Some More Notes on Code-Switching
Following Lisa's suggestion, I'm currently listening to English One's literary discussion. Needless to say it made me very hungry as I created one of my genres for the Readers-Writers Project!
I thought their conversation provided some great insights on grammar, its debatable usage, and the power that comes with knowing and understanding the ever-changing rules. Naturally, however, I found my heart beating a little faster as the conversation turned to code-switching, and Mike suggested it impossible. Of course I disagree, as code-switching is my baby. When Mike claims that kids are not smart enough to code-switch between IMing, texting, and emailing because he finds his students using much of the technological abbreviations in their formal classroom writing, I think he's not giving his students enough credit. He expects them to master a skill he has not taught them, which would of course be nearly impossible. Because we will never be able to (nor should we) force our students to write or speak in formal "Standard" English in their own media spaces, as teachers we must teach them with respect for what they bring to the table. One way to do so is to teach code-switching, or to explicitly say to them: "Where you use "4" in texting, you must use "four" in formal writing. Anything else is unacceptable." By directly telling this to students, teachers will not only get the results they desire, but also help raise a language consciousness among students formerly not activated.
I attached a great link I stumbled accross. It's the BBC's learning English site, which has some great QandA about teaching English to ELL students and can easily be adapted to code-switching lessons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml
I thought their conversation provided some great insights on grammar, its debatable usage, and the power that comes with knowing and understanding the ever-changing rules. Naturally, however, I found my heart beating a little faster as the conversation turned to code-switching, and Mike suggested it impossible. Of course I disagree, as code-switching is my baby. When Mike claims that kids are not smart enough to code-switch between IMing, texting, and emailing because he finds his students using much of the technological abbreviations in their formal classroom writing, I think he's not giving his students enough credit. He expects them to master a skill he has not taught them, which would of course be nearly impossible. Because we will never be able to (nor should we) force our students to write or speak in formal "Standard" English in their own media spaces, as teachers we must teach them with respect for what they bring to the table. One way to do so is to teach code-switching, or to explicitly say to them: "Where you use "4" in texting, you must use "four" in formal writing. Anything else is unacceptable." By directly telling this to students, teachers will not only get the results they desire, but also help raise a language consciousness among students formerly not activated.
I attached a great link I stumbled accross. It's the BBC's learning English site, which has some great QandA about teaching English to ELL students and can easily be adapted to code-switching lessons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml
posted by Sarah Yost | 7:46 AM
1 Comments:
We had an interesting discussion about using numbers and abbreviations in writing, that resulted from reading Tupac Shakur's poetry. The kids wanted to know if it was okay to use "2," "R," and "cuz" in their poetry, since, Tupac clearly was an excellent poet and used those abbreviations in his poetry. I told them they were welcome to write their drafts anyway they pleased, but the final version had to spell it out, so no one could question their writing.
I think what is sad, is that in comprehensive classes in middle school, students come thinking they are horrible writers, because for years, teachers have been devaluing the way they express themselves. Really decoding should be happening in elementary school, by the time kids get to middle school they should know how to move between two forms of expression. Which leads me into a whole other question: how are kids showing up in my 8th grade class reading and writing at 2nd-6th grade levels? It'd be one thing if it was a few, but these are whole classrooms, more than half the school population.
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