08 June 2010

Arizona to reassign teachers with heavy accents

The Arizona Department of Education is sending evaluators to audit teachers and their English speaking skills to make sure districts are complying with state and federal laws.

Teachers who are not fluent in English, who make grammatical errors while speaking or who have heavy accents will be temporarily reassigned.

"As you expect science teachers to know science, math teachers to know math, you expect a teacher who is teaching the kids English to know English," said Tom Home, state superintendent of public instruction...
The Linguistics Department at the University of Arizona has offered a set of counterpoints:
1) ‘Heavily accented’ speech is not the same as ‘unintelligible’ or ‘ungrammatical’ speech.
2) Speakers with strong foreign accents may nevertheless have mastered grammar and idioms of English as well as native speakers.
3) Teachers whose first language is Spanish may be able to teach English to Spanish‐speaking students better than teachers who don't speak Spanish.
4) Exposure to many different speech styles, dialects and accents helps (and does not harm) the acquisition of a language.
5) It is helpful for all students (English language learners as well as native speakers) to be exposed to foreign‐accented speech as a part of their education.
6) There are many different 'accents' within English that can affect intelligibility, but the policy targets foreign accents and not dialects of English.
7) Communicating to students that foreign accented speech is ‘bad’ or ‘harmful’ is counterproductive to learning, and affirms pre‐existing patterns of linguistic bias and harmful ‘linguistic profiling’.
8) There is no such thing as ‘unaccented’ speech, and so policies aimed at eliminating accented speech from the classroom are paradoxical.
More details and extensive comments at Language Log.

9 comments:

  1. As a Texan, I am so happy to see Arizona behaving this way. It takes a little heat off of us.

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  2. " to make sure districts are complying with state and federal laws"

    Maybe that's just a cover but, if true, it would be nice if all school districts (regardless of state) complied with the law, wouldn't it?

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  3. What about born and bred in the USA teachers who use poor grammar and/or can't write a coherent sentence? I've known school administrators who issued written memos filled with poorly written sentences, spelling errors, and punctuation misuse.

    Just saying...... an accent does not mean anything!

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  4. this is what is known as taking the ball and running with it

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  5. As a bilingual teacher, I taught Spanish and English to language learners, as well as Spanish for Spanish Speakers (literature, writing skills, grammar, vocabulary). Among some really excellent ESL teachers were a teacher from TaiWan and a Czech. Both of them had a better command of English than many of the native-born teachers. We had some truly superb Spanish teachers who were from Africa (and were multi-lingual).

    I really doubt that Asian math or science teachers will be targeted. This is aimed directly at Latinos. This prejudice really sets me off. I'll shut up now.

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  6. There are a lot of teachers with horrible grammar and it isn't just in Arizona. I think they need to evaluate all English teachers for their grammar skills. However, I don't think they need to go so far as making sure that the teachers have the stereotypical, American accent.
    The school system in Texas wastes so much time and money assessing how well students have learned... Why don't they assess how well teachers teach?

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  7. I'll second Barbwire on this. As a student of a second language, I often find that I have a better grasp of grammar -- and especially grammar rules -- than many natives.

    I'm also a writer and editor who regularly sends my English output to a Swedish friend for proofreading. Why? Because even with my specialized language background, she still catches things I've missed. Natives tend not to notice incorrect grammar that is in common usage. Non-natives approach language with a much more careful eye (and ear).

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  8. Just wondering if Shakespeare could now teach in Arizona... His old british accent would probably give him up as a foreigner!

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  9. Sounds like a little science would go a long way here...does having a nonnative speaker teach English help or harm the students?

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