The Teaching Of Standard American English Essay

Since this great country was first established many intuitive minds have tried to answer the question; "What is an American". This country is full of individuals of many backgrounds, and diversities and each person has a different opinion on this question. In my opinion, an American is someone who values freedom and equality and pursues the "American dream." Every American exercises these rights and these are great adjectives to describe our country. Each of the seven readings, and the one image I compiled help mold this broader definition into a more precise description of an American.

Using dialect in society is natural and people can often not control how they sound. When that same person writes however they are expected to drop their dialect and only use proper english. Vershawn Ashanti Young discusses this topic in his article “Should Writer’s Use They Own English?”. Young has several good points including that their accent comes through their writing and that “code meshing” can be effective in a person's’ writing. On the contrary, I agree more with the fact that we need a “universal” way of speaking in America, because of the fact that it is harder to learn several “languages” as a child and it would be almost impossible for people from other countries to learn all the slang if we don't have one set way of speaking.

The soil of the middle-east stained with the blood of our American soldiers just so we can not take advantage of our right to vote. Though sometimes questionable, America's overall image portrayed to other countries is an honorable one. America is known for its democracy and as well as being a land of opportunities and many freedoms. America's assortment of ethnicities and cultures is proof that our country is a desirable one. Wars are being fought at this very moment to defend these freedoms.

What does it mean to be an American? In my eyes to be an American means to have privileges, rights, and freedom. America isn't perfect, but it is one of the only countries that have rights given to people of different diversities and gender. America does not have tremendous poverty. Instead we have choices given to us by the people who fought and died for the American people. Without George Washington and the other patriots who planted the first seed in the ground and help plant the American nation we live in now who knows what America would be like now.

Although the present day American is a totally a different person, at the close of the Revolutionary War the same individual was a European immigrant impacted by the nature of the American continent. In St. Jean de Crevecoeur’s perspective, an American is a race that results from a mixture of Swedes, Dutch, French, Irish, Scotch, and Englishmen (48). This race consists of unique type of people who are not governed by laws as strict as they experienced in Europe. They are a breed of people who had no home and no country in Europe. This paper discusses what the American was thought to be, in view of St. Jean de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer.

The English language is particularly complex in almost all aspects. Many of the words in the English language have different meanings for the same word. This is not unlike the definition of the different levels of usage. McCrimmon defines the three levels, formal, moderate, and colloquial, by their sentence structure, diction, and tone (McCrimmon 193). ¹ Using McCrimmon’s definitions, authors can determine what type of writing is applicable to each of the three levels. For the formal writings, an adequate example of where readers can find it is in a professional journal, and an appropriate place to find an example of the moderate level is in a weekly news magazine. Also, the best place to look for an example of the colloquial level is in certain sections of the newspaper. All of the levels of usage apply to these different types of writings and assist in defining what each level involves.

Defining what really is to be an American does not sound as easy as it seem. It will always be complex process. As immigration continues to fuel the growth of the population of our nation, racial and ethnic gap increase and evolve along with it. Racial and ethnic identities become more and more convoluted and difficult to understand. Race and ethnicity continue to intermingle and push a cultural shift in the US– a shift that plays a significant role in redefining America in a day-to-day basis.

Many people dream about being an American. They dream because they envision America as the land of peace and prosperity. But is it? At times it has been, and at times its not. It is hard for the United States to be correct all the time because they have been unwilling designated as the “World Police”. Throughout history there have been examples politically, economically, and socially, where being an American is rewarding and times where it is embarrassing. To be an American means progress. We evolved from a world ruled by white men to a world of equal opportunity.

Harold Ickes was successful in presenting his speech by using great rhetorical devices appealing to his audience logically, emotionally, and ethics. As I read Harold Ickes’s speech the words summed up the emotion of the time so perfectly. The time was when Hitler and the Nazi army was headed for world domination. His intents were to influence American citizen to unite as a country.

Standard American dialect is necessary in academic writing for three key reasons. First, the ability to use standard American dialect is a skill that people living in America should obtain because it is the most spoken and written language across the country. Having the knowledge to use standard American dialect will be helpful in many different situations, such as in the classroom and business world. In addition, being able to write using this dialect, will guide in writing a stronger, clearer paper, as well as ensuring unity between all academic writing. I disagree with the following statement from “Students’ Right to Their Own Language”: “We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity and uphold the right of students to their own language” (3). Teachers should not have to go through an immense amount of training

United States of America, small in history but large in diversity continues to face new challenges with language as time continues to turn. In the documentary “Do You Speak American?” Robert MacNeil analyzes the English language and reveals many dialects that culturally defines us. Regional dialect is one of the many strongholds of all cultures and now it has reached its’ zenith and today it is slowly declining because it does not possess the human nature of advancement. Optimistically, it allows people to learn how to cooperate with each other. In order to advance and adopt a person has to change; I believe that the acceptance of cultural adaptations, diversity, and industrialization can prove that the decline of speech does not cause a

Using the Gibb categories give three examples of defensive and or supportive behaviors that Ben and Katie used in the film.

I completely agree with you that Ebonics or dialect variations will be never accepted in a job interview or in the workplace. As you said, it is imperative that Black students learn proper English in order to be successful in the real world. I think that teachers and parents need to work together to help those students become proficient readers. the teachers need to use different strategies to teach standard English that can help to be more productive for our

When using Singlish in school, I recommend that students and teachers exercise control while using Singlish. They need to know when is the right time and the right place to use Singlish. Also, they cannot speak Singlish all the time. They need to know the difference between acceptable/ standard English and Singlish. Just like how they know the difference between Chinese and English. When greeting someone, for instance, one must use Standard English or it will seen rude and such habits are negative in the working world when they grow up.

The researchers of this paper debate that” authentic learning experience could help improving the students’ English abilities that can apply in daily life”. This study focuses on how to improve English skills of low-level students by using what they learn into the class in real life. The purposes of this study include: to investigate the effect of English course based on authentic learning, to compare English competencies of students before and after the completion of course, and to explore the details of satisfaction of students.