This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study provides a radical transformative framing of the power language dynamic in K-6 classrooms in the U.S. The quantitative phase of the study determined the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy and the use of linguistically responsive techniques in the classroom. The study's qualitative phase…

This article undertakes a textual analysis of an autobiographically informed novel, "American Street," to analyze the process of identity formation of a Black Haitian immigrant youth in the United States. Black immigrant youth remain an understudied demographic in literacy research compared with their Latinx and Asian immigrant…

Starting with the writer's own experience as a reader, this article discusses poetry by Eric Roach, Derek Walcott, Linton Kwesi Johnson, John Agard, Edward Baugh, Michael Smith and Velma Pollard. It explores the sense of place felt by writer and reader, going on to analyse the poets' use of Nation Language, poetic metre and intertextuality in…

This document brings together three papers dealing with the teaching of standard English to speakers of substandard varieties of the language, as well as of English-based pidgins or creoles. The first two papers are by linguists. The essay "Foreign Language Teaching Methods in Quasi-Foreign Language Situations" by William A. Stewart is intended to…

In discussing the rich linguistic history of Afro-Americans, the author points out that black people had a linguistic system when they came to the New World and frequently had a knowledge of a form of English which had been influenced by Black Portuguese and West African languages. Despite many assertions to the contrary, Black English, "the…

Explores how a speech variety close to oratorical standard English is learned in one Afro-American peasant community in the West Indies. Material gathered during two field trips, one supported by a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and the other by a National Institute of Mental Health grant. (VM)

Summarizes research on educational programs that use stigmatized varieties of English in the classroom, and reviews relevant theory and research in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition. Research on educational programs shows that using the stigmatized variety in formal education seems to have a positive effect on the acquisition of…

This paper considers the problem of teaching formal composition skills to those whose repertories lack formal standard speaking style. The approach advocated here is bidialectal and is based on the idea that control of a variety of language styles is a useful tool and that productive competence of formal composition style is a mandatory skill for…