The Use of Dialects in Education and Its Impacts on Students’ Learning and Achievements

Abstract

It is argued that learning is better and more successful when conducted in the variety spoken by students. In addition, it is claimed that the use of students’ variety in education enables students to use their own potential and helps them to achieve ‘deep learning.’ Besides, the use of students’ native dialect in education enhances the social, cognitive, emotional and linguistic development of learners’ in and out of school. For these reasons, it is argued that students need to be educated through their own variety. However, in multidialectal society, the issue of dialect and education in general and the issue of choosing the variety to be used as a Language of Instruction(LOI) in particular has been a great concern to linguists, educationalist and researchers for a long period of time (Yiakoumetti, 2007). This is because selecting the variety to be used as a LOI in multidialectal society is difficult as well as controversial. Besides, deciding the LOI largely depends on a variety of factors such as historical, economic, pedagogical, sociolinguistic, cultural, ideological, theoretical or/and political (UNESCO, 2003). For these reasons, the incorporation of dialects in educational system is questionable and contentious. This article is, therefore, intended to describe the use of dialects in education. Specifically, it will describes variations within the same language, social and regional dialects, standard and nonstandard varieties and their use in education the social evaluation of language varieties and its influence on their use in education, deficit and difference views and their influence on educational practice and the impacts of using dialects in education on students’ learning and achievements.