Adapted from Chapter 7 of Basic Report for Targeted Communications: Teaching a Standard English to Speakers of Other Dialects;'' report supported by a grant from the U.S. Office of Education. Special issue on Black Dialect: Historical and Descriptive Issues'' edited by William A. Stewart. (RS)

Corrects the misconception that there is a standard English dialect. Suggests that a linguistic racial bias victimizes black children. (Author)

Advocates the recognition of a "consensus dialect of American English, which could be used for educational purposes throughout the United States. Appears in "The Florida FL Reporter special anthology issue, "Linguistic-Cultural Differences and American Education. (FWB)

The proper person for the necessary job of teaching black children standard English is a specialist with a knowledge not only of language teaching but of the language and culture of the children being taught. Appears in "The Florida FL Reporter special anthology issue "Linguistic-Cultural Differences and American Education. (FWB)

Describes three current approaches to the problems of nonstandard English and examines the motivations behind them. Appears in "The Florida FL Reporter special anthology issue, "Linguistic-Cultural Differences and American Education. (FWB)

Examines viewers' perceptions of characters and their speech to see if: (1) the language of the characters corresponds to the language of Black speech communities as described by sociolinguists; (2) White viewers perceive language as important in their perceptions of the characters; and (3) White viewers are more likely to identify with speakers…

Reviews significant research into child Black English, describes some of the controversies raised by that research, and offers some implications for teaching suggested by the research. (FL)

Code-switching is examined in oral narratives of 30 African-American women as they switched from Standard English to Black English Vernacular. A little over half of the speakers assign positive values to their code switches. Examples are given from interviews with two subjects. (SLD)

Standard English has not disappeared, but merely changed as it "must" change when the dominant class setting the standard undergoes change. If teachers are to succeed in persuading pupils to change their language, they must know and teach the standard as it is, not as it used to be, while still implanting in the minds of some students…

RECENT LINGUISTIC RESEARCH SHOWS THAT THE SPEECH PATTERNS OF SOUTHERN NEGROES CONSTITUTE A LEGITIMATE DIALECT OF ENGLISH WITH PHONOLOGICAL AND GRAMMATICAL RULES SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT FROM GENERAL AMERICAN ENGLISH (GAE). AN EXPERIMENT WAS DESIGNED TO DETERMINE WHETHER THOSE ASPECTS OF THE NEGRO DIALECT WHICH SET IT APART FROM OTHER ENGLISH DIALECTS…

This report describes the design, production, and evaluation of the first six lessons of a self-instructional program in standard English. The program is designed for use by fifth-grade students in Baltimore who are speakers of Baltimore non-standard Negro English. The six lessons were developed, pre-tested, revised, and evaluated in an attempt to…