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Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education

Should Writers Use They Own English, Vershawn A. Young Jun 2010

Should Writers Use They Own English, Vershawn A. Young

Vershawn A Young

This paper argues against critic Stanley Fish's assertion that students should not use dialect in academic writing.


Nah, We Straight: An Argument Against Code-Switching, Vershawn A. Young Jun 2010

Nah, We Straight: An Argument Against Code-Switching, Vershawn A. Young

Vershawn A Young

Although linguists have traditionally viewed code-switching as the simultaneous use of two language varieties in a single context, scholars and teachers of English have appropriated the term to argue for teaching minority students to monitor their languages and dialects according to context. For advocates of code-switching, teaching students to distinguish between “home language” and “school language” offers a solution to the tug-of-war between standard and nonstandard Englishes. This paper argues that this kind of code-switching may actually facilitate the illiteracy and academic failure that educators seek to eliminate and can promote resistance to Standard English rather than encouraging its use


Teaching Grammar And What Students Errors In The Use Of The English Auxiliary "Be" Can Tell Us, Arshad Abd Samad, Hawanum Hussein Jan 2010

Teaching Grammar And What Students Errors In The Use Of The English Auxiliary "Be" Can Tell Us, Arshad Abd Samad, Hawanum Hussein

Arshad Abd Samad

In teaching grammar, teachers often are faced with the dilemma of either emphasising the formal properties of the language or its meaning aspect. One of the more popular language teaching approaches of the last three decades has been the communicative approach. This approach has had a signifi cant impact on the teaching of grammar as its objective of communicative competence has led to a diminished role for grammar teaching. However, of late, numerous voices have advocated a more prominent role for grammar in achieving this objective. The question of whether to emphasise form or meaning remains central. Several theorists have …