Describes dialect differences, how to distinguish them, how to assess them and how to use them in teaching standard English. (Author)

Part of Lexicography and Dialect Geography, Festgabe for Hans Kurath''. (DD)

Black verbal and rhetorical strategies serve definite needs and functions in the Black American community--needs with which teachers should become familiar. When properly applied, these strategies can be effectively used in the English composition classroom for motivational and instructional purposes. (HOD)

A case study examines a nontraditional African-American student enrolled in English 90 at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. The first person in her family to attend college, she is attractive, personal, outspoken and speaks not only the dialect of her family, which shows the influence of French, but also standard English. When asked how…

THE AUTHOR'S AIM IN THIS PAPER IS TO INTRODUCE THE CLASSROOM TEACHER TO THE TECHNIQUES OF PREPARING AND USING ORAL DRILLS TO TEACH STANDARD ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF NON-STANDARD ENGLISH. SUGGESTED LINGUISTIC READINGS AND A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE WORK BEING DONE IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD OF REGIONAL AND SOCIAL DIALECTOLOGY PRECEDE EXPLANATION…

In this investigation, 72 second-, fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade speakers of black English were studied in an attempt to determine whether a relationship exists between the speaking of black English and the reading of standard English. Two variables of oral language were examined: the degree of divergence from standard English and the ability…

Code-switching is examined in oral narratives of 30 African-American women as they switched from Standard English to Black English Vernacular. A little over half of the speakers assign positive values to their code switches. Examples are given from interviews with two subjects. (SLD)

Black children's language abilities should not be judged by their schoolyard grammar. Use of Standard English "s" endings in spontaneous speech is not as good a predictor of school language achievements as is the use of those endings in reading and school grammatical or comprehension tests. (Author/DWH)

This teaching guide , developed with ESEA Title I funds, outlines an oral English program to help Negro students eliminate nonstandard pronunciation and usage in their speech. The first part consists of three lessons to motivate the students, which develop particular concepts about language. The second and third parts contain pronunciation and…

This study attempted to assess the linguistic competence of black lower-class speakers within each of two language systems: standard English and Black English. The subjects were 72 black kindergarten, third-, and sixth-graders in a predominantly black community in Toledo, Ohio. All children attending the school were considered lower-class, since…

Forty-eight Black children, ages 4 to 9 years, who utilized features of Black English in their oral language, participated in a study which investigated selected linguistic features believed to be a function of age among children. (Author/MH)

In an effort to resolve some of the problems of widespread reading failure, this report investigated the way in which the language of inner-city black first graders corresponded to the language of beginning reading texts and whether or not dialect features occurred consistently in the children's speech. Twenty first grade black children were…

Discusses (1) American class anxiety and racism as reflected in the linguistic purist tradition; (2) the didialectalism of contemporary Black Idiom speakers; (3) the need for accurate comprehensive descriptions of Black Idiom; and (4) the need for teachers to teach communication skills to Black students. (MM)

Foreign language constrastive analysis, pattern practice, and oral drilling served as the experimental treatment in this study investigating whether a regular English class format for teaching English to reading students whose natural language is Black English (BE) is adequate in presenting Standard English (SE) at the secondary level. The form BE…