PRESENTERS:  Dan Brown (Faculty) and Yasmin Alemayehu and Rose Konnie (Students)

Students will hold an engaging conversation to raise awareness of the linguistic equality of non-standard dialects with a focus on African American English (AAE) and the ideology surrounding its perception in public discourse. Through analyzing the intersectionality of language, race, and power, they plan to explore how educators and members of the classroom can avoid a deficit perspective in view of AAE speakers by discussing how and when the use of home dialects could be encouraged (and celebrated) in classroom contexts. The presenters will introduce strategies for educators to legitimize students’ home dialects, and thereby students’ identities which can have a powerful impact on learners’ conceptions of their linguistic and academic capabilities (for example, through language awareness activities that explore the linguistic patterns of AAE in contrast with academic English). The presentation will emphasize strategies for educators to encourage their students’ emerging ‘bidialectal’ linguistic repertoires, although the session should be of interest to a general audience. Interactive Presentation