[SilasX]

But it still would be right to put both kids (the Spanish- and AAVE-speaking) in remedial English because both are at a low level with respect to American Standard English. The fact that they're good in another language doesn't somehow mean they're at the class's expected level in ASE.

Unless, of course, the class is so young that they can reasonably be expected to learn from mere immersion, at which point the advice of this article is correct, that you should provide the "AAVE-native" students the awareness that there are two forms of English going on, at they have to be able to switch to the standard one and use it in the appropriate context. (Spanish-native students generally figure this out on their own.)

[Cushman]

Not remedial English. ESL. There's a big difference. English class is where speakers of ASE learn the grammatical rules of their language in ASE. Doing that again, or more slowly, will not help someone who does not speak ASE at home. ESL is where a speaker of your native language teaches you ASE as a foreign language, because it is.

Only once they are fluent in ASE (and that should happen rapidly for young AAVE speakers, mind) will English classes geared toward native speakers be productive.

[Crake]

Should we put other native speakers of english with an inability to write a sentence with correct grammar in with the ESL too then? Based on this map of American dialects, it seems like standard english is the lingua franca of many different offshoots of the english language.

http://robertspage.com/diausa.gif

This whole thing seems rather silly to me. Maybe instead of worrying about checking our privilege, we can worry about making sure everyone from all backgrounds is able to communicate in a professional way and graduate high school with a basic grasp of proper english. (your vs you're, etc)

(Because even if you don't want to call it remedial english, that's where they'll end up in college. If you've lived in America for 18 years but want to take ESL in college, they're justifiably going to think you're insane.)

[Cushman]

Yes. If you are trying to teach children "correct" grammar rules that they will go home and unlearn because their peers speak a different grammar, you are getting teaching very wrong and you should do it differently. As has been reiterated exhaustively in these comments, that does not mean you do not teach them SAE. It means you teach it so they actually learn it.

Don't take this the wrong way, but highlighting "your" vs. "you're" indicates you really don't understand what we're talking about here. That is a difference of orthography, of spelling, which is completely unintuitive and frankly stupid to speakers of dialects in which those words are pronounced exactly the same way. Any native speaker, however perfect you consider their English, must be taught spelling by rote. All English is "broken" in that regard. (Did you know there are languages where there is no such thing as a spelling bee, because there is exactly one possible way to spell any word?)

But we're not talking about that. We're talking about people who go home every day and speak a real language, one just as proper, correct, consistent, coherent as your own. Just different. Your insistence that your language is "proper" because it is the language used in formal speech by the rich and powerful is, yes, incredibly unaware of your privilege.

And your calling that "silly" is, o irony, quite ignorant. Did you read the article? Did you read these comments? Did you go on Wikipedia and look up AAVE? Southern American English? Appalachian English? These are not broken forms of English, these are forms of English you do not speak. This is all completely uncontroversial among people who study the use of language scientifically.

[Crake]

Frankly, this post makes you look really ignorant of the actual experiences of disadvantaged people in America (of which I am one, by the way). Maybe you should check your assumption privilege.

I like to swear a lot when I'm at home, but that doesn't mean it's proper language for when I'm in the workplace. Why can't my bosses stop oppressing me with their managerial privilege!? :( :(

But by all means, continue the condescending ad hominems, I actually find histrionic people hyperventilating into comment boxes really hilarious.

[Cushman]

O...kay? I'm not sure how you're reading my rather lay summary of the state of modern linguistics as histrionics, but maybe that's just a dialectal thing. I was kind of hoping you would go ahead and check out the Wiki articles[0], but I guess I'm glad you're even bothering to read my comments.

[0] If this is still on the table, I'd also like to add "ad hominem" to the list. To quote The Princess Bride, "You have six fingers on your right hand. Someone was looking for you."