Describes a survey project that uses real language data and takes the teacher candidates out of the classroom. Investigates the attitudes of the public toward nonstandard usage and about where "prescriptivism and descriptivism converge." Concludes that teacher candidates need to have direct exposure to the attitudes that others hold regarding…

Noting that language should be a vital area of concern for anyone interested in speech communication, this paper focuses on the concern for language in the classroom as it is discussed in speech communication literature. Selected studies from the more extensive literature on educational practices are also cited. Programs in which language is…

Focuses on questions of language use in the classroom and how a teacher's attitudes about language will affect students' learning. (RL)

The use of language in education is examined, and the ways in which recent research helps in the understanding of classroom language are explored. The relevance of such research to practicing teachers as well as to sociologists is also discussed. The volume is divided into nine chapters: (1) "Why Is Language Important in Education?"; (2)…

This paper seeks to understand the role of culturally-specific styles of discourse in the classroom. The paper uses and expands upon three categories of classroom language use (control, curriculum, and critique) to present data on how a Puerto Rican American teacher uses repetition and discourse styles that have African and African American…

The first part of this study explored the form of verbal exchanges in the classroom, the effects of various conditions upon the exchanges between child and adult, and the child's competence in producing questions and narratives. Research was carried out in two first-grade classrooms located in a predominately Hawaiian working-class suburb of…

A social literacies perspective is used to analyze a rap written by a high school student. The article begins with an examination of the student's uses of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and standard English. The student writing sample and the researcher's analysis are subjected to review by two other African American teenagers, and…