Navigating dialect: How three first grade Euro American teachers facilitated mainstream English learning with African American English speakers

This qualitative study investigated how three Euro American first grade teachers facilitated mainstream English learning with low-income African American English speaking students through proximal processes in a classroom mesosystem where the two linguistic systems met. The research was carried out in three urban classrooms in a midwestern public school system.;The study was grounded in Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model and called upon the sociocultural and critical views of literacy espoused by those in the New Literacy Studies. Writing conferences between 44 first grade students and teachers were observed in order to ascertain the methods by which the teachers scaffolded the children into mainstream English. Twelve observations were completed in each classroom. When the classroom observations were completed, each teacher was interviewed on her familiarity with African American English, her views on its use in the classroom and her ideologies about its use. Each teacher was also asked about the strategies she found successful as well as how she built upon the linguistic resources and literacy practices the students brought from home.;Three levels of qualitative analysis were carried out, utilizing modified grounded theory methodology as well as critical discourse analysis. Deductive coding identified teacher responses to African American English utterances in the writers' conferences. Selective coding enabled thematic analysis of the interviews. Finally, critical discourse analysis revealed to what extent the teachers were willing to recognize that use of mainstream English is part and parcel of dominant ideological Discourses in the United States, that building upon the primary Discourse of the students is important, and that wrestling with ideological tensions around language is a necessary process in which to engage.;The study findings revealed that the teachers have not had any in-service training on cultural competency or on African American English through the school district. Two of the teachers were largely unaware of dialectal features and how to build upon the linguistic resources students brought from home. Only the teacher with an English as a second language background was aware of many features of African American English as well as the strategies needed for scaffolding her students into mainstream English. She was also cognizant of issues and ideologies around nondominant linguistic forms. It is difficult to support communicative competence in young children if one is unaware of the full extent of students' verbal repertoires.;Other key findings expanded responsibility for the difficulties that African American English users experience in school beyond the microsystem of the classroom and the home. Excessive demands for assessment and use of standardized and non-culturally responsive curricula in the school district appear to be fueled by the No Child Left Behind legislation. Stakeholders across systems need to be held accountable for unjust policies and practices that penetrate the classroom.