3351 Double Journal Entry #3

   The first thing that caught my attention while reading this article as far as teaching literacy development is how it says to let the students talk in their own dialect. I agree with this because it is part of their heritage and they should not constantly be told that they are not speaking right. When you tell someone all the time that what they are doing is wrong, even in speaking, then you begin to hurt their self image. As teachers this is the last thing you want to do to a student.
   The next thing that I fount interesting was how they had the students go out and interview their parents and grandparents. By doing this they are accomplishing two things. First they are getting the families involved in the school which is always a good thing. The second thing they are doing is giving the students a chance to learn about their heritage so not only does this address language development but is it not a little bit of a history lesson also.
   The third thing I learned about language development is about is how all this fits into the use of contrastive analysis. By using this contrasive analysis they say it helped students with their use of Standard English. This has peeked my interest about this subject and I intend on doing a little more research on the subject.

   Now as far as the examples from my schooling experience goes most are not good when dealing with instructions on speakers with non standard dialect. If you have read my introduction you know I am originally from a small town in Greenbrier county. You also will know that I moved to Morgantown over twenty years ago. Well being from down south I definitely had a little southern twang and my dialect was definitely different. When I started school in 6 grade in Morgantown I was constantly told I was not pronouncing words right and not to use certain words such as aint. This was done mostly in English class and led me to start hating the subject. I felt this way all the way up to 9th grade when I ended up with a great English teacher and I will never forget him. This man was still stuck in the 70s and you noticed this instantly when you first seen him. Even though it was 1990 he still wore bell bottoms and his hair cut looked like it came straight out of a bad disco movie. The reason I like this teacher so much was he never corrected your speech he just taught how not to use certain words in your writing and how to make your writing flow. He never once put any student down and if he did correct you about something he would do it one on one and not in front of someone. He is one of the reasons I have always wanted to be a teacher. Sorry for getting off subject but he is the one who did give me a good experience on literacy instruction.

   One thing that they did touch on that has a relationship with inclusive strategies is getting the family involved. They did this by having the students interview family members.

  Here is a great blog posting about using contrastive analysis.