Language diversity

Good Morning Everyone!

Thanks for your work in week one. We have more time to move through ideas this week (phew!)

I am posting assignments today even though it is a holiday in the U.S., because I know that many of you need to take any free moment you have to complete coursework.

I am also posting my own introduction in the introduction forum for last week, so that you can get to know me a bit better too.

Remember that each week, outside of the time that it takes for you to complete your readings, it will take you about 4 hours to complete course assignments.

Here is my blog post on the readings for week two- I recommend you read this post after you have finished the readings.

This week’s collection of readings focus on language diversity. Hanenda discusses literacy learning among second language learners, emphasizing the multiple literacies in which English Language Learner youth participate. Baker describes African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and classroom aspirations towards what she terms trilingualism. Lomawaima and McCarty depict indigenous language recovery and immersion as steps towards reclaiming stripped cultural rights.

What can be learned from reading about each of these contexts about each of the other contexts? In your discussion boards, you will discuss some of the specifics, so here are some broad strokes.

All languages and cultures are effective, relevant, resonant, and valid. All languages do what the people who speak them need to do, otherwise, they would no longer be utilized. We learn from Michael Stubbs that the notions of primitive or superior languages are false. “(N)o language or dialect is inherently superior or inferior to any other, and all languages and dialects are suited to the needs of the community they serve” (Stubbs, 70).

Still, “it is difficult to overestimate the importance of people’s attitudes and beliefs about language. It is almost impossible, for example, to hear someone speak without immediately drawing conclusions, possibly very accurate, about his social class background, level of education and what part of the country he comes from. We hear language through a powerful filter of social values and stereotypes” (Stubbs, 66). Indeed, the parallel drawn by this whole book is language to skin color, making language the “Skin the We Speak.”

Especially clear from Lomawaima and McCarty, language is thought. Thought is language. Stripping a person or a group of people of their language is stripping them of their way of thinking, of their worldview. Educational efforts in the US that have attempted to streamline language so that there is little linguistic diversity have undermined diversity of thought and ideas. In moments of change and crisis, such as the economic moment we are in now, it is curious and sad to think of the possible solutions or points of view that have been erased that might have otherwise provided insight or guidance in this instance.

Language diversity is the tip of the iceberg- what is beneath the surface is epistemological diversity. Epistemology is a group’s theory of knowing, or beliefs about knowledge.It includes beliefs about what counts and knowledge, and what counts as knowing, and how knowing happens. Examples of how knowing happens include learning through: experiences, listening, discussion, intuition, writing, senses, the body, memory, experiments, scientific method, and apprenticeship. Different cultural groups, but also different families hold different beliefs about how knowing happens, and those beliefs can clash with how knowing happens inside schools. The epistemological diversity of our students is invisible to us when simply looking across the room; we can only begin to understand the different beliefs that they bring about knowing and what counts as knowing by listening to them, and reading their writing, and talking with them about what they read.

I have included a remarkable example of the nexus of language diversity and epistemological diversity. Please take the time to view this short film twice, and look for the discussion on the discussion board. The film is titled, "In My Language," and it is by A.M Baggs.