TOEFL to the Test: are Monodialectal AAL‐speakers Similar to ESL Students?

Abstract

In this paper, I draw attention to the validity of the Oakland School Board's resolution on Ebonics, and to the value of ESL‐based approaches to the teaching of ‘Standard American English’ to speakers of other dialects of American English. I do so by demonstrating the validity of comparisons made between monodialectal speakers of African‐American Language (AAL)/‘Ebonics’ and low‐level ESL students, and by illustrating the bidialectalism‐instilling potential of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Use of this proficiency test puts the spotlight on a much‐neglected area, namely, the bidialectal or dialect‐specific nature of listening comprehension for pre‐college and first‐year students raised in the inner city. The findings of two longitudinal studies are cited to demonstrate that, for many Ebonics‐speakers, SAE is much like a second language. The students' performance on the TOEFL, particularly on the listening comprehension and grammar sections, suggests that both comprehension and production of ‘Standard English’ can be problematic for transitional students whose first language is AAL. The pedagogical implications of this finding are carefully explored.Every time I say something the way I say it, she correct me until I say it some other way. Pretty soon it feel like I can't think. My mind run up on a thought, git confuse, run back and sort of lay down.….Look like to me only a fool would want you to talk in a way that feel peculiar to your mind.(Alice Walker, 1982: 183–4)