Valuing African American English in the Classroom

• In Event: Raciolinguistic Perspectives on Language and Schooling

Abstract

The National Council of Teachers of English’s 1974/2003 Resolution on the Students' Right to Their Own Language supports the idea that students should be able to use their home languages and language varieties in educational contexts. Yet, much information for educators about African-American English (AAE) employs a “code-switching” model that is designed to encourage AAE speakers to be adept at switching between AAE and the language variety of the school or dominant culture.

At their worst, code-switching models help speakers of AAE acquire standardized language while demeaning AAE in the process. At their best, code-switching models help students use their knowledge of AAE and build on it while helping students acquire standardized English. Either way, the message that students glean from the hidden curriculum of code switching is that students and educators are best served by leaving AAE at the classroom door. The code switching ideology promotes internalized racism as well as linguistic insecurity for both students and educators.

In order to create a more socially just teaching context, I demonstrate examples of ways to work with educators to help them both acquire knowledge about and value for AAE. The model encourages educators to become language learners with their students. I focus on classroom practice and share ways of promoting the study and use of AAE in classrooms through oral and written exercises.

My research findings from interviews, focus groups, and observations show that the misinterpretation of messages about code switching happens because even educators who possess positive sentiments about African-American English may not have the linguistic skills to effectively use and teach about AAE in classrooms. It is important for education researchers to work with educators to face their fears of not wanting to use AAE in the classroom because they do not want to be perceived as mocking African-Americans because they are not fully fluent in AAE. Educators report that they need explicit help with knowing what to say to students about AAE and why it is used in some contexts and not others. They also wish to know how to have “courageous conversations” about how language and race intersect in educational contexts.

I conclude with introspective research on how education researchers ourselves perpetuate code-switching practices through the ways in which we structure our own classes. Education researchers must also provide spaces and places for students to use and to acquire African-American English so that we educate linguistically and communicatively competent researchers. Such an approach has implications for how researchers navigate our positions in higher education more broadly including how we advocate for students in the admissions process and what we value in our own students’ oral and written expression. Will there ever be a time at AERA when I could both submit the proposal for and give this paper freely in African-American English? If not, what does that say about our overarching objectives?

National Council of Teachers of English. (2003). Resolution on affirming the CCCC “Students’ right to their own language.” Retrieved from www.ncte.org/positions/statements/affirmingstudents

Author

• Anne Harper Charity-Hudley, College of William and Mary