Dialects in the Classroom

Any classroom, in New Orleans or elsewhere, will feature linguistic variation, at the very least between the students and teacher(s). In most cases, this does not affect communication, since we as speakers are able to accommodate variation across levels of language: grammar, pronunciation, and word choice.  When teaching literacy, however, this may sometimes pose problems, and it may be challenging if a classroom is particularly diverse linguistically.  This module includes a discussion of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, the five components of effective reading instruction, and how New Orleans students' dialects can be incorporated as a bridge when teaching students how to read. Before we begin, however, a brief history of developments in New Orleans schooling in the past two decades is in order.