Skateboarding as a Vernacular

          I'd never really taken the time to consider the linguistic peculiarities of skateboarding terminology until very recently. I quite literally grew up skateboarding. I’ve been doing it since as far back as I can remember, so the skateboarder dialect seems completely natural to me. I tend to forget that others might not understand what a “kick flip back smith” is, and that’s really why I chose to examine the evolution of language use within the skateboarding community. In an interview with Huck Magazine, Kevin Métallier, a skate photographer, answered a few questions that relate to dialectology within skateboarding (http://www.huckmagazine.com/ride/skate/photographer-learning-universal-language-skateboarding/). Métallier said, when asked about skateboarding as a sort of “universal language,” “My passion for skateboarding and the culture surrounding it can be defined as a passport. In the 15 years that I’ve travelled around world, skateboarders, no matter where you are, can share something strong with you.” He seems to view skateboarding as a uniting force of sorts, and his rather expansive answer might be a good place to begin in terms of actually analyzing skateboarding as a language.

This image depicts some of the mechanical terminology used to describe the makeup of a skateboard.
( http://www.awesome-skateboard.com/SkateboardParts.html) 

            The origin of the terminology used by skateboarders certainly stems from surfing. Skateboarding was, naturally, invented by surfers who wanted to be able to “surf” even when the waves went flat. Many of the more general terms used to describe feelings or appreciation within surfing and skateboarding are identical (“sick,” “rad,” “gnarly,” etc.). However, the actual tricks performed by skateboarders have names that are entirely unique to skateboarding. Simon Horobin, author of an Oxford Dictionaries article entitled “The Words You Need to Know Before Skateboarding,” said, “A rich lexicon has emerged to describe the variety of grinds and airs – street and aerial maneuvers – that expert skaters perform” (https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/06/language-of-skateboarding/). So, the physical act of skateboarding somehow brought about the formation of an entirely new vocabulary. The constant evolution of skateboarding’s terminology seems to run parallel with the constant progression within skateboarding itself.

            I think examining the various ways in which skateboarding as a dialect can unify people from different geographical locations is crucial to understanding how skaters actually utilize their language on a daily basis. John McMahon, author of an article entitled “The Language, Lifestyle, and Universality of Skater Speak,” said, “As a teenager I was deeply involved in skate culture and now as a middle-aged expat in Thailand, my knowledge of the language allows me to talk to kids less than half my age at the wake park where I board each week even when my Thai fails” (https://www.listenandlearnaustralia.com.au/blog/the-language-lifestyle-and-universality-of-skater-speak/). Those who truly treat skateboarding as something more than just a pastime are naturally able to communicate with each other. Skater jargon resulted from a combination of surfer slang and unbridled uniqueness. Words like “sick” and “rad” have actually bridged the gap between skateboarding and popular culture as a whole, however it seems as though the only way to truly become familiar with the skateboarding dialect is to speak with other skateboarders. What began as a secondary hobby to surfing has transformed into a veritable way of life with its own dialect (cliché, I know). The origins of skateboarding’s linguistic history are certainly worth examining, and it will be interesting to see how the vernacular changes as time goes on.

Raven Amato: Unnecessarily Gendered Language and the Language Perspectives (or . . . Lack Thereof)

In recent years, unnecessarily gendered language has become a popular topic. The press voices a concern for pronouns and gendered phrases in Jessica Bennett’s post in the New York Times, Rachael Pells’s post from Independent, and Caroline Davies’s post on The Guardian, but just how well do they represent the linguistic matters at hand? At a first glance, they don’t seem to be speaking too narrowly! However, depending on the individual reader’s stance on gendered language, their viewpoints may feel noticeably less than well-rounded. This is especially true when they are compared to an academic source on the same subject!

            Bennett seems like she will attempt to discuss both sides of the gendered language argument. She acknowledges that some people use “they” as a pronoun, and there are also those who would sooner find themselves using “function words.” What are those? Bennett describes them as, “. . . words that have little lexical meaning but serve to connect other words — or ‘the basic building blocks in language’” (Bennett). Conversely, Pells and Davies both bring up school policies that punished gendering words. Instead of generic masculine words, they assign alternatives that include “postal carrier” while doing away with “mailman,” (Davies), or “waiter,” and “server,” in place of “waitress” (Pells).

Some Universities are beginning to enforce linguistic guidelines like these!

     This is where a lack of thoroughness wounds their articles! Bennett introduces new pronouns as an answer to the gendered language problem, for those who are not fond of “they.” From here-on-out, rather than explaining function words, she appeals to those who prefer pronoun alternatives. Similarly, we see little of the school campus’s arguments in Pells’s and Davies’s articles! The language representation in both posts is overshadowed by commentary from interviewees who make fun of gender policies. They merely joked that a language-banning move was likely to cause rebellion (Davies)!

            The writing itself is not biased in any of these press articles . . . However, the fact that they reference folks who enjoy pronoun alternatives, and ignore gender-neutral language policies (for the sake of function words and “free speech”) raises suspicion that other arguments are silenced!

             Comparatively, the scholarly article of Benson, Kemp, Pirlott, Coughlin, Forss, and Becherer discusses pronouns and alternatives in richer detail. Unafraid to be specific and tackle all angles, the authors describe how surveys were used to gauge student reactions to the “man” suffix and prefix (Benson, Kemp, Pirlott, Coughlin, Forss, and Becherer 237). These studies reveal that, while not all students were in agreement of abandoning “man”, there were also those willing to embrace some language change. This document also explains the process universities undergo to establish gendered language policies, so that they may apply to “all academic communications” (Benson, Kemp, Pirlott, Coughlin, Forss, and Becherer 238). Language-editing universities sound unreasonable when there is little shown in their defense. Funnily enough, when the story is told from the side of the faculty, we learn that there is a connection between language and school law policies. Suddenly, the evolution of language not only makes sense; it holds practicality in the linguistic values of an entire community!

           

#Activism: Hashtivism or Slacktivism?

How powerful can a hashtag really be, anyway? (Source)

My project focuses on “hashtivist” engagement with #GenderEquality on Twitter. A hashtivist (blend of hashtag activist) is someone who blogs, tweets, or otherwise posts information and opinions about social, political, and other issues on social media, either using popular hashtags to reach their desired audience or creating new hashtags to enrich or undermine existing discourses surrounding other hashtags and activist campaigns. There is significant debate over whether this practice is significant, whether social media campaigns count as “real” activism or if they should just be dismissed as mere “slacktivism.” Although my analysis will be more descriptive than argumentative, I think it’s worthwhile to discuss the ongoing debate over hashtivism itself - after all, the relevance of my research hinges on whether or not hashtivism can be considered a meaningful social practice.

In an editorial on the subject written for the UK International Justice Mission, Holly Burkhalter asserts that, although “[s]ocial media can be shallow, vulgar and ridiculous - and often is[,] …  it can also joyfully rip through the shadows and fling the truth far and wide." She describes those opposed to hashtivism and hashtivists as “fashionable cynics,” a fitting term for the reactionaries who tend to consider any pop culture phenomenon automatically passe and useless. These cynics range from people who think hashtivism contributes little or nothing to debates and other types of discourses over social issues to those who consider it harmful, lulling people into thinking that issues can be and are being solved with a simple click of a button or post of a tweet. Burkhalter argues, though, that silence, ignorance, and indifference are actually the most harmful things in instances of social injustice and inequality. Hashtivism in social media is just one of the ways of counteracting these things: it is definitely a powerful method of “fling[ing] the truth far and wide” and, hopefully, of raising awareness not only of injustice, but the need for empathy and critical thinking, for learning how to care and for being able to distinguish truth from fiction in a society constantly bombarded with conflicting information.

It is by no means an original observation that social media breaks down barriers by facilitating mass communication among groups and individuals with varying levels of authority and from different socio-cultural backgrounds and geographical locations. According to this infographic (which, unfortunately, is a bit too large to include in this post), there are 100 million active users on Twitter every day, 80% of world leaders use Twitter, and 44% of Americans are exposed to tweets on other forms of media. Clearly, the power of social media and its facilitation of hashtivism cannot and should not be dismissed.

Academics, and linguists in particular, have recognized the social and semiotic power of the hashtag for years. In a recent example, Innocent Chiluwa and Presley Ifukor’s Systemic Functional Linguistic analysis of #BringBackOurGirls campaign discourse demonstrates the scholarly relevance of hashtivism and the ways in which such campaigns may help further our understanding of how significant social action can evolve out of a simple string of symbols on a computer screen. Chiluwa and Ifukor, like virtually everyone else in favor of hashtivism, conclude their study with the condition that social media campaigns can be useful and effective, but, unless they are accompanied by “practical offline actions,” they do run the risk of ending up as “mere slacktivism” (267).

A Very Brief Introduction to Systemic Functional Grammar/Linguistics

When you're approaching any analysis of language, it’s usually necessary and useful to have a theoretical framework in mind. There are myriad theories of language, but one of the most important to contemporary linguistics is M.A.K. Halliday and Christian Matthiessen’s theory of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), which has contributed to the development of the linguistic subfield Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Halliday and Matthiessen’s seminal work Introduction to Systemic Functional Grammar, first published in 1985 and now in its 4th edition, is notoriously dense and difficult to understand. This obscurity has prompted countless academics to attempt to explain SFG/L in their own (sometimes even more complex) words, in books, online college course resources, blog posts, and other formats. These sources are helpful and tend to reflect the subject accurately and concisely, but in this post I’m going to take a stab at illustrating (hopefully in less confusing terms) just a few aspects of it that are relevant to my project.

I’ll start with the name, which can seem a bit intimidating at first. The “systemic” part of SFG/L refers to the perspective that language is “a network of systems.” As the word “network” suggests, these systems are interconnected, and they each represent a set of choices for meaning making. Choice is probably the word that best captures the overall approach to language in SFG/L because, instead of treating actual instances of language use as variations on the rules of an a priori structure, SFG/L considers them as realizations of a system’s semiotic potential. This is where the “functional” part of the theory’s name comes in: describing a speaker/writer’s linguistic choices necessitates a view of language as a phenomenon performing a social function, rather than the traditional perspective that linguistic structures can be described in a vacuum, without considering context.

As Moses Ayoola explains, SFG “takes the resource perspective rather than the rule perspective,” merging structural linguistics with sociolinguistics and providing a useful framework for describing symbolic/linguistic interactions in society. SFG/L divides the semantic function of language into three distinct but simultaneous metafunctions (Ideational/Experiential, Interpersonal, Textual), each of which corresponds to a grammatical system (Process Type, Mood, Theme, respectively).

 

System Categories Organized by SFG Metafunction (Source)

Although the three metafunctions can be considered together - they are, after all, simultaneous and descriptive of language’s role in society - the Interpersonal metafunction is commonly used in isolation as an analytical framework in contemporary sociolinguistics because of its primary focus on describing certain highly relevant aspects of the ways in which information is exchanged among people and groups. Therefore, I have chosen to approach my own research on informal gender discourse using an Interpersonal metafunctional lens. Doing this allows me to describe the types of speech functions being utilized by the Twitter community, as well as the mood and modal commitment (certainty, enthusiasm, etc.) being reflected in their discussions on issues related to gender. In other words, this theoretical framework gives me the tools to understand and describe how the linguistic choices writers are making function within a certain context.

Hierarchy of Mood in SFG (Source)

Beyond Wooden Tile Letters and Dusty Pages: Meanings in the OED Online

In attempting to pursue more research into exploring the linguistic understandings of Scrabble and its official dictionary, I only came across rare allusions to the board game and the occasional reference to Margaret Atwood’s use of the game in her The Handmaid’s Tale.  Even within this current academic dearth, however, Scrabble remains a key point in my new topical direction towards understanding electronic lexicography as a response to the arguable limitations the point system, square gridding and obscure arbitrary linguistic choices Scrabble competition, both at the domestic and international level, can lead people into.  The consideration of how the most recent generation of lexicographers have all been transferring and building online dictionaries, lexicons and linguistic resources shows how language choice is expanding and responding to any limitation that could be placed on understanding English or any human language. 

Courtesy of global.oxforduniversitypress.com 

            Considering my paper’s research and topics don’t include a focus on the shifting of the Oxford English Dictionary from an exclusively print medium towards an online version, it is therefore worth analyzing this central topic within the current generations growing push towards accessible online lexicography.  The scholarship of Charlotte Brewer in her academic work “Only Words” speaks to the shift of the OED from a century of two editions exclusively in print to the possibility of a purely pixelated version.  She discusses the ability to “skip blithely from one end of the alphabet to the other in the blink of an eye”; however, she also accounts for the anxiety and “hand-wringing about the loss of this unwieldy behemoth” (Brewer 17).  She locates the difficulty of it ever having become physically tangible as one reason as to why an online conversion of this once Victorian age project of the 19^th century resulted in disturbances throughout the English speaking worlds.  Brewer also recognizes various forms of critique and response from users of how “even OED Online enthusiasts concede that any things immediately evident in the printed book are obscured or not apparent: the length of an entry…its relationship to its neighbors” (18).  Ken Winter also offers a scholarly voice in this shift through his article “From Wood Pulp to the Web: The Online Evolution”.  He locates the initial updating issues for print versions of the OED in 1884, 1928 and 1989 which is no longer an issue with the online version’s ability for quarterly additions.  From an academic perspective as well, Winter asserts through the OED’s chief editor that this resource is “more of a ‘database for humanities research’ than a dictionary” in the words of Warburton (Winter 71).  Brewer’s scholarship acquiesces that the online transference of this central dictionary aids in rapid maintenance and addition of new terminology.

            John Ezard of the Guardian provides a less academic voice in the societal and intellectual implications of this lexicographical shifting the OED to the internet.  The context of this embracing the digitization of the nearly one hundred and fifty year old OED in the year 2000 saw the largest reference book addition to the online community.  Ezard stated that the OED Online presents something “less venerable, monstrously larger, and far quicker at reflecting shifts in the language”.  He goes on to specify that every three months one thousand words will be added to the online version, representing the constant flux of language in the original dictionary authority which for most of its existence it was not held accountable for even as a constant reality of linguistic change.  This merging of the past world of compiling, codifying and producing various volumes of seminal dictionary with the abstract albeit more expansive and growing electronic lexicography shows that language analysis and understanding is moving farther and quickly beyond the exclusive stagnation of print as well as numerical point values on wooden tiles in family’s game room cupboards.  

Prosody and the dysfluent dyslexic

A working definition for dyslexia is the characterization of difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition by poor spelling and decoding abilities. When studying dyslexia, a plethora of dysfluent traits becomes apparent; such as, reading, writing and speech inabilities. I also fund that fluency and prosody in speech is one area affected by the dysfluent dyslexic reader. My intention is to alert people that there is an ethnographic challenge when students are diagnosed with dyslexia.

Prosody is an area of speech that dyslexics find challenging. When discussing prosody, you must also address fluency, and vice versa. Many American schools neglect to teach the skill fluency, which affects students’ reading comprehension. Fluency is the necessary bridge students need to recognize words and comprehend what they are reading. Automaticity and fluency are considered when analyzing the readers pace, and effortless word recognition. In other words, how fast a student can effortlessly – or fluently - read single words, lists of words, or any other printed material for their age and grade level. A dyslexic reader will struggle in the area of fluency. 

Fluency is derived from the Latin word ‘fluens’ which means “to flow.” We understand a fluent reader has the ability to read and the words "flow" together for the reader.  We can think of fluency in reading with the following equation – speed + accuracy + prosody = fluency. Fluency is freedom from word identification problems, incudes smooth and effortless reading, and when decoding and comprehension, it is simultaneous resulting in expressive reading.

Prosody will also include the definition of intonation. This is defined as patterns in speech or melodic pitch changes heard to connect the speech patterns, especially the pitch pattern occurring in a sentence. This change in speech patterns are unique to the kinds of sentences and phrases related to phrase boundaries. A child reading, often uses punctuation to define these specific speech boundaries. Yet, a dysfluent dyslexic student will suffer in the areas of prosody and intonation.  

Dysfluent readers, who haven’t mastered fluency, automaticity, speed, accuracy, prosody or intonation when they read do not know how to use expression. They read word by word, almost robotically, instead of fluid phrases; and the dysfluent reader fails to use intonation or they do not pause their speech to indicate punctuation. Maximizing comprehension for readers, is the ability to fluently read with intonation. Furthermore, the dysfluent reader does not gain the ability to rapidly, effortlessly or smoothly read textual material and automatically comprehend the mechanics of what they are reading, such as decoding. The slow dysfluent reader is dedicating their time to decoding each word, rather than extracting meaning from the passage.

Readers who would be considered “good” readers for their age group, read fluently with adequate speed, and they also have the acquired ability to use the appropriate phrasing, intonation, and their oral reading mirrors their spoken language. Their spoken language is their effectiveness to speak in their ethnological class of communication. Dysfluent readers who have broken reading patterns also have broken ethnology communicative patterns.

Students who have slow text recognition skills, difficulty with semantic connections between words, meanings and ideas, who lack sensitivity to prosodic cues and who have poor comprehension skills need fluency practice. The dysfluent dyslexic student can master these reading, writing and speech challenges by listening to various models of fluent reading, practicing read alouds with a fluent reader and listening to books on audio so comprehension is not lost through decoding.

Gaming Subculture Part Tres: The Revenge

You know, I was going to just put this image in as a visual metaphor of stereotypical male gamers versus female gamers, but I actually really like the inflection of gender identities this picture's got going for it. Often times women in games have skimpy and revealing clothing while the men wear conservative clothing, but here the roles are reversed. Well, sort of. Sarah here is looking conservative compared to quite a few other characters, ESPECIALLY in the realm of fighting games. Sure, all the men are badass warriors that can be garbed in anything from traditional martial arts gear to full fledged armor, but as soon as you lose that Y chromosome, official tournament rules demand you remove at least half of your clothing. You know, because women have an unfair advantage against men with all of their extra muscle. Seriously, besides Chun Li, what other woman wears unrevealing clothing? And of course they had to sexualize her greatly in that one animated Street Fighter movie. Not the one with Jean Claude Van Damme. That movie rocks. Oops, I did it again. I took what should have been something simple like a caption and made it super long, complicated and half of it is probably irrelevant to my topic. Oh well, I still like that live action Street Fighter movie.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the game this image comes from is Virtua Fighter 5.

This is it. The final showdown. I've discussed how there was a problem with Gamergate heavily influencing how gamers communicated, I've discussed that there is a lack of research into this topic, but now it's time to bring my own opinion to the table. No more dancing around the issue, no more Donald Trump references, No More Heroes is a pretty fun game, you should play it if you own a Wii.
So why exactly did so many gamers think that it was perfectly normal to talk to (and about) women like they weren't the same? The answer is actually quite simple, we, the typical male gamer, have been conditioned to think of girls not as people, but as something else. It usually doesn't matter what this something else is, many video games until recently (and I mean VERY recently, like around 2014 when Gamergate first happened) treated women as a wholly different species from men. Women in games were, at best, a non playable character that in some way accelerated the plot. Often times they were damsels in distress (think Princess Peach and Zelda from the Mario and Zelda games), and the few times they were playable, most of the time they were disguised as men (think Samus from Metroid).
Other times women in games are treated as enemies. Ewan Kirkland discusses this using Silent Hill 2 as an example. As great a game as it is, and while the theme may not actually be about misogyny, you can't deny that many of the enemies in that game are either women, or sexualized to look like women (think H.R. Giger).
Sometimes it isn't that the games depict women in a negative light, but they have a gender theme that winds up being censored due to localization. For example, an enemy character in Final Fight, a woman named Poison, was removed in the original version and replaced with a male enemy instead. Granted, having a woman as an enemy wouldn't have been much better, but removing her altogether implies that women can't participate in arcade street brawlers.
It's not a completely un-salvagable scenario.  The Tomb Raider reboot from 2013 saw a great redesign of the Lara Croft, depicting her as a more realistic human being and toning down on the highly sexualized design she originally had. Likewise, Role Playing Games (RPGs) are steadily increasing in popularity, and many of them discuss heavier themes such as gender (an outstanding example of gender and societal pressure is Persona 4 on the PS2).
Hopefully you'll all take something away from these blogs/rants. Hopefully they'll at least have you bust out the thinking cap the next time you pop in a Mario game and go Goomba stomping, remembering that Princess Peach is equally capable of crushing them as Mario. As Cherie Todd says in her article, one silver lining about the Gamergate debacle is that it's been forcing the issue into light, no longer able to be swept up under the rug.

Slang: A Cultural Phenomena

One of the most controversial features of language is the usage of slang. Many people believe that slang is only used by marginalized subgroups and teenagers.  However, amid my research I have found that throughout history, slang has been used amongst the elitist groups and the most prestigious professions such as the medical field. Scholar Felix Rodriguez-Gonzalez, states that by the close of the 20^th century as technical and institutional acronyms were becoming more recognized, the use of slang was seen in diverse professional and social groups of America and Britain. His article shows that slang and acronyms can also be connected to the distinguished classes of society as well as the middle to lower class citizens. Other studies have shown that slang’s popularity is increasing in value and it is spreading rapidly through society. Scholars Yanchun Zhou and Yanhong Fan state: “Although many intelligent people consider slang is of lower acceptability in society, the trend is more obvious that the use of slang expressions in movies, television, newspapers, and magazines is noticeably increasing. From the trend, we can see American slang is becoming more and more widely used and plays an increasingly influential role in everyday discourse of American English” (2209).  So not only do we see slang used amongst the subgroups and the elites, but we see it in many different forms of the media.

Photo courtesy of mindyourslanguage.blogspot.com 

In addition to the study of who uses slang, many scholars were concerned with why people use slang. Tamara Fabjancic for example, focused on the social phenomenon of slang and concludes by stating: “All in all, I have to say that this journey through the colourful world of slang has been an interesting and enlightening one. It revealed just how important the role of slang is in people’s lives… Slang, inconstant as it may be if we focus on individual expressions, is therefore nevertheless an ever-present phenomenon in all societies”(43).  So even scholars like Fabjancic have come to the realization that slang has an important role in society and therefore in our language. Yanchun Zhou and Yanhong Fan believe that slang is used as a means to gain social acceptance and is a pursuit of self-identity. For instance, if someone was new to a social group s/he would use the popular slang of the group so as to gain approval. In addition to acceptance, scholar Robert Moore believes that slang also serves as an “affective function” and he states: “they express an attitude that invites an egalitarian sociability” (186).  Therefore, slang has many different functions and cannot be regarded as a degradation of our language, but rather adds creativity and has emotional qualities.

Throughout my research I have come to find that scholars are recognizing the true nature of slang words and how they need just as much attention as other words we use. They reflect societal changes more than any other lexeme. The function of slang serves to include members into society while aiding in an egalitarian relationship. Slang is an important part of language and need not be considered inferior.  

Children's English Language Acquisition Skills

This picture demonstrates children reading. "  "

Jessica Lahey explains in "Poor kids and the word gap" children who come from wealthy families and children who come from families who live in poverty have different learning skills and expectations. Children who are raised in poverty attend school with a series of poor skills that continues into adolescence. While children who come from a background of educated parents and who are wealthy, are the ones who are more prepared to continue higher levels of school. Lahey goes into detail, expressing how researchers call it "the word gap." Parents who acquire a greater income, spend more time each day teaching and reading to their children in direct contact. The others who come from poor income families do not spend as much time engaging in teaching their children. Poor learners demonstrate in school expressing how they do not read books. Lahey believes "because the word gap first appears during periods of critical neurological and cognitive development, it's effects cannot be easily remedied by later interventions." Only the child's parents are responsible to help their children excel in the proficiency of math and reading. Lahey also explains that in a recent study "low - income parents underestimate their power to influence their children's cognitive development, sometimes by as much as 50 percent." Educated parents invest in their child's cognitive growth by being more involved with their children and engaging more time of teaching them. Lahey expresses, Obama created support programs to help children from low income families to perform better on their skills of English language acquisition.

In "Language Acuisition" Betty Birner explains that children learn how to communicate from interacting with their parents and from other children around them. Birner believes while parents interact and speak to their children more, the children will acquire language skills. There is not a specific age of when children learn to communicate. Birner expresses that when a child begins to utter, he or she has employed sounds and rhythm of communication for months. Children learn language skills in certain levels and in these levels children acquire cognitive skills at different periods. When children attend kindergarten, they have learned methods and sounds of speech. After this level of communication, Birner explains that children just have to connect sentences in newer fashion and increase their vocabulary. Language is genetic because the child learns how to communicate whether if their parents are teaching them or not. 

In "Poor children a year behind in language skills" the Sutton Trust charity explains how children who come from low income families struggle with their skills and they face many difficulties learning. While when parents read to their children daily, the children tend to perform better on tests. Making visits to the library helped sharpen children's learning by "2.5 months." The children who come from the low income families, have parents who did not receive "A-C grades." When children who come from wealthy families had a parent who is educated and completed a high degree. Some children who come from poor families do not live with their biological mother and father. Some live with a single parent. The charity is imploring the government to set up free education for younger children who face hardships in learning and the charity wants to provide classes to low income parents on ways to improve parenting.            

Aspects of teaching English Language Learners to be Literate in English; the problem areas where these students really struggle

This picture illustrates referring back to a students native language while teaching them English 

Learning a new language is far from easy. Especially at a early elementary school age; which is where more and more of these English Language Learners and first starting to learn English. Since proceeding further on my research I have learned about where a lot of the problem areas are for these student.

In fact before teaching students that are English Language Learners I can highly recommend looking at the performance in their native language. Through research I have learned that there is a strong relationship between these students literacy performance in their native language and the English language. If they perform lower in literacy in their native language chances are it will also reflect how they perform when working on English literacy skills. This can go both ways though if a student is stronger in one area of literacy in their native language this could show positively as they could do in that part of literacy in English. This patterns cover a variety of literacy areas including, oral proficiency, pseudo word reading, reading comprehension, reading strategies, spelling and writing.  Therefore, I have learned though my research it important to refer back to students native language.

I found the information mentioned above as a good foundation for my research and to keep in mind as a future educator. One of the main problems with learning literacy in English as a new language for these learners, is a lot of aspects in the English language and can be very different in other languages. Phonemic awareness is one area these students may struggle. "Children's minds are trained to categorize phonemes in their first language, which may conflict with English phonemes(Antunez 1). For example, Spanish-speaking children may speak, read, and write ch when sh should be used because in Spanish, these two combinations produce the same phoneme." Other aspects  similar to this could be metaphors as mentioned in my annotated bibliography. There are different words in vocabulary that we could be trying to teach these students that could have a completely different meaning in their native language. The article I read used the example of "bread" are a symbol of power here in America but, it could have a completely connotation in that students culture. 

Another aspect I learned about was the aspect of homophone, homonyms, and homographs. These are everyday words and can be very confusing when trying to teach ELL students to be literate in English. Thus being so because words can have double meanings and double sounds. One word can be spelled exactly the same and then have two different pronunciations. This can cause a lot of confusion for these students. It is important as a teacher to be prepared to explain these differences and help your ELL students understand. 

Language Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

When a baby is born, the parents or caregivers of that infant are filled with joy. The infant seems to provide much sunshine, happiness to the families' life. With each day, the bond between the infant and their family grows; as the infant grows in terms of development. As early as infancy, caregivers are able to see distinct improvements in the child's language and communication skills. An infant may begin to babble or say their first words, such as momma or dadda; or the infant may begin to engage in imaginative or constructive play. So as a parent or caregiver to an infant showing progress in regard to language development we are happy, right? Yes, of course! But, what if you were the parent or caregiver to an infant not exhibiting language or communication skills; as evidence of language development? What would this mean for the infant?

Let's say the child falls in the age range from infancy to pre-school. The child is lacking proficiency in both, verbal and non-verbal communication skills. The child may be exhibiting trouble with speech or grammar (verbal), as well as exhibiting difficulty with expressing feelings through crying, smiling or laughing. After much examination, testing and evaluation it may be evident that the child's lack of language development is a direct result of Autism Spectrum Disorder. But, what does this really mean for the infant or young child?

According to the article The Effective Teacher's Guide to Autism and Communication Difficulties: Practical Strategies author Michael Farrell explains that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Autism may explain a child's lack of effective language skills. It is likely that a child with Autism would have difficulties with communication and interaction, on a daily basis. The child may fall under two extremes: being mute or lacking the ability to use spoken language, or being able to speak, but repeating words over and over, again. What do you do as a caregiver to an individual who is unable to use spoken language? It's simply, actually! According to the Autism Speaks blog the“7 Ways to Help Your Nonverbal Child Speak” includes: encourage play and social interaction, imitate your child, focus on nonverbal communication, leave “space” for your child to talk, simplify your language, follow your child's interest, and consider assistive devices and visual support (Geri Dawson & Lauren Elder 2016).

I have also found, as a caregiver to a child with Autism (my younger cousin, Danny), that in order to enhance a non-verbal child's language skills you should incorporate the use of manipulatives and technology. My younger cousin Danny has Autism and was not able to use verbal means of language or communication for much of his young childhood. With the assistance of help in school and at home- using resources such as flash-cards, speech classes, computer-games/applications and etc.; Danny became verbal. These enhancements to language development to an Autistic child assists them in the long-run, for the rest of their life. So what implication does Autism have on a young child's language-many; does this mean we are not able to boost their language development/language skills. NO!