Looking back while moving Forward: When teacher Attitudes Belie Teacher Motive in Bidialectal Classrooms

Abstract

Abstract:This study compares and contrasts the language attitudes of teachers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and West Indian Creole English (CE) speakers over the last fifty years, to determine if there have been any significant changes, to draw out the implications of these findings and offer reasons for the results. Teachers" attitudes towards these languages were generally negative over the decades, but I noticed that as the number of teachers of colour increased in the USA, there was a slight shift in attitude towards AAVE in a positive direction. I conclude that though language attitudes are very difficult to change, teacher education which specifically targets and challenges teacher language attitudes will be a major step in helping to shift these attitudes further for the benefit of teacher and student. Keywords: Teacher Attitude, AAVE, Creole, Language Discrimination Problem statementThis work is a continuation of research started by Moses, Daniels & Gundlach (1976). That research reviews the history of teacher language attitudes to African American Vernacular English (AAVE) over a fifty year period until the 1970s; whereas, my work extends to the present time, while comparing and contrasting teachers" attitudes to AAVE in America and Creole English (CE) in the Anglophone West Indies.I start from the premise that most teachers of English want their vernacular speaking students to succeed academically, despite contrary classroom behaviour. This negative behaviour, I contend, is partially rooted in the frustration of not knowing how to help. Teachers have gone about dealing with the challenges blindly, and so while they have the right motives, their attitudes and practices are wrong. I establish that teachers" language attitudes have hardly changed in fifty years, and concede that attitudinal change is very difficult, but argue that teacher training has failed to understand the fundamental issues surrounding this debate, and so have not targeted attitudinal change. This work therefore examines teacher attitudes to AAVE and CE. It also explores the educational consequences of teachers" language attitudes on teaching practice, showing how classroom practices of the last fifty years have only served to contradict teachers" real motives (helping students acquire SE more proficiently).