Post 226:: Should we teach students to write like they speak?

Post 226: Should we teach students to  write like they speak?

For many years, the role of the grammar/writing teacher was to teach students correct grammar and to teach students how to write in Standard English. Immigrant students had to lose their heritage language to assimilate into American culture and learn mainstream English to succeed in school, to go to college, and get a good job.  This has been the paradigm for a long time--the teacher as the error correction police.

If you are a student with a southern accent for instance, you were told to drop that southern twang and learn to speak 'Standard English'. If you spoke regional English with 'bad' grammar, you were told by your teacher how to speak correctly using Standard English grammar.

Now comes the linguist who says, your Black English, your Pidgin Chinese English, your franglais or Spanglish is okay. You can write the way you speak. That teachers need to celebrate the cultures of other students and that acculturation is key not assimilation.

Then that same teacher has you read stories that have more of a local color where the author deliberately writes in the regional way she talks. Authors like James Baldwin would write his books in Black English. Many writers from underdeveloped parts of the United States wrote in the local accent of their region to lend local color to their stories. 'Local color' stories where authors wrote liked they talked are called Regionalism stories. Famous authors include William Faulkner, Nora Neale Hurston,  Flannery O'Connor,  Sarah Orne Jewett and many others. In fact, many Regionalism writers rejected the standardization of English accusing other earlier artists of capitulating to East Coast tastes.

For African American students and students from the south, reading literature that mirrors the way they talk gave them a feeling of powerfulness and pride in their English. Linguists believe that no matter how you speak English, all English is legitimate.

When I was teaching face to face, I remember teaching Regionalism Literature and having students write stories about their own lives in their own English just like the Regionalism authors did. I taught them that writing in their own English was a certain style of writing that adds local flavor to their stories. In the novel, Crazy Rich Asians about a family of very rich Asian Americans, Kevin Kwan uses some Chinese in his novel to give his story a more authentic Asian feel. I taught students in my writing class that it is okay to write like they speak if they are adding local flavor to a story they are writing and that they can choose to write in any style they want--whether it be their regional accent--or in Standard English.

However, when I was teaching online English Composition, most students wanted to learn how NOT to write the way they talk. They wanted to learn proper grammar rules to escape from the way they talk. So, if the objective of the class is to teach the different styles of writing through literature, then I tell students it is okay to write the way they talk, but if the teaching objectives of the class is to teach students how to write an academic research essay, then I tell students it is not okay to write the way they talk.

In my literature class, students loved adding local flavor to their short stories by writing the way they talked and in my English Composition class, students loved learning how to write so that they don't write the way they talk. I had one grateful student from Oklahoma say to me, "Thanks to your class, Prof. Ho, now nobody will know I am from Oklahoma from my essays." and from a student from my literature class, "Thanks Prof. Ho, for teaching me how to add local color to my story by teaching me it is okay to write as I talk when I need to for a creative story!"

The important lessons my students learned is that writing in your own English is a choice they can make to empower themselves to have pride in their heritage and not let the establishment white middle class English make them feel they are inferior, but instead, minority students and immigrant students learn to celebrate their culture by writing about their culture in their own English.   This is the power of language to project your voice in writing. Students can still learn Standard English while still acknowledging the power of their own English and their own voice.