What’s with the Attitude? WE Perceptions and Pedagogical Practices

Tom TruesdellFrances Crawford

Sarah Henderson Lee

Chapter 7 – Exploring Attitudes

• Katz, Cobb Scott, and Hadjioannou• This chapter explores how language

background and exposure to language varieties affect teacher attitudes towards WE.

• Further, the authors consider the implications of this for teacher education programs.

Language Knowledge and Awareness Study

• Research questions (p. 100):– What are the attitudes of pre- and in-service

teachers toward language differences?– How does language background affect sensitivity to

language differences/or language attitudes?– How does exposure to speakers of non-dominant

varieties of language affect sensitivity to language/or language attitudes?

– What effect does training have on language attitudes?

LAKS (methodology)

• Participants: – 3 Universities• 1 Midwest (U.S.)• 1 Midsouth (U.S.)• 1 Cyprus

• Survey– 11 questions– 4 point Likert scale

Reflection on Class Results

1. A student whose primary language is not the dominant variety should be taught solely in the dominant variety.

2. In the home, students should be exposed to Standard English only.

3. Students who use non-standard dialects should be taught in the standard variety only.

4. There are valid reasons for using non-standard dialects.

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 40

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Strongly AgreeAgreeDisagreeStrongly Disagree

Reflection on Class Results

5. There are valid reasons for using language other than the dominant language.

6. Teachers should learn and use strategies that focus on accepting language patterns and cultural differences in order to ensure that all students are active participants in the classroom community.

7. Teachers should use non-standard dialect patterns to help students learn the standard language and reading and writing skills.

Reflection on Class Results

8. Teachers should utilize the grammar and rhetorical patterns of students’ home community to enhance learning in the language arts.

9. All children would benefit from having access to multicultural texts in the language arts classroom.

Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 90

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Strongly AgreeAgreeDisagreeStrongly Disagree

Discussion Questions

• Were you surprised by any of the class survey results? Why or why not?

• How would your colleagues at your home institution respond to the survey?

• What does this mean for us, as teachers/administrators?

LAKS Findings

• Summary (pp. 101-103)– Respondents’ attitudes toward language

differences were relatively negative.– Exposure to speakers of non-dominant language

varieties (WEs) positively affects language attitudes.

– Training has a highly positive effect on language attitudes.

Implications

• Teacher education programs should give more attention to teachers’ degree of exposure to speakers of non-dominant language varieties.

• They should also give more attention to the training offered to prepare teachers for work in language and culturally diverse schools.

LAKS Recommendations

• Promote an inquiry approach to teacher education.

• Teacher education should be designed with descriptive principles and not prescriptive due to the changing nature of WE.

Chapter 9 – Beyond the Silence

• Kirkland and Jackson• This chapter explores how student attitudes

toward African American Language (AAL) affect code-switching as a means to learning Academic English (AE).

Mixed Methods Research Project

• Research question:– Do code-switching pedagogies, particularly the

contrastive analysis (CA) approach, improve student attitudes toward AAL?

Mixed Methods Research Project

• Participants: – 16 students

• Adolescent (ages 10-14)• African American males

– Malcom X’s “My Brother’s Keeper” • Male mentoring program• Academy in Detroit, Michigan

• Instructed in the CA program– 9 months– AAL scaffolded to AE

Methodologies

• Video recordings, field notes, interview transcripts, and field artifacts (i.e. illustrations, students’ work, program plans, and textbooks) (p. 137).

-Students were asked to illustrate their depictions of the relationship between AAL and AE.

Small Group Activity

• As a group, illustrate a depiction of the relationship between WE and AE.

• What similarities/differences do you see between your group illustration and the examples from the text?

Key Findings

• There is an implicit assumption that including AAL in language instruction leads to positive linguistic results, but the authors’ study finds that inclusion alone is not enough to challenge racist attitudes. In fact, introduced uncritically, evidence from this study suggests that CA can actually increase students’ negative perceptions about their language (pp. 143-144).

Implications and Recommendations

• Language instruction must address critical linguistic issues (i.e. identity, society, and power).

• Language instruction should give students opportunities to investigate, accommodate, and critique sociolinguistic forms.

• Language instruction should address negative assumptions about languages and their speakers.

• Language instruction must offset assumptions that perpetuate linguistic discrimination. (pp. 148-149)

Chapter 14 – Developing Culturally Responsive Teacher Practitioners

• Jetton, Savage-Davis, and Baker• This chapter considers how teacher

practitioners should use discussion and writing to explore linguistic variability among diverse cultural groups.

Multicultural Literature Project

• Project Objectives:-Help teacher practitioners develop an appreciation for cultural diversity. -Show teacher practitioners how they can have students read high-quality multicultural literature, create comfort zones for discussion, and use writing as a response to multicultural literature.

Methodology

• Identified quality adolescent multicultural literature.

• Randomly assigned one novel to each teacher candidate.

• Asked teachers to discuss their multicultural novel in groups of three or four; the groups then presented to the entire class.

• The teachers had to write alternative endings for their novels—first individually, then as a group.

Implications

• The authors hoped that the teacher practitioners would utilize similar pedagogy to “provide their future students with choices of quality multicultural literature and encourage them to use oral and written language to express their views” (p. 229).

Discussion Questions

• In what ways could multicultural literature positively affect student attitudes toward WE?

• In what ways could multicultural literature

negatively affect student attitudes toward WE?