Quote Originally Posted by Zacha341 View Post
Thank you for your stand on this DT. I teach part-time at a community college bursting at the seams with students in remedial English courses because they unable to read or write at college level. Some sadly can only writing at a basic 'texting' level.

I see problems with students attempting college work-study programs unable to verbally convey their thoughts or conduct a simple telephone related business conversation due to lack of exposure to basic communication skills from their environments and home and now at school. No thank you to Ebonics! It is not helpful, and should not considered an academic standard.
I think that it is important to remember that the importance of a dialect depends on the reciever of the message more than the sender of the message. That being said, rather you acknowledge it or not, African American English Vernacular [[AAEV) is a very real language. It fulfills all of the basic qualifications to be considered a language. Millions of people, communicate effectively using this form of english.

I don't see how you could tell millions of AAEV speakers that their language, and ways of communication do not exist. I believe the appropriate thing to tell these people is that the "accepted" language of business is standard english. What John Telford is advocating, is to teach the children when it is appropiate to use standard english, opposed to their native tongue. He is also advocating for the use of AAEV to teach standard english. Its no different than using spanish to help spanish speakers learn english quicker.

If you are an educator, I think you should already know that as long as a language is alive it continues to evolve, and once it stops evolving it dies. That being said alot of words traditionally used by African Americans have found its way into standard english, case in point: "OK". The word "OK" did not originally exist is standard english, but no other word expressed that point better therefore it was accepted.

In closing, although standard english is the language of the marketplace, it is not the ONLY dialect that exists. Please do not dismiss the existence of AAEV, because in the long run it separates you from potentially helping AAEV speakers adapt in the appropriate situations. "ya dig?" lol