints or rules, even for standard varieties, are for the most part uncharted except in esoteric linguistic analyses, and are not taught in books. It is important for the general public to realize that speakers of AAE do not each personally evolve AAE based on incomplete learning of an SAE language model. They don't hear SAE and through laziness or stupidity make AAE out of it. Rather they The persistence of AAE as a distinct variety in the face of great negative pressure against it reflects both its continuing utility within the AAE community and the linguistic isolation of that community, especially in the interactions that young language learners engage in.

Age of Learning

We favor having children ADD SAE to their repertoire of language competence, not subtract AAE. Like most people who learn a second language or dialect after a "critical age" (generally 5-8 years), AAE speakers of SAE will rarely eliminate all traces of their native dialect while speaking SAE. Therefore, at the same time as we encourage as much bi-dialectalism as possible, we recognize that language prejudice is not diminishing, so every child should also learn to be aware of and minimize his or her own negative judgments of other people based on dialect.

Approaches to Teaching SAE

There is evidence from Sweden, the US, and other countries that speakers of other varieties can be aided in their learning of the standard variety by pedagogical approaches which recognize the legitimacy of the other varieties of a language. Such approaches use linguistic education, metalinguistic awareness, and pride in the linguistic skills learned to enlarge the children's knowledge and appreciation of both of their dialects. From this perspective, the Oakland School Board's decision to recognize the vernacular of African American students in teaching them Standard English is linguistically and pedagogically sound. In John Rickford's words (email, 11/17/98), "The student who is led to greater competence in English by systematic contrast with Ebonics can switch between the vernacular and the standard as the situation merits, and as Maya Angelou (see her poem, "The Thirteens") and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X undoubtedly did too, drawing on the power of each in its relevant domain."

Even normally liberal spokespersons, like Jesse Jackson and William Raspberry, view the recognition of AAE as representing a potential threat and handicap to African-American children in America's schools. They are asking Americans to continue to turn their backs on the language of African-American children in hopes it will just go away. They denigrate efforts to "face [the children], acknowledge and build on their language" that are adding to the linguistic skill and social empowerment of African-American children in programs around the country.

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