Honoring students' home dialect is a complex task when preparing them to take state writing tests that require the use of Standard English. Working with students who had failed the test and were in danger of not receiving a diploma, Michelle Crotteau created a supportive learning environment in which students could develop linguistic and…

For the past 25 years, controversy has developed over the value and use of African-American (AA) English. This study examined the opinions of AAs from a variety of backgrounds and communities in California and Georgia to obtain their views on AA English; its place in the school, in the community, and in AA heritage; and its role in the futures of…

Implications of the Conference on College Composition and Communication position paper on The Students' Right to Their Own Language are considered. (JH)

In a study of non-disadvantaged Hawaiian school children, a free recall task was used to compare the performance of standard English speaking children to a group of children speaking Hawaiian Islands dialect. The major finding was that dialect speakers actually possess verbal skills in standard English, despite assessments based on schoolroom…

Children who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and speak in nonstandard dialects should not be made to feel inferior but should be listened to. (JH)

A technique for decreasing interference between black dialect features and the hearing and production of standard English is described. (JH)

The reading scores of urban disadvantaged students have risen over the past 15 years, which may be attributable to special programs which have focused on strengthening the rudimentary skills. Whether reading achievement is dependent on students' mastery of standard English is an unresolved issue, but a number of instructional methods have been…

A study of spontaneous language use by elementary school children and teachers in a wide range of classroom activities used a combination of observation, audiotaping, videotaping, and interviews to examine more closely the role of dialect diversity in elementary education. The study provides a more accurate and complete record of classroom life…

Recent studies of American Indian dialects of English have focused on efforts to determine whether the sources of such dialectal variation lie in interference from the native languages or in developmental errors in the acquisition of English. The implication of both assumptions is that educational intervention and the passage of time can eradicate…

The Stanford-Binet intelligence test was administered by 104 third- and sixth-grade, disadvantaged black children in Negro non-standard dialect and in standard English. Younger children performed better than older children. No significant differences were found between dialect and standard-English test administrations. (ST)

In a case study investigation of six black college freshmen from low socio-economic and black nonstandard English-speaking backgrounds, it was found that, as hypothesized, the students reflected in their writing a performance capability in standard English sufficient to render them functionally bidialectal. For these students, certain hypothesized…

Address before the Joint Conventions of the Modern Language Association and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, New York, New York, December 28, 1968.

This report presents a summary of reading research conducted by the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP) during 1972-75. Research was conducted in four areas: student industriousness, reading readiness, teaching of sound-symbol relationships, and language (especially dialect interference). With regard to industriousness, it was found that…

This paper deals with the claims concerning the presumed language deprivation of lower-class blacks, and the findings of sociolinguists that refute these claims. The author asserts that the perceived deficiencies of non-Standard English were largely the product of middle-class intuitive assumptions concerning lower-class speech, and that recent…

RECENT LINGUISTIC RESEARCH SHOWS THAT THE SPEECH PATTERNS OF SOUTHERN NEGROES CONSTITUTE A LEGITIMATE DIALECT OF ENGLISH WITH PHONOLOGICAL AND GRAMMATICAL RULES SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT FROM GENERAL AMERICAN ENGLISH (GAE). AN EXPERIMENT WAS DESIGNED TO DETERMINE WHETHER THOSE ASPECTS OF THE NEGRO DIALECT WHICH SET IT APART FROM OTHER ENGLISH DIALECTS…