It can be easy to understand why teachers who have had little experience discussing these questions might struggle to envision navigating these same conversations with students. As we began to discuss the “real world” that students face as they pursue college/career opportunities, teachers had questions about how to help students understand that expectations for standard languaging can be real in the world without being right, work that requires teachers to have instructional strategies and discussion prompts prepared to support students in having these conversations. This invariably includes how to teach language development in non-prescriptive ways.

First, it is clear that teachers need extended space to explore and refine beliefs about language because beliefs about learners and content are deeply connected to instructional practice (Fives & Buehl, 2012). Several participants talked about our class as their first experience explicitly discussing the language of school, language diversity, and their own experience; it was clear in the interviews that unearthing these early messages about language hierarchies was a key site of learning and wrestling for these teachers. Drawing on one of the key tenets of LangCrit, it is clear that teachers have internalized socially constructed hierarchies about language which, in turn, impacts their instruction. We encourage writing teachers to examine student writing and their writing feedback tools such as rubrics and do some reflection. Some useful questions to guide a reflection include: What do you think makes writing “good”? What vocabulary, sentence structures, etc. signal to you that a piece of writing is successful? Did you get messages about what made someone a “good” writer in school?

These explorations of teachers' beliefs reveal that teachers continually position knowledge of WME as a foundational necessity for writing in schools. If beliefs influence instruction, then believing WME is foundational for writing might actually create classrooms in which it becomes foundational to use language in narrow prescribed ways. This raises important implications for understanding teachers' perceptions and positioning of linguistically diverse writers, supporting teachers in designing writing instruction and recognizing the difficulty of unlearning about language hierarchies. We recognize the challenging work these teachers are doing in grappling with these tensions, and we offer guiding suggestions that might serve as conversation starters with teachers in doing this work.

I want to make sure that I as a teacher, validate whatever English and whatever language the students speak as a real and true language and that they should have opportunities to express themselves in that academically. But I guess I still think that standard English is important to be taught, because I don't think it's going away anytime soon. I think the conventions of structure and vocabulary are not going anywhere and are going to be expected but might not be taught in college. I just don't see that as a skill people are going to stop valuing, so I want to teach it.

I'm hoping they'll learn that standard English is not necessarily standard. There's a normative way that we teach them to speak and write, but it's not linear. Like, there's not one way that everybody speaks English. If that were true, then we'd be speaking like the people from England. But clearly we don't. So that's evidence as to that there's not one proper way of doing it.

Madison's grappling with messages she has come to disagree with as an adult about language, and Black English in particular, coming from Black adults reveals the ways in which language hierarchies are constructed by people to navigate how different language users tend to be categorized. This idea that languaging in particular, more White mainstream ways might offer some sort of protection in the world was passed to Madison throughout her life, and now as a teacher, she struggled to find ways to reconstruct those messages for her own students in ways that did not recreate those same values that some Englishes are not only foundational, but protective

I went to a predominantly Black school growing up in East Atlanta, and because we were a predominantly Black population, the way that we spoke was policed a lot. It was like, ‘this is good and this is bad. Don't say this, say it like this’. I rarely had White teachers growing up so it definitely came from older Black people who were telling us that. I think they weren't right about it, but I think they were told that in how they grew up. They were trying to look out for us.

I was constantly exposed to sources that use quote unquote standard English. Most of the time standard English was used because most of the time, the books we read were by White authors that were required readings for my school. Then at home, because of the way my parents were taught when they were in Taiwan, their English was standard English. They were taught very robotic English—they were taught proper grammar and vocabulary, so they enforced that at home. At home, if we made a grammatical error, we had to go through this, like, test process where my parents were like ‘you have to learn these grammar rules in order to succeed’.

This study's participants reveal important memories of socialization into language hierarchies that they may not have always been aware of but that they carried forward into their ideas of teaching, and in particular, successful writing. It was clear that these teachers were trying in many cases to name what had been implicit to them in their own experiences, which points toward the necessity of spaces in which to explore how individual stories are connected to broader social, political, and historical practices (from LangCrit), such as writing instruction and expectations. Many of the teachers interviewed discussed their own upbringings in communities that used what they would have called standard English, and they described how they gave the matter little thought until much later, often when they were teachers of much more linguistically diverse students than they themselves had known in their own schooling experiences. One White teacher with several years of experience described growing up “in a much more sheltered and homogenous community than the community that I teach in now, so that often, the language was the more formal academic language was kind of the normed language in the community. So, the differences between how you would talk at home and how you would talk at school were not dramatically different.” This notion that some students' home language varieties were closer to the language positioned as foundational for writing at school was new learning for many interviewees, especially those who grew up in White, middle-class suburban communities. But this was not always the case. Tina, a Taiwanese-American future teacher from the sample, describes an interesting history of exposure to what she called Standard English across her lifetime:

I guess I'm still kind of unlearning what I previously thought, so academic language was taught to me as standard proper English. But the richness of my own dialect, especially being from the South and being Black and specifically from Atlanta, I am recognizing the special-ness of how we say things. It's been making me challenge the way we were taught not to say things in school. I think that's been making me unlearn what I thought about what's supposed to be so.

I think academic Spanish is definitely very, very useful, because just like with academic English, you're perceived a certain way. If you don't speak academic Spanish, you're also perceived a certain way.

Jane's honest accounting of her beliefs prior to teacher preparation reveal the ways that linguistic hierarchies, a component of LangCrit, permeate people's understanding of languaging practices that influence notions of teaching writing, even if teachers are not entirely aware of how those ideas were formed. Jane's description of English across the world reveals how notions of its superiority get tangled up with ideas of professionalism in ways that, while purporting to support students, might send messages that maintain hierarchies that position writing in WME at the top of a pyramid.

I understood the concept of a standard English or academic English as opposed to vernacular and other kinds of more colloquial languages, but I would have for sure, ascribed the word casual to those and that standard English is what should be taught. I thought that that's how people generally in the US and around the world speak because English is more standard across the world than any other language. Like, that's how people expect you to communicate, and they judge you by that. So, it makes sense for the purposes of appearing educated and professional to be able to speak or actually more so, write, in standard academic English.

Another of the teachers with teaching experience described standard English as “good and right” and “what we want to teach by teaching English.” Separating notions such as learning tools like connectives from standard English was a point of growth that teachers were just beginning to articulate.

We also found that teachers struggled to explicitly name when they learned these ideas about writing in their own schooling experiences. Sarah, a future teacher, describes her own learning process in school as implicit but very present, saying:

One tenet from LangCrit appearing throughout interviews was this idea of “socially constructed and negotiated hierarchies and boundaries” (Crump, 2014, p. 220), and these boundaries led teachers to realize they were socialized to view knowledge of WME as foundational to writing success. Several interviewees described WME as foundational writing skill essential to academic success and grappling with how to support writing development while being culturally responsive because their perspectives hinged heavily on developing knowledge of WME as a priority. For example, one Asian-American future teacher wrestled with what his students would need, stating “you have to use this certain vocabulary, in order to properly write your essay.” The idea that there is a proper way to write certain texts was widespread among the teachers, despite many of them grappling with creating classrooms with a high value for linguistic diversity.

We found across our data that teachers felt students did not enter secondary classrooms with foundational skills necessary to write effectively. They were grappling particularly with notions of dialects alongside teaching skills connected to grammar that they perceived students should have already learned. While they were honestly grappling with these tensions, they were early in this journey of developing CMLA and also teaching writing in their own classrooms.

Data were audio recorded, de-identified, and transcribed verbatim. We began with an open coding strategy to identify moments where participants were positioning language (examples: necessary, foundational, formal/informal, and correct). We coded for participants' perceptions of how they came to their beliefs about language (examples: grew up hearing and always heard), tensions in their growing understandings (examples: not sure and confusing), and finally, links between teachers' described beliefs and subsequent instructional choices (even as some of those choices were future plans for preservice teachers). After we resolved different perspectives about interpreting data, we used an axial coding strategy to group codes and sketch out patterns. Following the first-stage coding, we used our theoretical framework, LangCrit, to explore the inherent hierarchies and other connections in participant responses (examples include hierarchy and racism). This analysis was primarily thematic (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and drawn from the first round. In this phase and the prior, authors coded data separately, and to establish reliability, we discussed varied perceptions of responses and disagreements about codes and conducted member checks with available interviewees.

The two authors of this paper are colleagues who regularly engage in conversation about teaching as critical friends (Schuck & Russell, 2005). Together, we have examined our teacher education work to try and understand teachers' beliefs about language diversity (Dobbs et al., 2022; Dobbs & Leider, 2021b), and for years, we have discussed how we can better support teachers in enacting the more nuanced and asset-based beliefs about language they learn in our courses (Dobbs & Leider, 2021a; Phillips Galloway et al., 2022). Chris is not involved in the teaching or design of the writing course studied here, although she regularly serves as a critical friend to Christina about the course. We also identify as women of color who use English language varieties that are sometimes seen by others as non-standard; Christina primarily uses a rural southern variant of English, New England English, and Spanish, and Chris uses the named languages of English, including New England English and Filipino American English, and Argentinean Spanish.

Across several weeks, the course had a focus on language development and diversity, including dialectal variation, and topics included developing CMLA (Deroo & Ponzio, 2023; García, 2015), deconstructing ideas about teaching grammar, and understanding language variation (García, 2011; Lee & Handsfield, 2018; Young & Barrett, 2018). Readings in the course represented a range of views on language, although a culturally responsive pedagogy of writing grounded in CMLA was a developmental goal. Throughout this semester, teachers in the course discussed how they felt tension between their ideas of embracing linguistic diversity and effective teaching for language development

During this semester, a topic that continually came to the fore in discussion was the idea that adolescents must be able to use WME successfully to write in schools. Teachers in the course discussed a number of connected ideas: that students needed language they did not learn in earlier schooling, that there was foundational knowledge of language key to school writing, and that students would not be able to successfully move into college/career opportunities without mastery of WME.

I was introduced in high school to the idea that if you use words like therefore and however then you're writing an academic paper. Maybe it wasn't explicitly said, but that was the standard that was understood – that you did not use the word I, you would write in the third person. There were different standards that were either explicitly or implicitly understood within the academic setting, and myself and my fellow students didn't really question it. We just did it

This is all particularly concerning given that increasingly diverse classrooms in the United States are mostly taught by White monolingual teachers (NCES, 2023), and their potential beliefs translate into holding CLDLs to lower expectations and less rigorous coursework (Dabach, 2014). Fortunately, beliefs can shift in teacher education spaces (Fitts & Gross, 2012; Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2017; Nieto, 2017; Pettit, 2011).

These beliefs ultimately paint a picture that CLDLs are less capable academically (Karabenick & Noda, 2004; Vollmer, 2000), and this results in negative outcomes for these students without smart intervention in teacher preparation spaces (Godley et al., 2006; Weaver, 2019). Anecdotally, as teacher educators, we have observed these beliefs with the teachers who come to our courses with varying prior experience with plurilingual classrooms.

We know that teachers hold varied and sometimes even inaccurate beliefs about language development and the potential of culturally and linguistically diverse learners (CLDLs) and how instruction might best support their achievement (Cho & DeCastro-Ambrosetti, 2005; Faltis & Valdes, 2016; Joshi et al., 2005; Reeves, 2006; Sugimoto et al., 2017; Yoon, 2008). Research also suggests that teachers have deficit views about students from non-mainstream language, ethnic, and racial backgrounds (Walker et al., 2004), and further research has highlighted a belief that Standard English is representative of academic success (Baker-Bell, 2020; Metz & Knight, 2021). Here, we define Standard English as connected to White mainstream English (WME), a variety that is perceived to be correct, and one that legitimizes dominant ways of speaking English (see Alim & Smitherman, 2012; Lippi-Green, 2012).

Research on teacher beliefs has long established the idea that beliefs impact their pedagogical practices (Borg, 2004; Nespor, 1987; Richardson, 1996). As such, to understand teacher expectations about writing, we must first examine their beliefs about language and the diverse range of language users who write in their classrooms as these beliefs will play a critical role in their approach to writing instruction and assessment.

Given the potential for teacher education to address problematic beliefs (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2010; Dobbs & Leider, 2021b; López & Santibañez, 2018), there has been a focus on fostering a critical understanding of the languages and language varieties students use (Baker-Bell, 2020; Deroo & Ponzio, 2023; Dobbs et al., 2022; Phillips Galloway et al., 2022). In particular, we seek to foster a dynamic view of language among teachers by fostering CMLA (García, 2015), an understanding of how dominant societal views and power dynamics impact the ways individuals view language. For example, it is possible that explicit focus on developing CMLA could have supported the teacher quoted early in this paper to consider the why and who that dictates the types of language they deem academically successful. In the focal course of this study, Christina put considerable attention toward fostering CMLA through course readings, activities, and discussions.

However, much has been made of the need for improvement of writing instruction in US schools (Graham, 2019), and this discourse has often positioned students and their teachers from deficit-oriented perspectives. One such oft-cited example is that US students have not performed well in large numbers on the writing test from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, especially in the secondary grades (NCES, 2012). This has led to research that asserts that only some schools have effective writing instructional programs (Graham, 2019). Studies have documented that teachers do not emphasize persuasive and expository writing enough in schools (Parr & Jesson, 2016) and that when teachers do assign writing, students often complete the work without having to compose, instead filling in blanks or writing less than a paragraph of text (Gillespie & Graham, 2014; Ray et al., 2016). While we are hesitant to portray American student writers as unskilled or teachers as struggling in the deficit-oriented ways that can sometimes occur, including in some of the research we have cited here, we are interested in how teachers view teaching writing, and specifically how they perceive student language within that work.

Writing is a fundamental skill, and students must learn to write for a variety of purposes (Graham, 2019), and a range of jobs require writing as a component of an individual's work (Graham, 2006; Light, 2001). The complexity of writing is such that students need strong instruction, time to practice, and clear feedback (Dobbs & Leider, 2021a; Graham et al., 2012; Hayes, 2012)

As the course instructor, Christina has said that all teachers say they think all languages are beautiful and necessary, right up until we begin grading student writing. Across her almost 20 years of teaching and learning about supporting student writing development, the question of what makes language foundational for student success has come up frequently. Christina's own thinking has evolved over years of trying (and sometimes failing) to teach about value of language diversity as a central pillar of teaching writing.

I just don't know how to put them together—that kids have to know and use certain types of language to succeed in school alongside all this new stuff about language diversity. I have no idea how to do both. This quote is from a teacher in a university course about teaching writing to adolescents. When this quote was stated, we had just completed several sessions about giving students feedback on writing. The teachers were grappling with ideas about what students “need” to be successful. They considered what were new ideas for many—that English might be unfairly positioned as the most important language, that students' varieties of English and other named languages are valuable and worth validating in classrooms, and that students must complete fairly prescriptive writing on standardized tests

e key, in the end, comes not in inculcbut in participation. Indeed, as Ross Winterominds us, the only "danger in problem-posincation is obvious. all absolute certainty vexcept for the faith that new insight and grederstanding lie beyond the next question" (1my students, this understanding included agrammar and correctness that was embetheir lives and culture. Such an understandinpossible by beginning with a scenario that cappreciated by students whose cultures residsoil and whose dreams transcend the searingstead

enry Giroux is one of many researcherswho has suggested that giving "students an activevoice in defining their world" (17) is essential to suc-cessful language instructio

ter, when we delved into a short essay thatmight be typical of academic writing, students wereagain asked to consider the expectations of their au-dience and the need for correctness as they fash-ioned their responses. Because the setting wasdecidedly academic and formal, we agreed that ouressays would need a style that was far removed fromthe earthy language of earlier efforts. Still, as stu-dents moved cautiously through this new vernacu-lar, they did so with the understanding that languageis always better when it reveals a real person, whenit has a voice, and when it is succin

rom these opening letters, our class movedon to the solving of other problems. Again, the goalwas always to keep assignments animated with therecognition that this was not simply an academic ex-ercise but a trek into real life. After students com-pleted the letters, we had several employers visit ourclass and discuss their backgrounds and the skillsthey expected of their employees. Certainly, spellingis important, but so is imagination and an ability toinfuse one's writing with energy, suggested onespeaker as she discussed her job at a bed and break-fast. After the visit, one of the students wrote a prac-tice letter of employment to the bed and breakfastemployee. "I think I could help your guests appre-ciate the Mexican American feeling of this country,"she said to her fictitious employer. "Homestead is aunique place. People want to taste both the food andthe people who live here. You need a person whocan introduce them to our dress and customs." Suchlanguage, many agreed as she proudly read hercover letter, was informal but witty. People don't"taste" other people, but the play on words was ap-propriate for a letter in this contex

be sure, as our class moved into the letters foremployment and prepared their final drafts, therewas a sense that this was a watershed moment, thatthey had passed through a critical rite of passage andwere advancing toward something good. Providingthe kind of linguistic democracy that Foucault pro-motes tends to foster just such an ebullience. In-deed, many students wanted to make copies of theirletters and asked countless times if their work wouldreally be accepted by a potential employer. Theintense feeling of life converging with Standard En-glish was dramat

every educa-tional system is a political means of maintaining orof modifying the appropriation of discourse with theknowledge and the power it carries with

th these students striving to compose aletter that might change their lives-that mightboost them into the real world of work-there wasan incredible impetus for precision and standardEnglis

e relevance of power and politics becamemore glaring for my class as we considered a moreformal letter to a potential employer in the city ofHomestead. Here, questions of audience becamemore complicated, since many were uncertain as tothe background of the person reading the letter. "Wecan assume a great deal more about the person's for-mal education," I suggested, "depending on the jobbeing pursued." Still, many of us agreed as we dis-cussed the assignment, such a letter demands amuch stricter adherence to established ideals aboutStandard English. "We need to impress the reader,since he has something we want," said Karina. Ar-gued another, "the writing will be different becauseof the audience we are writing to.

her book Talkin and Testifyin, GenevaSmitherman makes questions of power a majorfocus in her examination of language use. She speakseloquently about the way power is interwoven inlanguage use and the freedom people have to devi-ate from standards when they have power. Onlywhen people do not have power and are striving toearn their place in the world does Standard Englishcome into play, argues Smitherman. Perhaps this isthe reason why "[t]he speech of blacks, the poor,and other powerless groups is used as a weaponto deny them access to full participation in the soci-ety" (1

eed, as we read anddiscussed our letters, we could find nothing thatwould be considered nonstandard by the readers ofthese letters, despite the frequent inclusion of otherlanguages to make a point. Some students used dou-ble negatives despite the knowledge that it waswrong in a more formal setting. Again, it was clearthat the inclusion of a double negative was integralto the point being made. At the same time, manystudents had to stop and think when I asked them ifsuch code switching would be more acceptable in aformal setting if the writer was wealthy and power-ful. "The rich can write anyway they want," said onestudent after a few moments of silen

the process, we also discussed the place ofpower and the way it tends to define what is "stan-dard" or "corre

, andthe pedagogy of English as a second language. Whileit is our duty as English teachers to promulgate thecorrect use of standard English, it is equally impor-tant for us to articulate the way standards are de-fined by power and poli

believe all learners would surpass our cur-rent expectations if we were to spend more time in-side our classrooms revealing to them what they arealready capable of doin

In a friendly letter, where eachperson holds equal power, correctness tends to bedefined as language is generated. In both the letterfrom Illeana to her father and from Ernestina to herboyfriend there was no clear power to control thelanguage being used. Both writers felt assured thattheir use of Spanish would be acceptable because ofthe relationship they had with the readers of their es-sa

As other letters were read and critiqued, moreof this context-driven code switching was unearthed.Ernestina referred to her boyfriend as her queridorather than use the English equivalent of "honey" or"sweetheart." Again, the code switch was an exampleof the mercurial, contextual character of language andthe way it is manipulated to advance the nuances ofour feelings. As with Illeana before, Ernestina knewof English words to express her affection but wantedthe letter to capture the special spirit of a note to herboyfriend. Many students, in turn, recognized theunique circumstances that permit one to code switchand the ways that audience helps define the conceptof correctness. "These letters wouldn't be real if theydidn't use certain Spanish words," suggested one stu-dent as we reviewed the d

as it wrong or incorrect, for example, forIlleana to tell her father that she wished to stopbeing approached by his friend who is antipatico?As the class read and discussed her letter they werequick to recognize the appropriateness of the use ofSpanish in this context. "There isn't a word in En-glish that describes that feeling," she said in de-fending her use of the Spanish alternative. Indeed,in the context in which she was writing-and withher father as her audience-code switching was"standard" and correct for the letter she was writ-ing. Such stylistic switching, argues GuadalupeE MarcH 2001Valdes, "occurs not because speakers lack an equiv-alent in one of their languages, but because theywish to convey a precise meaning" (127). This prac-tice, she later contends, is a "sign of strength ratherthan weakness" (127) in using language. Clearly, thiswas the case for Illeana, who knew of an English al-ternative but who aspired to make the letter con-gruent with the affection she felt for he

hile many of us labor under the illusionthat correctness is monolithic and fixed in time, ourclassroom experiences in authentic contexts re-vealed its lively, context-driven character. GenevaSmitherman routinely writes in black English as away to showcase the viability of her dialect, and Glo-ria Anzaldua incorporates Spanish phrases into hernonfiction. "The sense of finding what is wonderfulin student writing needs to happen again and again,from one cultural perspective to another, from onestyle to another, so that we have in front of us thevariety of ways that writing can be good," concludesMountford in her later wo

ne week later, students presented their sec-ond drafts and began to delve into the dynamics ofcorrectness and context. Illeana's essay began with aplea to her father that he stop working so hard andconsider his family, who seemed to be growing apartfrom him as he worked constantly. In reading hershort, one page missive, it was interesting to note theuses of language that represented a clear divergencefrom what most English speakers would considerstandard English--even for a letter to a family mem-ber. "I want you to work less and spend more timewith your family, Papi," she wrote. As she read on,what was most fascinating about her letter was herability to code switch or use both English and Span-ish as a way to communicate with her father more ef-fectivel

portant for my objectives was that I allowmy nontraditional students to feel that their lan-guage was endowed with legitimacy, for, as Mount-ford says, "if we continue to disqualify these wayswith words, we could rightfully be considered dis-criminato

se. "Thereare students whose habits of writing and speaking intheir home culture do not conform to our expecta-tion

ith this plan in mind, I crafted the classaround a series of problems that related directly tomy students and their lives in Homestead. How im-portant is standard English when one writes a coverletter to a prospective employer? I asked them. Incontrast, how critical is it when composing a letterto a friend or lover? What about when one writes itto a family member? In delineating the plan for myclass, I began by engaging students in a frank dia-logue about the place of power and context in com-municating and using standard English. It wasimportant, I thought, to transcend the rules-for-rules-sake mentality and invite students to decidefor themselves the efficacy of the work they did.Such decisions, I told them, would be based on sce-narios that reflected their lives and cultures. Itwould invite them to participate in linguistic deci-sions and learn about literacy throu

nyone who has visited South Florida knowsthere is a gaping chasm separating powerful CubanAmericans from the Mexican American agriculturalworkers who populate the fields and eke out a livingunder a hot sun. For these migrant workers' chil-dren, weighty discussions about grammar for theuniversity are daunting and prem

eath's words and experiences seemeddirectly relevant for me as I sat down one humidevening and began to tailor my lessons to reach themany Hispanics in my classes. If I was to nurture atrue sense of hope, it seemed critical that I designlessons that engendered a sense of relevance, thatopened my students' eyes to the value of languagefor them in their lives. This meant that grammar andcorrectness must be embedded in authentic lan-guage experiences that directly touched the lives ofmy students. Essays would have to revolve aroundthe concerns of a Mexican American enclave thatwas grasping to find its place in a society that seemedhostile to its inclu

Trackton students often drift through school,"writes Heath, "hoping to escape with the valuedpiece of paper which they know will add much totheir parents' and grandparents' pride, although lit-tle to their paychecks" (349). For these AfricanAmericans, failure is virtually assured, since schoolhas become a "sudden flood of discontinuities in theways people talk, the values they hold, and the con-sistency with which the rewards go to some and notothers" (348).Heath says much the same thing about thepoor white community of Roadville. As with theirAfrican American counterparts, the children ofRoadville leave school with a sense of disaffection,of being interlopers in a strange land. And as withthe kids of Trackton, lessons seem to have no con-gruence with their lives and values, leading many toabandon ideas of school and seek jobs that have lit-tle to do with their experiences in academia. Indeed,as Heath suggests in reviewing the plight of bothcommuniti

With little connectionto the world they knew and embraced at home, stu-dents from Trackton saw English as an invidious re-minder of their foreign status, of their need to moveon and forget lofty ideas about an educated

nless I was willing to makelanguage about communication andpostpone erudite discussions aboutthe uses of will and shall, I wassure to see a significant part of myclass drop out and return to thefields their parents inhabite

English had to be reduced to communication, toreal-life scenarios that could be grasped by studentswho saw this language as critical to their futures andpersonal identitie

e of the first lessonsa teacher learns in a class of immigrants is that lan-guage development is pragmatic and intense. Stu-dents see reading and writing as an opportunity totake another step into the exciting but perilous worldof American English. Each time they write a paperor read a book, it is a symbolic move into a worldthat offers them only tenuous support. Unlike thetypical English-speaking student, they see assign-ments take on a dramatic, life affirming significanceas they wend their way closer to a literacy that makesthem feel like legitimate members of Americansociety

is a mission that makes each ofus more aware of the politics of language and theimportance of making students feel empowered asthey journey into a linguistic world that often doesnot include their immediate familie

ere is an urgent need tomove judiciously, to teach English with a clear un-derstanding of the fealty these students have fortheir parents and the heritage they personify. At thesame time, there is the concomitant desire to intro-duce them to an English-speaking world that willoffer them increased opportunities both economi-cally and socially.

For the language arts teacher who welcomesthese sons and daughters of migrant workers, thegoal is to respect this highly sensitive situation-toteach the English language while acknowledgingthe intimate ties that connect these young adults totheir parents and heritage. While much has beenwritten about the volatile association between lan-guage and power, few scenarios can capture the cul-tural volatility that permeates this unique linguisticsettin

nts. While the routine of these parents revolvesaround their Spanish-speaking family and friendsand the enclave in which they live, many of the chil-dren seek to establish themselves in the Englishworld that they encounter at the high sch

les. For their children, who attend South Dade High,the challenge is to recognize the life and language that exists beyond what they have learnedfrom their ambitious Spanish-speaking par

isten to the voices of Carlos, Mario, Luis, and Paul. They maynot use the accepted terminology of sociolinguistics or secondlanguage acquisition, but they understand the concepts. What isimportant is that they understand that their speech community isnot homogeneous, that they are exposed to many varieties ofEnglish, and that learners of English as a second language can makechoices among these varieties.

arlos and his peers know a lot about language; their knowledgeis reflected in comments such as the one above. They know thereare many varieties of English in their speech community: "Whitesthey speak different from blacks" (Mario, a nonnative speaker ofEnglish). They understand that speakers may vary their Englishaccording to setting and interlocutor: "In the class, we have to speaknice you know, but not on the street... when some people in thestreet talk bad, you have to speak bad to him" (Luis, a nonnativespeaker of English). Some even suggest that they have madechoices about which variety they want to speak as their secondlanguage: "I speak like white Americans. That's a choice" (Paul, anonnative speake

ite people, they talk different from black, and the teachers, they talkdifferent, you kno

unity: "Whitesthey speak different from bla

Whether this attitude amounts to progress or retrogression is a matter of debate. Whether it helps people along or hinders them is a matter yet to be known.

The idea was that whatever the child might hear at home, school might be the means for inculcating standard English. Professor Pooley was sophisticated, though: He understood the best way to teach a child standard English is to arouse an ambition—a desire to be influential in the world. Without that desire, the teaching would never take root.

In high school, the level of difficulty was to increase. Students were to learn a mastery of pronouns ( I and we as subjects, me and us as objects); the correct use of common irregular verbs such as buy-bought-bought, drink-drank-drunk, see-saw-seen , sink-sank-sunk, take-took-taken ; correct use of there is and there are according to whether the complement is singular or plural; the omission of at after where (never where is it at? ); the distinction between good as adjective and well as adverb, as well as that of their antonyms ( I played well, never I played good ; I feel bad for him , never I feel badly for him ).

In middle school, children were to be taught to avoid those same things but also improper pronouns in the object position (not please give it to Sarah or I or let him or I do it ); nonstandard inflections or lack of inflections (not he ask me to do it ); slightly nuanced problems in subject-verb agreement (not one of the books are lost ); and double negatives (not I don't have nothing to do ).

In elementary school, children were to be taught to avoid ain't; I don't have no ; improper uses of past-tense verbs (not he begun, he seen, he come, he drunk ); improper uses of past participles (not have began, have saw, have went, have wrote ); disagreement between subject and verb (not we was, you was, they was ); improper uses of pronouns in the subject position (not him and me went , Jane and me saw ); and nonstandard possessive pronouns (not hisself, theirselves ). Teachers were to abstain from teaching nuances beyond these types of things.

He recommended a gradual approach to having students learn standard English.

Remember, though, that the lawyers of tomorrow are kids today.

The perennial question is how to teach standard English without denigrating the speech of children's parents. That demands of teachers a knowledge of language and dialect, a humane attitude toward young pupils and an ability to correct children in a way that doesn't humiliate. It also demands a great deal of persistence and time.

Should we insist children learn standard English? As someone who has spent most of his career writing about standard English and what it entails, I think so—as you might well predict. It's a pathway to the professions, and it always has been. I say that as someone who grew up speaking the regional dialect of the Texas Panhandle. But by age 16, I had learned standard English.

But the basic debate is an important one for us all to consider, and maybe society is moving toward a middle position. On the one hand, we're more tolerant than ever of linguistic differences, and people on the whole seem to accept dialectal differences. We hear them on television, and today (unlike decades ago), a TV debate in which someone overtly corrects another's language is all but unthinkable. On the other hand, "good English" is something we admire upon encountering it.

Robert Lowth: The principal design of a grammar of any language is to teach us to express ourselves with propriety in that language.

she argued that basic grammar is acquired from birth as an innate part of natural language and that "learning about grammar is about acquiring abstract terminology and a set of nitpicking (and occasionally outdated or simply invented) rules about 'correct' grammar."

Jane Hodson, a British English professor at the University of Sheffield, insists children shouldn't be taught a standard language. In a May 2016 post on the Conversation website, Hodson claimed there is little purpose in learning standard English grammar. She acknowledged that formal grammar is necessary for formal writing and for improving one's writing in a range of styles, but she argued that basic grammar is acquired from birth as an innate part of natural language and that "learning about grammar is about acquiring abstract terminology and a set of nitpicking (and occasionally outdated or simply invented) rules about 'correct' grammar." All this, she says, discourages children's interest in English

The contrary position is we shouldn't insist people learn standard written English. Instead, we should teach everyone to be tolerant of regional and class dialects—not just accents but dialects. An accent has to do with how you pronounce words. Dialect has to do with word choice and sentence construction. Saying schedule in the British as opposed to the American way is a question of accent. Saying it don't make no difference is a question of dialect, the standard form being it doesn't make any difference .

Should schoolchildren be taught standard English grammar? The traditional view, of course, is yes. The standard form of the language—sometimes referred to as standard written English—has been thought to have a leveling influence on society. In any English-speaking country, it characterizes what it is to be educated. It's what lawyers learn. It's available to everyone who cares to learn it, and it prevents people from being condemned to speak only the regional or class dialect into which they're born. Most of us are born into some type of dialect.