After reading the story "What Should Teachers Do" by Lisa Delpit I was very shocked by the information that she had given. I hadn't put much thought into how correcting a student's dialect that wasn't use to English could be hurtful or even detrimental. Most teachers would think that they are just helping the student to become proficient in english and don't realize that they're doing more than just that. The article states that when a student is corrected with language, it suggests that there is something wrong with their family or even culture. Let alone, coming to school where a lot words are different than home would be very difficult. I definitely think it's up to the teachers to encourage and engage these children in language, but in a fun and positive way. The article mentioned that teachers should practice role play activities such as puppet shows so they can practice standardized english and students won’t feel pressured from correction. In my opinion, teachers should be more concerned about kids knowing and understanding what they’re reading instead of just knowing how to pronounce a word.
Our class exercise proved that when correcting kids on how the way they speak, it creates silence. After we were divided into the readers, correctors, and test makers, the readers were expected to read Shakespeare. When reading, the correctors yelled and corrected them for every word mispronounced and most of them had gotten softer when they spoke or didn’t want to read at all. In addition, when asked comprehension questions about what actually happened in the story very few could answer correctly. This clearly shows that correcting kids on how they speak can very easily shut them down and show them that what they’ve learned from their loved ones is not right.
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