Blog Post 4

     I never realized that teachers correcting the way a student speaks could be offensive to that student, until I read Lisa Delpit's quote and chapter four in "Education Foundations."  A majority of teachers want their students to speak well and do well.  After all, in the long run, people are more likely to hire someone that speaks standardized English, rather than Ebonics.  Telling the student that they are wrong and constantly correcting them, however, only makes the student resent the teacher and makes them not want to participate.  As Lisa stated in the quote, a student's linguistic form is their connection to family and home life and to correct it, means that there is something wrong with it. 
     Teachers may think that they are helping the student by correcting them, but in reality, it makes the student so focused on pronunciation, rather than the meaning and what the student is actually reading.  I witnessed that firsthand, from our reading of Macbeth in class.  I was so focused on how I was pronouncing the words, so I would not be corrected by my peers, that I did not understand the material or do well on the quiz.  As a result, it is best to have the students read plenty of material, however they read it, or let the students act out in plays, where standardized English is being used.  The student will then understand and learn code switching and that different languages should be used at different times and places.  As long as teachers provide information and guidelines for standardized English, then the speaker will decide when to use it and how.