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Transforming Language Instruction for Social Justice:

A Study of Four High School English Teachers’ Development of

Critical Language Pedagogy for African American Students

Amanda Godley and Kaylan MooreUniversity of Pittsburgh

What is Critical Language Pedagogy?

It is a “critical” approach to teaching about language and grammar. It teaches students to challenge dominant ideologies about

language (such as “standard” dialects) and to question power structures reflected in and sustained by language practices.

It helps students improve their understanding of the grammatical patterns of privileged dialects of English at the same time that they explore the reasons such dialects hold their societal power.

A critical examination of language ideologies can be particularly important for African American students who speak African American English (AAE), because of widespread misconceptions that AAE is ungrammatical or uneducated.

-Chishom & Godley (2011); Godley & Loretto (2013); Godley & Minnici (2008)

The Collaborative Project

Two year collaboration with the English Department of an urban, predominantly African American high school (4 teachers)

Monthly meetings to: learn about CLP, discuss and assess students’ academic language and

literacy learning needs, collaboratively plan, reflect, and revise CLP lessons and

units.

Participants

9th grade: Beth – working/middle class suburban, White, 3 years teaching

11th grade: Roxanne – identified as White, poor rural background. Three years teaching experience, two at Greensburg

10th grade: Sherice – identified as African American, middle-class rural town background. Ffiteen years teaching experience, 8 years in suburbs, 7 at Greensburg

12th grade: Chris – identified as White, working-class, urban fringe background. 10 years teaching.

Research Questions

How did the teachers’ understandings of language and dialects change across the two-year collaboration?

What successes and challenges did teachers experience as they planned, enacted and reflected on their implementation of CLP?

Focus on most resistant teacher: Sherice

Setting – Greensburg High School

In an isolated, high-poverty community on the fringe of a Rust Belt city.

350 students, 99% identifying as African American and 100% qualifying for free/reduced lunch.

Data Sources

Audiorecordings, fieldnotes, and artifacts from: Monthly meetings of all four teachers and

researcher (22 total) 3-4 individual interviews per teacher

(beginning of study, middle, and end) Classroom observations (approx. 2 days per

week)

Data Analysis

First round of coding: Teachers’ views on grammar and language

instruction Teachers’ beliefs about students’ language Teachers’ beliefs about their own language Teachers’ beliefs about students’ language and

literacy needs Tensions and challenges in teaching CLP Successes and effective strategies, future ideas

for lesson plans

Data Analysis (Con’t)

Second Round of Coding: Focus on Sherice Gee’s (1999) Cultural Models” “Images or storylines

or descriptions of simplified worlds in which prototypical events unfold.”

Holland et al’s (1998) figured worlds, which are organized by narratives about how the world works.

Combined Sherice’s beliefs into cohesive narratives about language in her own life, students’ lives, and society.

Tracked Sherice’s Cultural Models chronologically.

Cultural Model #1: Traditional/Pragmatic

I am African American but I speak Standard English. I learned Standard English from African American elders in my family and community. Standard English has nothing to do with race or racism. Saying that SE is “talking white” implies that African Americans don’t speak SE and are incapable of speaking SE. Speaking SE is VERY important for academic and professional success. AAE is “substandard” language. It is characterized by slang and profanity and only should be used in specific social situations. By speaking SE, African American youth can show White people that they are just as capable and professional. Thus, African American students need to be convinced of the importance of speaking SE and should practice SE in school all the time so that they can learn the nuances of it and be successful.

Cultural Model #2: Language Expresses

IdentityAAE is a form of identity, and students should not have to change “who they are.” Prejudices against AAE are unfair, but it is not appropriate in school or business settings. Students need to be made aware of how strong prejudices against AAE are, but without destroying their creativity or self-image. In school, if teachers correct every time a student uses AAE, they will shut down. School is a place to be supportive of students’ improvement in SE control and awareness of linguistic prejudices. Students need young black role models who code-switch and can show them how they can use SE to their advantage and without compromising their identities.

Sherice – Beginning of Collaboration

Cultural Model 1: “because when this Black language came out, see I started taking offense to that. To say that it was okay to teach our children substandard language. I said it is not okay. There is a .. yes, I know we have different xx systems that we can speak, but if we are going to be successful, we have got to adopt and maintain a certain level of standard English that is going to.. Now, if you want to sit back when you go home for your, you know, class reunion or whatever and every once in a while I will purposely slip back into some kind of accent or dialect just to make a connection with my kids. Then it’s okay. “

After One MonthCultural Model 2: “There is

a richness there”Sherice: Yeah, ummm. And it is truly a link that perhaps tightens or strengthens the bonds among our students because no one else speaks that way. You know Black English is Black English. Now although I said to you that I’ve heard – heard some other folks, Chris, attempt to mimic the sound, you know, the style that we have but…(later in the conversation)You know, there is a richness there, isn’t there? And so our children are not so unique and all this is not unique within themselves to be made to believe that they don’t have a right to have their own language. (9/20/05)

After 6 Months Cultural Model 1: Students need to realize how

important it is to use SE in professional and other settings

Sherice: But if a student’s, if an employee’s coming to me, a would-be employee, coming to me speaking slang I would have, sad to say, I would have only one, I would have reason to believe if he speaks this way, then he writes this way, then he goes into a boardroom at the top of 31st floor 5th Avenue Place and there is a perception that may or may not be who he is but that’s, but we judge him by the way in which he speaks, which is slang, which is substandard EnglishChris: that’s what I’m saying, if the person could do the, is able to do the same work, but uses, perhaps slang is not the right word, uses bad English or, what’s a good word? Non-standard English. I mean how does that necessarily say that he or she wouldn’t do a good job.

Sherice: well, you know what it is. It doesn’t really say that though, does it Chris? But there is a predisposition to our belief that it does, that it does affect how one is viewed intellectually by using slang [3/30/06, Teacher Meeting 12]

After One YearCultural Model 2: Using SE to “get over for the right

reasons”

Sherice: …he code-switches beautifully … He was using their vernacular to get them to understand, so suppose one of the security persons “rolls up on you” and you’re on your way to a class. He said, “Now what’s going to get this, what you have to do is, you say, ‘Excuse me sir, excuse me sir” um, and it was something about, you know, “you’re keeping me from going to my next class and is there anything I can help you with because here’s my pass and if you don’t mind.” But then when he switched, he walked away as if to say, “Yeah see [xx] that,” you know what I mean. But it was the idea of, he used it as getting over, but see that’s what these kids have got to learn to do, they’ve got to get over for the right reasons. Post-Interview 6/1/06

Linguistic ProfilingClash between Cultural Models

PraxisThe sound of housing discriminationThe Crisis Magazine (NAACP)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a voice over the phone may be worth a thousand pre-conceived notions. Stanford University professor John Baugh has been studying the linguistic nature of housing discrimination against minorities has been for more than 15 years. How we sound on the phone, he contends, affects how the person on the other end responds to us. His research shows that for those in the home buying and rental market, a voice possessing a particular accent, inflection or laced with slang often yields a negative response when compared with a similar inquiry from someone speaking Standard American English.

“Where should change come from?”

Chris: I think part of the problem is identifying who should be or where could change come from. is up to the African American community to evoke change. Or is it up to the White community to change? The nice answer is a little bit of both. But the reality is somebody has to.Beth: Initiate the change.

Sherice: Would it be easier for you to dispel those myths about the kind of person you must be by that voice rather than attempting to change the way or the patterns of which one speaks. Which do you think would be EASIER if we really had to choose? For me to help you change your perception of ‘deez, dooze, and dems’. It’s easier for me once I’ve educated you not to judge me by how I sound. Chris: But they can't even get in the door to make that change. Do you know what I’m saying? He was not invited through the doorway [Sherice: I KNOW!] to even start a change

Chris: I think part of the problem is identifying who should be or where could change come from. is up to the African American community to evoke change. Or is it up to the White community to change? The nice answer is a little bit of both. But the reality is somebody has to.Beth: Initiate the change. Sherice: Would it be easier for you to dispel those myths about the kind of person you must be by that voice rather than attempting to change the way or the patterns of which one speaks. Which do you think would be EASIER if we really had to choose? For me to help you change your perception of ‘deez, dooze, and dems’. It’s easier for me once I’ve educated you not to judge me by how I sound. [Teacher meeting 3, 10/4/06]

Chris: But they can't even get in the door to make that change. Do

you know what I’m saying? He was not invited through the doorway [S: I KNOW!] to even start a changeSharice: That’s my point so how do we get to that point ?Beth: Well that’s trying to change when you don’t judge. I mean

obviously somebody’s trying to change.Sherice: But can we get them to move in that direction because the

question is already obvious and evident, we’ve lived it all of our lives. I don’t really need another awareness campaign.Roxanne: YOU don’t.Sherice: And when I say I, I mean we. I think this should be to lead

to some THING to start a conversation. We’ve already BEEN

THERE OVER DECADES. This isn’t anything NEW.

“I don’t need another awareness campaign.”

Findings – Tensions (cont’d)Where should change come from?

Chris: So what I’m saying is that it’s not the voice that the man hates or the dialect it is the person. Now, how do we change that? What do we do? What do we do to change it? Are we now saying to students look if you change the way you speak it’s not going to open the door or maybe we say it opens the door but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be invited in.

Sherice: yesChris: Do we say that? Or are we saying it’s not YOU that needs to change it’s the other person that needs to change?Sherrada: I think we said that earlier.Chris: So now what? [Teacher meeting 3, 10/4/06]

Findings – Tensions (cont’d)

Sherice’s opinions changed over the course of the 2-year study, but tensions also remained.Sherice: You folks convinced me that it’s okay for them to speak this way in certain situations. Remember, I would say well why can’t they say to their peers the way that I would want them to speak to me in the classroom. And that’s where I was willing to bend in that regard. [1/17/07, Teacher Meeting 5] Sherice: EXACTLY. And if there is this if I may say GHETTO language, we’re saying that it is acceptable then I’m just not so certain if that is true. I just don’t think it’s true… But even if we’ve given it a label and it’s equated to African American English I believe that it’s the kind of language that will hold them back, it will hold our children back and will, it could keep them from acquiring good jobs if they’re labeled and they’re stereotyped ALREADY in much less their language does it still all the more? [1/17/07, Teacher Meeting 5]

Conclusions

Sherice’s understanding about CLP and students’ language use did not develop on a predictable trajectory. Both cultural models appeared throughout the two year collaboration.

Sherice did come to see through teaching CLP that her students were masterful code-switchers and very aware of linguistic prejudices.

Sherice’s cultural models for language and dialects was based on her own life experiences, both speaking SE and working in the corporate world.

Sherice’s first cultural model cannot be reduced to simply a traditional, uniformed view of language. It was based on her own personal experiences and pragmatic rather than ideological, goals.

It was the clash between Sherice’s cultural models that led her, and the other teachers, to consider the praxis they were calling for in teaching CLP, beyond teaching an “awareness campaign” about linguistic prejudices.

Implications

The literature tends to dichotomize teachers as either “sociolinguistically informed” or racist. We need to develop more nuanced models for teachers’ beliefs about language in order to help them approach language instruction more critically.

“Getting over for the right reasons” might be a useful approach/goal for CLP to partially resolve the tension that Sherice (and parents in Ogbu’s 1999 study) express.