Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Evaluation of contextualized contrastive analysis in Language Arts Instruction

博士论文研究：语言艺术教学中情境化对比分析的评价

• 批准号: 0424135
• 负责人: John Rickford
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-01 至 2006-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0424135&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Evaluation; contextualized

Good writers know how to use language, and sociolinguists know how language is used. Would teachers and students in writing classes benefit from adopting a linguist-like sensitivity to language patterns and attitudes? Is there a way to make technical linguistic knowledge about the details of dialect features immediately useful in a classroom setting? And would such knowledge improve the writing experiences and achievement of children who speak a nonstandard dialect such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE)? With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. John R. Rickford and doctoral candidate Julie Sweetland will investigate the effects of a language arts curriculum designed with the needs of child speakers of African American English in mind. Over the course of eight weeks, upper elementary students (grades 4-6) in ten urban classrooms will be led to identify, discuss, and write about linguistic variation as it is presented in several selections of award-winning children's literature, and will learn to connect those concepts to their own ways of speaking and writing. The heart of the curriculum is a set of seven writing prompts that are fun activities with a hidden purpose-each prompt designed to elicit a specific feature of nonstandard grammar in order to target that feature for instruction. For example, students will write their own versions of Sandra Cisneros' book Hairs/Pelitos. Children's responses will typically include a large number of possessives, a grammatical feature that is realized differently in standard English and African American Vernacular English (e.g. my mother's hair vs. my mother hair). Their writing will thus provide a natural context in which to learn about standard use of apostrophe-s during the revision process. Respect for children's ways of speaking will be evidenced throughout the lessons, as teachers will engage in summer training designed to help them learn to contrast the vernacular with the standard, rather than correct the vernacular to the standard, a subtle shift in instructional stance that previous studies have established as an effective teaching practice. The current research will compare the progress of children taught using the experimental 'contextualized contrastive analysis' method with that of students in control classrooms. Children's progress will be evaluated using multiple measures, including changes in frequencies of stigmatized AAVE features used in writing; rater assessments of overall writing quality; students' ability to articulate their knowledge about the respective features and social connotations of AAVE and Standard English; and students' affective responses to instruction. The intervention design represents a synthesis and application of principles and findings from a wide range of relevant research: sociolinguistic descriptions of the structure of nonstandard language varieties; theoretical perspectives on language attitudes, language ideology, and the role of affect in language learning; and current pedagogical techniques such as the 'process' approach to teaching writing. In this broad, interdisciplinary approach, the intervention design moves beyond previous efforts by linguists to affect instructional practice. Educators are increasingly recognizing the need to address dialect diversity in instruction but face at least two obstacles in doing so: a dearth of practical, ready-to-use instructional materials, and a shortage of strong evidence that dialect-based methods are effective. This research addresses both concerns, and provides a model for instruction that is adaptable to a variety of teaching contexts. In addition, evidence of the effectiveness of dialect-based instruction would certainly be a valuable addition to a public discourse that often relies on misconceptions and stereotypes, as evidenced by the 1997 Oakland 'Ebonics' controversy. Most important, by taking on the difficult task of translating theory into practice, this project represents a step in the continuing struggle for educational and social equity. The knowledge base of sociolinguistics is the ideal site on which to build an educationally sound, socially just, and culturally sensitive pedagogy that increases marginalized groups' access to the language of educational and economic attainment. This research represents a step in realizing that potential.

优秀的作家知道如何使用语言，社会语言学家知道如何使用语言。对语言模式和态度采取语言学家般的敏感性，写作课上的老师和学生会受益吗？有没有办法让有关方言特征细节的技术语言知识在课堂环境中立即发挥作用？ 这些知识是否会改善使用非标准方言（例如非裔美国人白话英语（AAVE））的孩子的写作经验和成绩？在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，约翰·R·里克福德博士和博士生朱莉·斯威特兰将研究针对非裔美国英语儿童的需求而设计的语言艺术课程的效果。在八周的时间里，十个城市教室的高年级小学生（4-6 年级）将被引导识别、讨论和撰写多部获奖儿童文学精选中所呈现的语言变异，并将学习将这些概念与他们自己的说话和写作方式联系起来。课程的核心是一组七个写作提示，它们是具有隐藏目的的有趣活动 - 每个提示都旨在引出非标准语法的特定特征，以便针对该特征进行教学。例如，学生将根据 Sandra Cisneros 的书《Hairs/Pelitos》编写自己的版本。孩子们的反应通常包括大量所有格，这是一种在标准英语和非裔美国白话英语中以不同方式实现的语法特征（例如，我母亲的头发与我母亲的头发）。因此，他们的写作将为在修订过程中学习撇号的标准使用提供一个自然的背景。对儿童说话方式的尊重将贯穿整个课程，因为教师将参加暑期培训，旨在帮助他们学会将白话与标准进行对比，而不是根据标准纠正白话，这是教学立场的微妙转变，之前的研究已将其确立为有效的教学实践。目前的研究将比较使用实验性“情境化对比分析”方法教学的儿童与对照教室中学生的进步。将使用多种衡量标准来评估儿童的进步，包括书面中使用的污名化 AAVE 特征的频率变化；评分者对整体写作质量的评估；学生清晰表达 AAVE 和标准英语各自特征和社会内涵的知识的能力；以及学生对教学的情感反应。 干预设计代表了广泛相关研究的原则和发现的综合和应用：非标准语言变体结构的社会语言学描述；关于语言态度、语言意识形态以及情感在语言学习中的作用的理论观点；以及当前的教学技术，例如写作教学的“过程”方法。在这种广泛的跨学科方法中，干预设计超越了语言学家之前影响教学实践的努力。教育工作者越来越认识到在教学中解决方言多样性的必要性，但这样做至少面临两个障碍：缺乏实用的、即用型的教学材料，以及缺乏强有力的证据证明基于方言的方法是有效的。这项研究解决了这两个问题，并提供了一个适用于各种教学环境的教学模型。此外，基于方言的教学的有效性的证据肯定会对经常依赖于误解和刻板印象的公共话语进行有价值的补充，1997 年奥克兰“Ebonics”争议就证明了这一点。最重要的是，通过承担将理论转化为实践的艰巨任务，该项目代表了为教育和社会公平而持续奋斗的一步。社会语言学的知识库是建立教育合理、社会公正和文化敏感的教学法的理想场所，可以增加边缘群体获得教育和经济成就的语言的机会。这项研究代表了实现这一潜力的一步。