Watch Your Language: Teaching Standard Usage to Resistant and Reluctant learners

I completely agree with the ideas of this article. You do not want your students to feel as if “alright let me just do this for class” and never apply it or even get anything out of it. As Delpit said we should teach our student “to watch their language.” The article stated that maybe as teachers we should re-examine our convention ways of teaching especially since we can intensify a students’ resistance. I do not think most teachers realize that things they may not have preferred as a student and only teach out of requirement can also intensify a student’s resistance also. This is because the teacher still has an underlying resentment about the subject matter he/she has not dealt with themselves. Again agreeing with Delpit we must meet our student at their current linguistic level and work from there. And it is very important to recognize and not to condemn and immediately correct their current linguistic position; that’s like implying how their family, friends, and community communicate is incorrect. I admire the three steps to re-examine our teaching habits listed near the end of the article. This was a very informative and helpful article. It surely drew my attention to something that had never crossed my mind.