English Education Paper: Contrastive Analysis

The Impact of Contrastive Analysis and Grammatical Awareness on English Language Instruction in Urban Environments

By Karah Smith

Smith 1" Introduction Within a culturally and linguistically diverse environment, many American students today find themselves being pressured to change their language, dialects, and pronunciations to conform to Standard American English (SAE). Although acquiring Standard English is necessary for economic mobility, this pressure to abandon inherent dialects can have severe detrimental effects on students who may begin to internalize the negative views of their speech as communicating that they are unintelligent and incapable of learning. They may begin to show signs of being ashamed or embarrassed by their erred English so much so that it begins to affect their participation in school, and therefore the quality of the education they are receiving. Students who are admonished for the way they speak after offering their voice to a class discussion may very easily retract into themselves and become reluctant to speak or write for fear of being deemed unintelligent by their instructor or peers (Christensen 143). Some students, as a protective mechanism, simply choose not to put their full effort into assignments for the purpose of justifying a bad grade as not an actual reflection of their abilities. A student who falls into this behavior may then be misidentified as a “slow-learner” or as someone who needs “special” attention (Artiles 119). These spiraling occurrences not only present a barrier to the students’ growth by subsequently silencing their voices, but it can lead to internalization of negative attributes or labels that unfortunately get assigned to them.

These issues are especially problematic in urban educational settings, but are certainly not exempt in other rural or suburban school districts. To prevent this problem from rooting itself in our classrooms, teachers must first and foremost develop a space of mutual respect where students feel comfortable and can grow in their linguistic

Smith 2" confidence, which can be achieved through the teacher’s emphasis of the cultural capital that accompanies the use of both standard and non-standard English via the implementation of Contrastive Analysis (CA) instruction into the curriculum. Once this enriching atmosphere is achieved, the next step would be to build on the linguistic competence the students already posses by emphasizing grammar and syntactic categories in the classroom, therefore refining the fundamental skills required for the mastery of Standard English.

The Learning Environment and Cultural Capital In an increasingly diverse classroom space, the task of developing a learning environment where the students and teacher alike display a mutual respect for one another can be an immensely challenging task. In an English classroom especially, students arrive with their own unique linguistic competencies and dialects that makes forming a strong teacher-student connection more difficult due to the tendency of individuals to be more favorable towards speech patterns that are linguistically similar to their own. To avoid this bias, it is the instructor’s job to ensure that all students have their voices represented within the classroom space by affirming all variations of English, and emphasizing the benefits of using both standard and non-standard English in different social situations. Many urban students, African Americans in particular, find themselves code switching between African American Vernacular English (AAVE), a form of nonstandard English, and Standard American English (SAE) in order to gain cultural capital in different environments. Prudence Carter of Harvard University defines cultural capital as an individual’s ability to “convert their own cultural resources into capital to maintain valued status positions within their communities,” (137). As it pertains to language, the

Smith 3" dominant cultural capital refers to the use of SAE in more formal situations allowing for the upward social mobility to take place. On the other hand, the non-dominant cultural capital would consist of the use of non-standard English to maintain ingroup status and foster a sense of self and group cohesion (139). For African American students, this would include their use of AAVE among their peers and communities. Pedagogically speaking, a teacher’s understanding of this complex network of code switching and cultural capital can be a valuable asset in improving students’ linguistic competencies and performance in the use of SAE. By discussing the realistic and life-long benefits of acquiring both standard and non-standard English, students are more likely to respond warmly and find value in the content of the class rather than just doing the work for a grade. This is the first step in creating a respectful classroom space conducive to learning for students from all language dialects. The next step would be to implement this ideology into classroom curriculum and lesson plans through the use of Contrastive Analysis.

Contrastive Analysis Methodology Originally developed around sixty years ago, Contrastive Analysis is a teaching method that involves a “comparison between a speaker’s native language and their target language to draw the attention of students and teachers to the areas in which their systems differ, and to predict and help students avoid errors in the acquisition of the target language resulting from interference or transfer” (Rickford 278). For inner city African American speakers, Contrastive Analysis involves the identification of grammatical rules of both AAVE and SAE, and requires students to begin recognizing these differences and translating between the two forms of English (278-279). More often than not, students

Smith 4" have a partial understanding of Standard English in the sense that they can recognize it and produce it, but lack the needed instruction for mastery (279). A teacher’s manual authored by Crowell, Kolbar, Stewart, and Johnson, as a part of their “Talk Across” program, emphasizes the use of Contrastive Analysis. They conclude that the challenge behind this type of instruction lies in the complexities that exist between student and teacher when the student speaks only AAVE and the teacher speaks only SAE (Crowell and Rickford 278). In this type of situation, both parties are aware that the way they speak are different from each other, but struggle trying to articulate these disparities. The teacher only hears mistakes in the students’ speech creating an environment where the instructor is constantly correcting the students’ language in an endless cycle of negativity and deficit thinking. In order for Contrastive Analysis to be successful, both the student and teacher need to learn something about the grammar and structure of the other’s dialect in a collaborative atmosphere. What better way to achieve this than through contrasting the two dialects together (278)? A study conducted at Aurora University by Orlando Taylor in the 1990s examined the effectiveness of Contrastive Analysis in urban school districts. In this study, African American students from inner city Chicago schools were split into two groups. The control group continued to learn English with the conventional methods of ‘spit and regurgitate’ with no reference to the differing syntactical rules or vernacular. The experimental group was taught through Contrastive Analysis (Rickford 280-281). Taylor discovered that after just eleven weeks, his experimental group showed a 59 percent decrease in their use of ten targeted AAVE features within their SAE writing, while the control group actually showed an increase of 8.5 percent in their use of the same linguistic features (Rickford 281). As the two groups

Smith 5" continued to be educated in their designated methods, their achievement on standardized tests became more and more divergent with the Contrastive Analysis group experiencing significant improvement in their use of SAE in writing, while the conventional group’s pre and post scores remaining fairly equivalent and sometimes even decreasing (Rickford 281-283). Taylor’s study therefore connected the implementation of Contrastive Analysis teaching styles with improved student achievement. With this method integrated into English classrooms across the country, accompanied by the emphasis on the benefits of using both AAVE and SAE (cultural capital), English instructors would not only effectively develop a classroom space of mutual respect, but they would be truly making a difference in the growth of their students’ linguistic knowledge.

Highlighting Grammar and Syntactic Categories While dedicating class time to content involving Contrastive Analysis and cultural capital is extremely relevant in urban schools, its important to keep in mind that they should not be isolated topics, but rather interwoven with other aspects of the English curriculum. Once students feel comfortable in the classroom and confident in both their standard and non-standard forms of English, it is important to build on top of their prior language knowledge by teaching prescriptive grammar and syntactic categories.

Together, these two variables create the structural foundation of the English language, and when taught in an engaging way, they have the potential to provide critical knowledge that would assist students in becoming more conscious English users. At a young age, students are exposed to grammatical concepts as well as basic syntactic categories through a series of drills and busywork ("Teaching Grammar.") This type of instruction, while occasionally necessary, does not engage students’ minds in the content

Smith 6" and is not conducive to long-term retention of the information. ATEG, the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar, suggests instructors’ use a layering technique that targets a select few grammar keys for a duration of time and then adds new ones to the mix (“Some Questions”). This would allow for students to maintain the new concepts they have learned and begin to implement them into their writing. Grammar itself is an important topic for students to understand because in essence, “it is the language that makes it possible for us to talk about language” (Nordquist). As human beings, it is one thing to have a form of communication in which every participant can do grammar, but it is yet another thing entirely to know grammar (Nordquist). This is essentially the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar; descriptive is the grammar we use in everyday speech, whereas prescriptive grammar consists of the ascribed rules behind the language we speak. Having an understanding of prescriptive grammar can give a student the ability to see words and phrases in a whole new context. This skill allows students to take a sentence they wrote and manipulate it in a numerous ways conveying more complex ideas in one statement while keeping the grammaticality, which will then greatly enhance the quality of their writing (“Teaching Grammar”). As a part of this skill, students should have a basic understanding of syntactic categories allowing them to examine the patterns in the English language, and then contrast that knowledge to patterns other languages. In today’s society, it is nearly impossible for a student to graduate high school without having taken a minimum of two years in a foreign language. It is not uncommon for a high school student to first encounter extensive syntactic categories and tense forms while in their foreign language class. Because of this, students tend to struggle immensely in acquiring their second language because they

Smith 7" do not have the prescriptive foundation of syntactic categories in their native language.

How can they be expected to understand it in Spanish when they don’t know its structural equivalence in English? As an English teacher, it is important to cover these topics in class to ensure students’ have the necessary abilities to not only improve their writing, a skill that is increasingly more important to social mobility as it is tied to college admittance and high-risk standardized testing, but also to simplify the task of acquiring a second language. Overall, building prescriptive grammar on top of a students’ inherent descriptive grammar will further enhance their linguistic capabilities while engaging in a Contrastive Analysis teaching method increases students’ confidence therefore providing urban students with the best possible conditions to achieve success in their futures.

Conclusion: Why Should We Care?

The English instructional techniques and principles discussed throughout this document have been argued to have a direct impact on the academic achievement of urban students. However, this is not all they will do. American society is such a delicate and interconnected system that when a small change in one area occurs, the effects can be exponential. By changing the way educators in urban school districts approach English instruction, students will grow in their immediate knowledge of SAE improving their scores on standardized tests and thus their chances of getting into a prestigious college or university. When this happens, students earn a higher degree and become affluent and functional members of society rather than the alternative of dropping out, holding a minimum wage job, or living off of welfare. According to Professor Henry M. Levin, the Teachers College Symposium Chair at Columbia University, the economic costs of inadequate education is significant. These costs accumulate over time due to factors such

Smith 8" as decreased tax income as less people enter the workforce, increased health costs due to dropouts’ higher use of drugs and alcohol, increased rate of crime and therefore funding of jails and penitentiaries, as well as the increased need for welfare such as food stamps and unemployment (Levin 26-27). Levin points out that, “lower earnings among dropouts alone could be costing the United States as much as $158 billion in lost earnings and $36 billion in lost state and federal income taxes for each class of 18-year-olds…about 1.6 percent of the nation’s… gross domestic product” (26). If even one third of all Americans who currently do not have a high school education attended any kind of college, “the savings would range from $3.8 billion to $6.7 billion for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), $3.7 billion for Food Stamps, and $0.4 billion for housing assistance” (27). Furthermore, a one-year increase in average years of schooling reduces crimes such as “murder and assault by almost 30 percent, motor vehicle theft by 20 percent, arson by 13 percent, and burglary and larceny by about 6 percent” (27). If educators therefore put in the effort to engage students in content as well as ensure their classroom is a space where students feel welcome and important, the large-scale results can be astounding not just for that student’s future, but for the entire society and economy. Everyone should care about education in this country because it directly impacts every single person comprehensively whether they are aware of it or not.

Something as small and seemingly trivial as using and knowing prescriptive grammar in school assignments and acquiring Standard American English can have profound societal impacts. This is why it is so critical for English educators to build a classroom environment of mutual respect where the students feel affirmed for their language through the emphasis of the cultural capital that accompanies both standard and non-

Smith 9" standard variations of English, as well as incorporate Contrastive Analysis methodology into the curriculum. While the immediate effects may not seem all that influential, the grander scheme of things confirms the fact that what teachers do in their classrooms can change not only lives, but also an entire society.

Smith 10" Works Cited Artiles, Alfredo J., Robert Rueda, Jesús José Salazar, and Ignacio Higareda. "EnglishLanguage Learner Representation in Special Education in California Urban School Districts." Racial Inequity in Special Education (2002): 117-36. Print.

Carter, Prudence L. ""Black" Cultural Capital, Status Positioning and Schooling Conflicts for Low-Income African American Youth." Social Problems 50.1 (2003): 136-55.

Print.

Christensen, Linda. "Whose Standard? Teaching Standard English." Rethinking or Classrooms (1994): 142-45. Print.

Crowell, S., Kolba, E., Stewart, W., & Johnson, K. (1974). Talkacross: Materials for Teaching English as A Second Dialect. (Teacher’s Handbook and Student Activity Book). Montclair, NJ: Caribou Associated Levin, Henry M., and William H. Kilpatrick. "The Social Costs of Inadequate Education." The Campaign for Educational Equity (2005): 11-22. Print.

Nordquist, Richard. "Why Does Grammar Matter?" Grammar & Composition.

About.com, 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013 Rickford, Angela E., and John R. Rickford. "Variation, Versatility, and Contrastive Analysis in the Classroom." Sociolinguistic Variation (2007): 276-96. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. "Some Questions and Answers About Grammar." About.com. The Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar (ATEG), n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2013. <http://grammar.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ>.

Smith 11" "Teaching Grammar." The Essentials of Language Teaching. National Capital Language Resource Center, 2003. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/grammar/grindex.htm>.