10. The role of family, community, and school in children’s acquisition and maintenance of African American English

Wyatt, Toya A.

doi:10.1075/veaw.g27.17wya

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Thus, many authors call for an end to the denigration of the vernacular (e.g. Baugh, 2001, Wyatt, 2001) and instead, for its validation in the educational process as a legitimate form of language (e.g. Dowdy, 2002;Wynne, 2002).…”

Section: Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Creoles and Minority Dialects in Education: An Update

Siegel

2007

Language and Education

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This paper renews the call for greater interest in applied work to deal with the obstacles faced in formal education by speakers of creoles (such as Hawai'i Creole and Jamaican Creole) and minority dialects (such as African American English). It starts off with an update on developments in the use of these vernacular languages in educational contexts since 1998, focusing on educational programmes, publications and research by linguists and educators. It goes on to discuss some of the research and public awareness efforts needed to help the speakers of these vernacular varieties, with examples given from Hawai'i.

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Section: Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Creoles and Minority Dialects in Education: An Update

Siegel

2007

Language and Education

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“…It compares the language skills of a child suspected of language disorder with the language skills of a family member or 'typically developing' peer from the same cultural and linguistic background (Thomas and Hand, 2004;Hemsley, 2006;Terrell et al, 1992;Wyatt, 2001). This technique has limited validation because the criterion reference is a single person.…”

Section: Options For Clinically Feasible and Valid Bilingual Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This technique compared Luka's language skills with those of a peer from the same cultural and linguistic background with typical language development (Thomas and Hand, 2004;Wyatt, 2001). The high number of Samoan-English bilinguals at Luka's school allowed selection of a comparison child in the same grade and of approximately the same age (age 11;4 years).…”

Section: Peer-child Comparative Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying language difference versus disorder in bilingual children

Hemsley

Holm

Dodd

2014

Speech, Language and Hearing

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Speech-language pathologists are frequently required to assess culturally and linguistically diverse children. Achieving culturally sensitive, valid, and clinically feasible assessment of children in this population can be challenging. Several assessment options are available; however, the literature lacks discussion around clinical reasoning and differential diagnosis using a combination of these options. This paper examines the use of a number of assessment techniques in combination for differentiating language difference from language disorder in early sequential bilingual children. In two cases, valid differential diagnosis is achieved by obtaining comprehensive information on each child's language learning context, then applying a range of culturally sensitive assessment techniques: peer-child comparison, composite scoring, and dynamic assessment. Two essential standards for evaluating bilingual language development are presented. First, formal tests used in isolation are insufficient for diagnosing specific language impairment in bilingual children: the use of alternative techniques is crucial. Second, diagnosis requires the implementation of a range of alternative assessment techniques. No single methodology provides a definitive conclusion of difference versus disorder. A range of assessments considered together, however, provide a strong body of evidence outlining a child's language abilities in their unique cultural context.

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“…In fact, there is no evidence that explicitly correcting young children's language in and of itself is effective, even if one's goal is in fact to eliminate grammatical features from a young child's repertoire (Lindfors, 1987). Conversely, there is evidence that children who speak nondominant vernaculars (including AAL) become bidialectal (or bilingual, in the case of AAL speakers) through interacting in diverse social situations with others who control varied ways with words, and through opportunities to exercise agency over language choices (Clark, 2003;Wyatt, 2001;Youssef, 1993).…”

Section: The Propriety Of a "Proper" Policy For The "At-risk"mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Right (Write) Start: African American Language and the Discourse of Sounding Right

Dyson

Smitherman

2009

Teachers College Record

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Background Both academic research and educational policy have focused on the diverse language resources of young schoolchildren. African American Language (AAL) in particular has a rich history of scholarship that both documents its historical evolution and sociolinguistic complexity and reveals the persistent lack of knowledge about AAL in our schools and the continuing negative stereotypes about its speakers. Currently, federal funds for early schooling target the literacy learning of low-income children, who are disproportionately children of color; these programs, though, assume, as a literacy “basic,” a singular correct way of using language. The stage is set, then, for communicative disconnects between teachers and children during literacy instruction. Purpose In early literacy studies, such communicative disconnects between teachers and children have been discussed primarily in relation to reading. Our focus is on teacher-student interactions about children's writing, that is, about their efforts to make a voice visible on paper. Writing is a rich context for studying how AAL figures into early literacy teaching and learning. Teachers urge children to listen to how their words sound in order to compose their message. But what sounds “right” to young children will vary for developmental, situational, and, as emphasized herein, sociocultural reasons. We illustrate how, in the course of teacher-student interaction, young children's major resources for learning to write—their very voices—may become a source of problems. Research Design The article draws on data collected in an ethnographic project on child writing in a test-monitored and basics-focused elementary school in a midsized urban school district. Most of the school's children were from low-income homes of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. One important pedagogical site for teaching basic literacy skills in the observed first grade was teacher-led editing conferences, in which the classroom teacher focused on written conventions, including standardized usage. These conferences (and all afternoon activities) were documented over the course of an academic year primarily through observation accompanied by audiotaping and collection of children's products. This article features the writing experiences of one focal child, Tionna. Recommendations We conclude with a consideration of the goals of language arts programs in contemporary times. Certainly, assisting children in extending their communicative repertoire to include the Language of Wider Communication (LWC) is a worthy curricular goal for the school years. At the same time, we question U.S. monolingualism and monodialectalism in a multilingual world demanding communicative flexibility.

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10. The role of family, community, and school in children’s acquisition and maintenance of African American English

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Creoles and Minority Dialects in Education: An Update

Creoles and Minority Dialects in Education: An Update

Identifying language difference versus disorder in bilingual children

The Right (Write) Start: African American Language and the Discourse of Sounding Right

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