Anyone who has traveled across then United States will attest to the changing dialects of English. Scratch that, anyone who has travelled around their state will admit language changes depending on the region. I will; I spent 18 years of my life in Houston, Texas and then moved here, Lubbock. The physical distance between the two seemed to exaggerate when I talked to my first West-Texanite.
Even heading back to Houston for the holidays causes me to step back and re-evaluate my speaking. I always come back home saying more "yalls" than the rest of my family. This osmosis begins to scare me to a greater degree. Even though I'm an English major, has my application of English been so influenced by my surroundings that I would not be hired for a teaching job up north?
Another consideration in teaching involves bilingual issues. While completing a mentoring assignment at Atkins Middle School here in Lubbock, I got a chance to speak with a faculty member. He informed me that Atkins was a certified "bilingual school." I really did not understand what he meant. He explained: Atkins Middle School only hires teachers with backgrounds in bilingual education, for most of their students speak Spanish and yet need to learn English. I asked him how that works, and he responded that in Kindergarten, teachers do their 80% of their lessons in Spanish and 20% in English. He said that native English speakers merely get an introduction into Spanish, while Spanish speakers are taught from the beginning how to read and write in Spanish; basically, all students are starting on the same page. As the students progress through the grades, the percentages of English and Spanish instruction are leveled out to 50/50 and then finally to the point where English instruction is the primary. I remember feeling shocked when told the research showed this was The most effective way to teach. Now though, I think the idea and implications of bilingual education holds endless possibilities.
Out.
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