Combating Language Bias in the Classroom and Beyond

For my past blog posts, which you can retrieve and read here and here , you and I have explored the kind of rejection, intimidation, and stigmatization English Language Learners feel upon arriving in America. We together have understood the many aspects of culture shock the Spanish ESL population faces in school and in their everyday lives. It seems as though everything is against them. The media constantly puts out negative images of immigrants, while politicians denounce certain populations who have immigrated to America. Together, we have looked closely at statistics of dropout rates for ESL students, and we have gained insight on the growing population in school districts. For the last post, we will talk about language bias among language learners, and the truth behind an accent.

                Language Bias is something ESL students will face in their lifetimes, and could be a reason behind their insecurities, such as public speaking. Written in an article by William Chin , “A 1981 study found that listeners gave lower ratings to Mexican-American speakers with a high degree of accent. In the study, Mexican-American and White high school students evaluated Mexican-American speakers of English”.  English speakers with an accent are often looked down upon, or made fun of, especially if they are from Spanish speaking populations. Shireen Baghestani sheds light on this in her article , saying “It is an ongoing reality that non-native speakers of English receive unfair treatment in this country because of the way talk. It is easy to see that fear plays into people's consciousness when they hear a language other than English being spoken”.  Baghestani also adds that some groups are targeted more than others; native Spanish speakers file more discriminatory acts than “such groups as Swedish, Dutch and Gaelic speakers”. 

Pronunciation Tips for ELL students

                                                                   

                So is there a way to combat language bias for ELL students? Is there a way to help students with their accent as they are learning English for the first time? Researchers suggest that if the language is learned before or during the mythical “critical period” of language acquisition, speakers will not maintain an accent. This “critical period” has been debated over decades; some researchers predict this period begins around the age of 2. Others say this “critical period” of language learning starts in early childhood and ends around the age of 12, or the age of adolescence. In an informational article by Palea and Bostina-Bratu, they explore different theories of the critical period, and include research such as “Research published prior to the mid-1990s claimed that people learning a second language after puberty still retain a foreign accent, while those who acquired it before puberty did not. Scovel suggests that if a second language learning begins after the age of 12 years, learners can never ‘pass themselves off as native speakers phonologically’”. Accent depends on when the learner acquired the language; to combat language bias, language should be taught to learners as early as possible.

Exploring Language Acquisition

This child is learning cognitive skills.

     

The journal of Educational Psychology explains in "Acquisition of Literacy: A Longitudinal Study of Children in First and Second Grade" the idea of this study was to examine a new model of learning acquisition. The model concentrates on progress in spelling, word recognition, reading comprehension and handwriting. As students went from first to second grade, longitudinal measurements were collected. Characteristics such as, IQ, ethnicity, language and the comparison at which child advanced through their knowledge from books were connected to development in phonemic awareness, lexical, and spelling - sound knowledge. The effect of these elements on growth in spelling and in word recognition was examined. Furthermore, recognizing the words, reading, listening comprehension, the association of spelling and expressing creativity to writing stories were analyzed. The final outcome from this study shows without the practice of phonetics, writing does not help with spelling - strong cognition. The similarity between recognizing words and spelling them was demonstrated in a powerful way because both of these abilities seems to depend on some of the same intelligence. The similarity between the comprehension of reading appeared weaker because the formation of theories included in the creation of story did not seem equal to the development of literacy.

Catherine L. Taylor explains in ""Early motor development is part of the resource mix for language acquisition - a commentary on Iverson's developing language in a developing body: the relationship between motor development and language development" Iverson endorses us to notice motor skills and new sensorimotor knowledge as elements of the language acquisition and cognitive growth. She believes that new motor practice can change the child's experience and are an educational mechanism for language and cognitive growth. In this model, normal neuro growth, normal brain development, general interactions with individuals, common activeness and guidance from adults are important for natural language growth. The study examines the observation, data and understanding of children and the family. The final outcome shows a part for neurbiological structures of language.

Elinor Ochs explains in "Language acquisition and socialization three development stories and their implications"  Two requests are made pertaining to the close relationships of language acquisition and the way we interact with each other. The process of obtaining language is very much influenced by the procedure of becoming a capable affiliate of an association and the process of becoming a competent member is perceived to a greater size through apportionment and clarifications in and across social circumstances. These assertions are reinforced with prof obtained from a comparison of a social growth of children such as, middle class, Kaluli and Samoan. Certain theoretical disagreements and the method of approach for a characteristic technique to the growth of language are bestowed paying attention to economic investigation, with attention and sources of the theology dealings with the growth of language origin nature and destiny of human beings. Five particular features, of the human culture are analyzed in language strategy are inscribed. The cultural group of philosophy and language use, integration of social and cultural factors and code awareness, the unequal of language growth and the most important situation for language investment, the relationship between adults and children pertaining to language precisely the absence of match between them the capacity of the scientific study of life in language accession.                           



       

Awareness in Code Switching

When researching the topic of Children Code Switching for the first blog post there was a lot of information in the popular media about bilingual children and code switching. While reading through those popular sources about code switching being a natural part of being bilingual there were main academic sources about wheter children are aware when they code switch. One of those academic sources found was from Ana Zentella and her research.

While researching Spanish-English code switching in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York, Ana Zentella found that her participants would code switch to make up for a lack of proficiency in their languages. They would use code switching as a crutch and only would remember, “because of the effort and embarrassment involved in code switching”. She also argues that that effortless code switching, in which proficient bilinguals engage in, is likely to be unconscious by the speaker. Code switching in bilingual speakers also functions below the level of their awareness.

            There are many different forms of code switching that a bilingual speaker can engage in from one word borrowing to translation equivalents. Code switching is governed both by marked and unmarked choices in switches as well as by the importance of social norms that act in accordance with constraints in linguistic structures. People may use code switching to express group identity, status and cross social boundaries. With children they have may different levels in which they use language due to the age when they were introduced to the language, their familiarity with the language, their social networks. All of these factors lead to different rates of lexical development for each language they speak.

            While there is not a lot of information in popular media to the effects of whether children are aware or unaware when they code switch, there is a lot of information in the academic sources. I feel that the reason why there is not a lot of information about whether children are aware when they code switch in the popular media is because when a child code switches, parents and teachers are more focused with trying to stop them from code switching. Parents and teachers feel that when a child code switches it is because of their lack of knowledge in both languages. I feel that if the general audience was aware of the fact that is it is normal to code switch than more information and research would be conducted on whether child are aware when they code switch.

How Linguistics Impacts Women in the Workplace

           There is no doubt that there is a difference between men and women in the workplace. I mean, we hear it all the time when people talk about the glass ceiling and how women are not receiving the same rights as men. However, what we don’t hear is how language is having a huge impact on the course of a woman’s work role. In my two previous blog posts (Let’s Talk and The Language) I have shared information about the overall concept of women in a meeting language and how women tend to use softening devices when speaking. However, in this specific post the focus is on what happens if women try to change their language.

            First of all, it is important to look at what exact language is different between men and women in the workplace. Scholarly writer, Xia Xiufang discusses how women and men have different pitches to their voices, which imply different confidence levels. For example, women’s voices tend to suggest positivity where as men’s voices command power and attention. Another scholar, Mary Barrett, adds to this concept in her article by discussing how women tend to take the back seat in conversations as men take on the lead voice. Barrett also suggests how women are “wary of crossing hierarchical lines” so they do not always take on the more aggressive roles and voice their opinions in the ways men do. Between the differences in voices and their comfort zone of speaking, it is clear that women are struggling to compete linguistically with men in conversations.

            Now knowing what you do on the language difference, you must know what would happen if women tried to change their language to be more like the men. This aspect is something that scholarly articles are not really touching on, so we turn to the popular stories. For example, Cosmopolitan writer, Jessica Bennett, discusses how when women try to be more assertive like men, they get labeled and people start name calling them. Women trying to rise to power begin to be called aggressive, bossy, and cold, which Bennett refers to as the ABC’s of the office. The image below shares additional adjectives that fall into this classification.

      From this name-calling problem, Bennett shares how studies are showing less and less women are running for higher positions in their workplace because they do not want to deal with the ABC’s. Not only that, but according to Bennett, even the women who do run are finding issues succeeding because while they can shrug the name calling off, others’ perceptions are changing due to the given names. The overall result is that women can’t seem to catch a break in the office, whether it is through the language they are using or that actions they are taking. This is a linguistically centered problem in which everyone should be aware of and working towards a solution.

Show Us More! A Search for Research on Chinese ELLs

Over my past couple of blog posts, it has been clear that there is not enough research and publicity on the struggles of elementary students whose native language is Chinese. Popular media consistently created a mental picture in the American populations mind that is the ESL program- a group of Spanish-speaking students talking in a corner looking confused with what is going on in class. Even the scholars, who study and research ESL programs, tend to focus in on Spanish natives.

            In the Huffington Post’s article from one of my earlier posts, “New Model for English Language Learners Needed in U.S. Schools,” the popular online site expressed its concerned for creating a more engaging environment so that ELLs are more likely to care about school instead of giving up and eventually dropping out due to lack of interest as well as discomfort in the classroom. Blogger Jane Smith explains, “Since economic achievement is directly connected to educational attainment, a national commitment to ELLs will result in more high school and college graduates, which in turn will create higher employment levels, higher income levels…” Basically, Smith is saying that keeping entire classrooms engaged in learning will ultimately help our country as a whole. So wouldn’t you think that more scholars would set focus on ALL types of ELL students so that this goal of an incoming, highly educated generation will be attainable?  Even some scholars that do focus on Chinese ELLs centralize the difference between English and Chinese language learning to be strongly based on how the large differences in the two languages affect the transition to English learning. That is, Chinese speakers are used to speaking in their language that typically uses symbols to mean different concepts rather than just letters to spell out a word and then a sentence. “Syntactic Skills in Sentence Reading Comprehension Among Chinese Elementary School Children,” studied the differences between the ELL students versus the native English speakers. What was concluded was that the English language demands more phonemic awareness than the Chinese. This makes it difficult for the Chinese ELLs to understand the English language more so because they have no development of how a single symbol or letter can represent a sound. In Ding’s scholarly article, “Rapid Automatized Naming and Immediate Memory Functions in Chinese Mandarin-Speaking Elementary Readers” it was expressed that Chinese ELLs comprehend reading for efficiently with verbal cues. This would be an important technique to have known to the public so that teachers who have these types of learners in their classroom can accommodate properly. But, because the research and studies are less prevalent for Chinese natives than Spanish natives, teachers are less prepared to have these ELLs in their class.

            The only fairly ‘popular’ site that focused precisely on Chinese native speakers, also mentioned in my previous blog posts, was found on colorincolorado.org. Xiao-lin Yin-Croft, author of “From the Classroom: Working with Chinese ELLs” speaks from first hand experience with Chinese ELLs who have gone through the American education system for multiple years. Because the blog site that this article was not half as popular as sites such as the Huffington Post who centralize their ELLs to be Spanish speakers, the mass population forgets that there is any other population of ELLs. If only the popular press would set focus on these other populations. Then perhaps the public eye would care more about these learners, which would in turn influence scholars to research and come up with solutions for this educational issue.

Picture courtesy of larryferlazzo.edublogs.org

Signifies that all language learners must remain fully committed to learning the language.

The same goes for the language teachers. 

Communication and Audience Design in Sociolinguistics

Previously, I have discussed how sociolinguistics in public speaking works and what it is. Now it is time to dig deeper and discover how communication and audience design affects the message that is being heard.

What is audience design? Audience design is a sociolinguistic model outlined by Allan Bell in 1984. It proposes that linguistics and style-shifting occurs when responding to a speaker's audience.
Basically, what Bell is saying each speaker goes into their speech prepared. However, there will come a time when the audience is not engaged to the speaker's style. It is then the speaker needs to adjust his style and shift it to better serve his audience.

The speaker is addressing his audience as they look on with interest. Notice how the speaker is making eye contact with his audience to prepare to respond (audience design).

In this article, the author is indicating two approaches to styles in sociolinguistics; first, how the speaker expresses him or herself. It is important to understand how the audience will react to your speech. If there is no conviction or passion in your tone while you are speaker, the audience will fail to hear your point. This is why communication and audience design is crucial. As you are failing to communicate with your audience, if you take a look at the listener's body language and see they are not interested, then it is time to shift gears and try a new style. Bell explains that the speakers needs to use the correct phonology, or sound system of a language. Also remember to include syntax and semantics. Taking all of these terms into account, the communication will be affective and therefore the speaker will receive a positive audience design.

The second approach Bell demonstrates that the setting of the speech matters. For example, he used research from interviews to determine that when the speaker discussed the message or topic with someone else, the audience did not pay attention or they were not interested. However, when the interviewer answered the questions of the audience to them personally, they felt more engaged in the conversation and were more likely to pay attention.

In this journal written by William S. Horton and Richard J. Gerrig, the authors explain the importance of audience design and why speakers of all ages need to practice and disguise their utterances for particular addresses. First, speakers must understand how influential audience design really is. Second, they must overcome their own speech tendencies and understand the audience in which they are speaking to. If a speaker approaches a room full of men and starts discussing shopping or a new clothing line, the speaker must find a way to make the address relevant to the audience.

This journal written by Hans J. Ladegaard, takes the roles of each person in a speech into account, by looking at the Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT). Meaning, when speakers speak, their actions and voice change to resonate with the audience. If a speaker walks into a high school gymnasium to conduct a speech in front of the entire school, the speaker will adjust his or her gestures and vocal patterns to match the audience.

After doing research it makes me believe how important audience design is when discussing sociolinguistics in public speaking.