Quote:
Originally Posted by AOII_LB93
A big mistake I see a lot is we're vs. were, or were vs. where. When did they become the same?
I don't know if it's grammar so much as vocabulary choice and general retardation by copying what others say, but some of my students say "mines" instead of "mine". For example, Me- "Whose paper is this? There's no name on it." Student- "That's mines."
I always correct them and I'm the French teacher for heaven's sake. Depending on my mood I might add something snarky like, "It's mine, not mines. Mines are for extracting diamonds and coal."
Someone already mentioned another of mine, a lot. My MIL does "alot" in emails and it drives me up the wall. She even tried to tell me that it was acceptable. Ummm, no.
Also, just have to ask, but does anyone else(teachers or others) out there notice a severe lack of code-switching with the youth today? (man this makes me feel old) There was a way I spoke in front of my elders and a way I spoke in front of my friends. Some of my students don't seem to understand you don't just swear up a storm in front of your teacher, use the n word (which I don't allow at all) or other insults in front of your teachers. A good portion of them basically just act the way they act all the time in front of adults. Kind of scary.
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I was about to come in here and mention code-switching until I saw you had mentioned it. I'd be careful in "correcting" students without qualifying the correction by saying that it's appropriate to speak the language of business (or whatever you choose to call it) IN SCHOOL. Students today are required to speak the white man's English. When they're told that their language is "wrong" it alienates them even more from those who were brought up speaking Standard English.
Kids today are a hot mess. But, we're seeing more and more that kids are being raised by parents who are kids themselves. Our society is set-up for people who work best under rules, who have a network of people pushing/pulling them up and up, and who value obtaining the object over fostering personal relationships. Too many children are wedged into a world not made for them which is why it is critical for students to see people who are like them (ethnic and/or socio-economic similarity) doing positive things with confidence. And, children need for people to understand that it's ok for them to use their own CORRECT dialect, but that they also have to be trained in how to use Standard English in order to survive in the world of academia. It's like learning an entirely new language for a lot of kids.
On the n-word. If its in use at home, it's not our place to "correct" it. It IS our place to restrict its use (and the use of other words that may offend) in the space called school. School isn't just a place to learn facts; it's a place to be trained on how to
act within a society that's foreign to you.
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