14 Jan 2021
1. Listen
- Selection from Trevor Noah interview https://www.npr.org/2016/11/22/503009220/trevor-no… on Fresh Air (listen from 19:00 to 23:33) on growing up bi-racial and multilingual in South Africa.
- After listening, consider: Noah says that “language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.” Do you agree? How do others perceive us as a function of both language and race? How does Noah “code switch” to navigate various situations? (to be discussed in section)
. Watch
- Jamila Lyiscott- Three Ways to Speak English
- From 3:50-5:50 of Paulo Freire on Language and Power
- Discussion question:
- After listening to the Noah interview and watching the two videos above, consider the different discourses students bring with them into the classroom (and other spaces like work places, court rooms, stores, etc.) and how they relate to academic language/dominant discourses.
- Consider: In what ways do we value how someone says something as much as what they say? What role does racializing play in this? What should/can be the role of home discourses in promoting academic language? Should/can our standards of academic language change?