Embracing Linguistic Diversity in the English Classroom Part 1: The Groundwork by Hannah Lewis

Embracing Linguistic Diversity in the English Classroom 

Part 1: The Groundwork 

by Hannah Lewis

As English teachers, we wield a tremendous power that we don’t always fully appreciate. Forget the MLA or the Webster’s Dictionary editors—it’s we who serve as the gatekeepers of the English language and its necessary conventions of writing. 

That said, how do we ensure that our classrooms value and celebrate the linguistic diversity our students bring? How do we balance the demands of teaching Standard American English (SAE) with the need to honor and uplift students' home languages and dialects?

Our Reality

I’ve always felt a tremendous tension between the grammar programs I use, like No Red Ink and IXL, and my goal, which is to create an expansive environment in which students’ Englishes are valued as rich additions to my own English. I love a good mastery-based grammar program as much as the next teacher; I find it really helps me to hone in on the specific skills students understand or don’t yet understand. However, this year, I’m really trying to foreground my pedagogical goals and leave these tools to run in the background—to give less weight to what the “right” way to write is and more to the value of students’ authentic voices. In the age of A.I. Large Language Models1, as I envision a dystopian future of homogenous and bland computer-generated writing, this mission feels more urgent to me than ever.

In this post, I’ll outline some of the foundational strategies I’m using to set the stage for a linguistically inclusive classroom. These strategies are designed to help both students and teachers begin the journey of valuing and celebrating the rich diversity of Englishes we encounter in our classrooms. 

And stay tuned for Part 2, which I'm calling "Advanced Techniques," but that any interested and experienced educator can certainly leverage in addition to those listed here.

1. Introducing the concept of “code-switching” early and often:

"Code switching," broadly speaking, involves a speaker "going back and forth between one language and another or one dialect and another."

While I try to start with a very objective definition of code-switching and a brief history of the term with an Encyclopedia article (which I had my students Jigsaw, ultimately creating group slide presentations), I have gotten a lot of mileage out of this excellent video from The Huffington Post, which does an excellent job of explaining the stakes, in particular, for Black folks who speak versions of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and do or do not code-switch in some contexts.

At my school, we use grammar programs like those mentioned above on a weekly basis as a supplemental tool for grammar instruction, and I include a link to this video every time students are assigned one of these grammar assignments.

Is this sufficient to communicate the relative value of the Standard American English (SAE) conventions they’re learning compared to their home languages or dialects? Honestly, probably not. I feel like the majority of our instruction in school kind of undermines the message I’m trying to convey, but I do feel like it at least gets kids thinking about this tension.

2. Elevating works that make stylistic choices that prioritize dialect or language play:

My favorite text of the year to teach is Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. It’s widely included in American Literature survey courses and regularly taught in U.S. high schools, and it’s incredible. We read it right alongside “How it Feels to be Colored Me” and excerpts from The Warmth of Other Suns, which I think is really important because it highlights the context into which Hurston is writing and also legitimizes her as a woman who really knew what she was doing with language—who intentionally chose to write in her own version of AAVE and, as a result, was not celebrated for the novel’s brilliance at the time when she wrote it.

CommonLit does an awesome job here of both introducing students to Hurston’s vast expertise in language, but also demonstrating the ubiquity of dialect in the U.S. My students especially loved (and, I think, benefitted from) this video, detailing the way dialects (specifically, accents) correspond to migration patterns, ethnic groups, etc.

Making intentional choices about including linguistically diverse texts can be a pretty effortless way to weave a critical discussion of language into our curriculum.

Oh, an important note: I’m not sure how everyone will feel about this, and I’m sure that some might disagree, but I prefer not to read excerpts from this novel aloud myself, or to have students read it aloud. I believe that attempting to read her dialect will result in a clumsy approximation that will only serve to reinforce negative perceptions. That said, hearing the text helps students immensely with comprehension and adds a second layer of appreciation to Hurston’s linguistic choices, so I tend to use an audiobook (this one is very good). This is a choice I’ve grappled with for a while, so if anyone has a different take, please see my contact information below and let me know!

If you teach younger students, Hurston may be out of reach, but I’ve also used Langston Hughes’s “Mother to Son” along with Rhina Espailat’s “Bilingual/Bilingüe” to similarly teach the richness that dialect adds to a text—that couldn’t be accomplished with SAE.

3. Let your multilingual or multi-dialectical students teach you about language:

This is something new I’m trying this year. I’m very fortunate to teach in a pretty diverse school. I always like to start the school year by opening up the course title (“American Literature” or “Language and Composition”) for discussion: What does each term in the title include/exclude? What do we recognize as “American,” “Literature,” “Language,” or “Composition”?

This year, it occurred to me to be explicit about why this inquiry is worthwhile: in my district, there are at least 30 languages spoken in students’ homes. We only have records of home language if the primary language at home is not English, so there are likely more multilingual students in the school than are represented in the home language report.

So I created a discussion as a sort of preview of the course title discussion to come.

I compiled the list of languages and determined how many speakers of each were identified and then used Word It Out to create word clouds that represented the languages and the words in each for “welcome.” I used that to start a discussion. I just shared the discussion with students today (August 28th), so I haven’t had too many responses yet, but I deeply appreciate the rapport I’m able to set up already with one student (see Padlet post screenshot).

Conclusion: Laying the groundwork for a linguistically inclusive classroom requires thoughtful planning and intentional choices. By introducing concepts like code-switching, elevating works that prioritize dialect, and inviting students to share their linguistic backgrounds, we create an environment where all students feel valued and heard. In the next post, I’ll delve into more advanced strategies for continuing this work and ensuring that linguistic diversity remains a central part of our teaching practice.

Remember, stay tuned for Part 2 where you'll get to see some work from the true experts, some of my students who are code-switching pros and who thrive when they are allowed to deviate from SAE in the classroom!

1 I used a LLM, ChatGPT, to help me break my overly-post into two posts with more appropriate word counts. I'm no Luddite--but this is, I think, a turning point for SAE's dominance and increasing linguistic homogeneity.

2 I’ve edited it slightly for classroom use, since I feel it’s important not to subject my Black students or other students of color to scenes of racialized police violence without warning, but other adjustments for your classroom might very well be in order. In the past, I’ve used this video, in which I try to normalize code switching by showing that I engage in it; I don’t use it anymore because I now feel it minimizes the social barriers for students from marginalized linguistic communities, equating them with my own experiences.

Author Bio:  Hannah Lewis (she/her) has been teaching English Language Arts online since 2014 in the greater Pittsburgh area. She currently teaches eleventh-graders at the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School. She began to serve as vice president of WPCTE in 2022. She is an avid reader, hiker, and traveler who loves poetry and her cats--but, most of all, her teenage daughter. Find her on LinkedIn or email her at hlewis3@palcs.org [Updated 9/27/24]