How Linguistic Features of African American Vernacular English (also Research Paper

How Linguistic Features of African American Vernacular English (also known as African American English) Have Been Used to Teach Standard American English - Research Paper Example The use of contrastive strategies can sensitize Black youth to differences between Standard English and their vernacular thus assisting them in learning the standard dialect. The topic under consideration is â€Å"How linguistic features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or African American English (AAE) have been used to teach Standard English.† The dialect is also called Black English or Ebonics. African American children have performed relatively poorly in English classes, and one of the reasons behind this performance could be an admonition of their native dialects. Educators need a new strategy that works with black vernacular rather than against it. The use of AAVE as a facilitative language for Standard Education can boost communication and cooperation between learners and teachers. In 1996, a California school board sparked a lot of controversy when it announced that it would include home languages in classrooms, and that teachers would be trained appropriately to work with such students (Pullum, 1999). This was nothing new in American schools, but unlike other uncontroversial languages like Spanish, the most predominant language spoken by children in the school was AAVE. Media experts, African American educators, White middle class teachers, Black families and several other stakeholders lashed out against this policy proponents. A number of them, especially black parents, felt that using AAVE in the classroom would condemn black communities to narrow ethnic enclaves. They worried that their children would be unable to fit into the wider society. Others in the media made ignorant comments about AAVE by calling it nothing more than street slang. These individuals objected to the use of AAVE in classes because it was perceived as a watered-down version of Standard English, laden with mistakes, mispronunciations and abusive slurs (Perez, 1999). Contrary to what these critics assume, AAVE is a dialect in its own right. Slang is limited to small