This literature review examines articles and research discussing the pros and cons of using black English reading materials in the teaching of initial reading to black-English speaking children. It evaluates articles and studies that compare subjects' performance on standard English and black English oral reading, oral reading comprehension, and…

The topic of black dialect, a timely concern in education and society, should include an understanding of the relationship between language and culture and an understanding of the differences within ethnic and environmental influences contributing to linguistic diversity. Characteristics in black dialect which reflect its descent from African…

Four realizations of the copula occur in English, two in both Anglo and Black English and two in Black English and in some varieties of Anglo English but not in standard English. This paper describes the use of the copula in English and identifies the phonological, syntactic, and semantic factors which are believed to condition its realization 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…

A 6-week institute for 38 primary school teachers (K-3), most of them from the Tampa area, was conducted to give teachers (1) a basic understanding of modern linguistics and its implications for second dialect teaching, (2) a grasp of the structural similarities and differences between Black dialects and general American English, and (3) an…

This paper begins with a discussion of the assumptions basic to the study of both language and social dialects: verbal systems are arbitrary, all languages or dialects are adequate as communicative systems, they are systematic and ordered and learned in the context of the community. A survey of current work and findings in dialect studies follows.…

This oral language program for Afro-American children in grades 1 to 3 who speak nonstandard English is designed to emphasize and utilize the child's existing language competency, gradually and systematically introducing standard English as an additional dialect. Priority has been given to the aspects of the child's language which identify him as…

The writer, who feels that the chief differences between Black English (BE) and White English (WE) are phonological and not syntactic, reports on a sociolinguistically oriented examination of that variety of English spoken by children in rural Northern Florida (CBE/Fla). Twenty-two black children between the ages of nine and 12 were taped…

The present text on Gullah, a dialect of a large number of Negroes in South Carolina and Georgia, is a reprint of the original volume published in 1949 by the University of Chicago Press. (Publication of the original was aided by a subsidy from the American Council of Learned Societies.) In the first preface, the author remarks on the current…

The protocol materials on phonology in black nonstandard dialects prepared for use by a group of elementary teacher trainees are described. The thirteen phonological concepts studied include: (1) free variation of sounds or full phonemes; (2) the loss of the /r/ phoneme, except in initial position in a syllable; (3) the omission of final single…

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a teacher's instructional behavior on black high school students' learning of standard English grammatical features. The study also aimed (a) to identify the subjects' deviations from standard English and to select the most socially stigmatizing items, (b) to prepare and evaluate…

Comparative judgments of vocal quality, speech fluency, and confidence of black and white speakers in southern universities were tested to determine the interrelationships of (1) perception of vocal quality and judgment of confidence in the voice, (2) quality and fluency, and (3) speech fluency and judgment of confidence, and to ascertain the…

The exposure of linguistically different black kindergarten children to a special literature program was undertaken to test its efficacy as a preventive approach to reading failure. There were 94 subjects (45 in an experimental group and 49 in a control group) in four schools located in lower income urban areas. The program demonstrated a…

This report summarizes the proceedings and outcomes of a working conference of experts, scholars, and educators, held at Stanford University on February 19-20, 1976. The goal of the conference was to discuss and improve tests constructed as part of an effort to improve the teaching of children who speak one or more varieties of Black English. The…

This study examined the reactions of eight- and nine-year-old children to "standard" and "non-standard" Black American English and investigated the extent to which such children could verbally conceptualize their attitudes using a simplified version of the Osgood semantic differential scale. Results are discussed. (SE)