This document discusses the status and importance of recognizing African American English (AAE) in education. It provides background on AAE, noting that it is a rule-governed dialect similar to other English varieties. While some teachers view AAE negatively, resolutions since the 1970s have advocated validating students' home languages. The document reviews research showing AAE speakers often receive less attention from teachers and outlines efforts to promote AAE in teacher education.

1. Black Language Matters
Repositioning African American
English in Language Education
Shajaira Lopez, EdD
Aurora University
Illinois TESOL Bilingual Education
English Learner Advocacy Council in Higher Education
February 24, 2018

2. Black Language
Matters!
2

3. of the English speakers
of the world speak the
Standard English variety
David Crystal
British linguist, educator, and author
Standard English is the minority variation
3

4. Record of 18 English dialects spoken in 1996-1999 in urbanized areas of
Canada and the United States (Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2005)
The Atlas of North American English
4

5. ❏African American English
❏Appalachian English
❏Chicano English
❏Jamaican Creole
❏Others!
Other English Varieties
5

6. Dr. Larabee calls Akeelah’s speech “ghetto” (From Akeelah and the Bee) 6

7. How do we
change this?
7

8. 8

9. Black Language
Matters!
9

10. What
is
AAE?
African American English is as
systematic, rule-governed, and
patterned as all other languages and
language varieties (Hudley & Mallinson,
2011).
10

11. John Rickford
Guyanese linguist, educator, and
author
Origin of AAE
11

12. 12
❏ Similarities in AAE and West African English
❏ Pronunciation of initial [th] as [d]: “dat,” “da”
❏ Pronunciation of final [th] as [f]: “baf,” “mouf”
❏ Completed actions: “He done ate”
❏ Habitual actions: “He be eatin’”
❏ Double negatives: “I don’t want none”
AAE may have originated from
West African languages
12

13. 13
❏ Similarities in AAE and Caribbean Creole
❏ Frequent drop of is and are: “He goin’”
❏ “Ax” instead of “ask”
❏ Drop of word-initial d, b, and g in tense-
aspect markers
Caribbean examples include
habitual/progressive (d)a, past tense (b)en,
and future (g)on
AAE may have originated
from Caribbean Creole
13

14. 14
❏ The Great Migration: elements of Southern
English merged with Northern speech
patterns → New variety evolved!
❏ Near-identical pronunciation of “pen” and
“pin”
❏ Use of “y’all”
AAE may have originated
from the Deep South
14

15. Some of the terms
that have been
used to refer to
the linguistic
patterns of African
Americans?
Black Language
Black English
Ebonics
African American
Vernacular English
(AAVE)
African American
Language (AAL)
African American
English (AAE)
15

16. Status of
AAE
in the U.S.
16

17. True dat!
17Barack Obama
Drake

18. Bill Cosby’s Pound Cake Speech, 2004 NAACP Awards Ceremony 18

19. 19
Status of
AAE
in education
Teachers tend to spend less time
engaging in conversations with AAE-
speaking students and pay less
attention to them (Boutte & Johnson,
2013).

20. 1972: Students’ Right to Their Own Language
Resolution (NCTE, 1974)
We affirm the students' right to their own patterns
and varieties of language—the dialects of their
nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their
own identity and style. . . We affirm strongly that
teachers must have the experiences and training
that will enable them to respect diversity and
uphold the right of students to their own language.
(NCTE, 1974, p. 1)
Noteworthy attempt to address
AAE in education
20

21. 1988: National Language Policy (NCTE, 2015)
1. To provide resources to enable native and
nonnative speakers to achieve oral and literate
competence in English
2. To support programs that assert the legitimacy of
native languages and dialects and ensure that
proficiency in one’s mother tongue will not be lost
3. To foster the teaching of languages other than
English so that native speakers of English can
rediscover the language of their heritage or learn a
second language.
Noteworthy attempt to address
AAE in education (cont.)
21

22. ❏ 1996: Oakland Resolution on Ebonics (Fogel
& Ehri, 2000)
❏ 1997: TESOL position statement on African
American Vernacular English (TESOL, 1997)
TESOL affirmed that the variety of English known as African
American Vernacular English, Black English, Ebonics, and
sometimes by other names has been shown through research
to be a rule-governed linguistic system, with its own lexical,
phonological, syntactic, and discourse patterns and, thus,
deserves pedagogical recognition. . . TESOL thus advocates
that teacher education include instruction in linguistics and in
developing partnerships between home and school.
Noteworthy attempts to address
AAE in education (cont.)
22

23. 23
What are P-12 teachers’
perceptions on students’
use of AAE in the
classrooms?

24. Preliminary Findings on Teachers’ Perceptions of AAE 24

25. Toni Morrison, described language
as, “the thing that black people love
so much—the saying of words,
holding them on the tongue,
experimenting with them, playing
with them. It’s a love, a passion. Its
function is like a preacher’s: to make
you stand up out of your seat, make
you lose yourself and hear yourself.”
(Thomas, 1994, p. 123)
25

26. Black Language
Matters!
26

27. 27
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