REF OR TRESUMES ED 015 479 AL 001 013 TEACHING A SECOND DIALECT AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TESOL.. BY- CARROLL, WILLIAM S. FEIGENBAUM, IRWIN TEACHERS OF ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES PUB DATE SEP 67 EDITS PRICE MF-$0.25 HC-$0.48 10F.

DESCRIPTORS- *TENL, *NEGRO DIALECTS, *NONSTANDARD DIALECTS, DIALECT STUDIES, ENGLISH (SECOND LANGUAGE), * CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS, INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS CENTERS, INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS, URBAN LANGUAGE STUDY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

THE RESEARCH DESCRIBED HERE IS BEING CARRIED OUT BY THE URBAN LANGUAGE STUDY OF THE CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS. THE PRINCIPLE TASK OF THE PROJECT IS TO STUDY THE SPEECH OF NEGRO CHILDREN IN A LOW SOCIO-ECONOMIC AREA IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. SPECIAL MATERIALS FOR TEACHING STANDARD ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF NONSTANDARD NEGRO DIALECTS ARE BEING PREPARED ON THE BASIS OF THE CONTRASTIVE ANALYSES RESULTING FROM THIS STUDY. A BASIC ASSUMPTION OF THE URBAN LANGUAGE STUDY IS THAT THE NONSTANDARD NEGRO DIALECT DIFFERS SYSTEMATICALLY FROM STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH IN GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE, AS WELL AS IN PHONOLOGY AND LEXICON. WHILE NO "VERY COMPLETE OR DEFINITIVE STATEMENTS" HAVE AS YET BEEN MADE ABOUT THE NEGRO DIALECT VERB SYSTEM, ENOUGH DATA HAS BEEN ANALYZED TO 7NDICATE PARTICULAR PROBLEM AREAS. THESE MATERIALS BEING DEVELOPED AND USED IN EXPERIMENTAL CLASSES IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ARE DESIGNED NOT TO REPLACE THE "INFORMAL, NONSTANDARD VARIETY OF ENGLISH SPOKEN BY A LARGE NUMBER OF STUDENTS," BUT TO TEACH THE STUDENTS TO CONTROL AN ADDITIONAL VARIETY--A STANDARD DIALECT. PRESENTED BY THE AUTHORS AT THE TESOL CONVENTION IN APRIL 1967, THIS ARTICLE IS PUBLISHED IN THE "TESOL QUARTERLY," VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 1967, INSTITUTE OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20007. (AMM) Ln TESOL QUARTERLY c, en Volume 1 September, 1967 Number 3 14.1 Table of Contents

The Modular Mousetrap Earl W. Stevick 3 Innocents AbroadTeaching the American Novel Overseas John Ashmead11

Testing Aural Comprehension: A Culture Fair Approach Theodore H. Plaister17

Some Acoustic Parameters of Speech and Their Relationships to the Perception of Dialect Differences Clara N. Bush 20

/Teachinga Second Dialect and Some William S. Carroll Implications for TESOL and Irwin Feigenbaum31

Secondary School Composition: Problems and Practices Mary Finocchiaro40

Inference Expressed by Should and Must Eugene V. Mohr 47

SOme Important Oddities of English Phonetics Francis A. Cartier52

A Selected Annotated Bibliography of "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS American Literature for TESOL: Ama S. Harris COPYM TM MATERIAL HAS BFINZANTED , Part IThe Novel and Allan C. Harris56 BY

TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING Reviews UNDER AGPEEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OFFICE OF Workpapers in English as a Second Language (M. Imhoof) 63 EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER." Starting English Early (K. K. Sutherland) 65 4 Announcements 67

Publications Received 68

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PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS 13 STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION 01,001 0 POSITION OR POLICY. Teaching A SecondDialect and Some Implications forTESOL

William S. Carroll and IrwinFeigenbaum

Editor's note: These twopapers appear together under acover title because they are felt to complement each other both insubject matter and in Lpproachtoward the problem of dialect in theWashington, D.C. area. Thepapers were originally presented at the TESOL Convention,April 1967, but they have beenrevised somewhat to avoid duplication inideas. Mr. Carroll is Coozdinator ofthe English asa Foreign Language Program at Georgetown University, and Mr. Feigenbaumis Project Linguist at the Centerfor Applied Linguistics in the UrbanLanguage Study and Materials Project. Development

PART ONE A Teaching Experiment William S. Carroll

In recent years the professionalin- The Urban Language Study choseas terest of linguists in the natureof dia-a field research site a homogeneous lect has been increasing.This haslower income Negro neighborhoodwith been accompanied bya heighteneda fairly stable population in Washing- awareness of the educational problemston, D. C. Observationwas begun with in, especially, the innercity schools,groups of children and informant work in which arenow enrolled largo num-started, mostly with boys fromeight to bers of speakers of non-standardEn-fourteen years old. An applicationof glish. With this in mind, theUrbanthis analysis is to attack theproblems Language Studywas begun at theof teaching standard Englishto speak- Center for' Applied Linguisticsiners of this dialect. The techniqueswe Washington, D. C. The basictask ofadopted to do thisare the techniques the projectwas and is to study theused in teaching Englishas a foreign speech of Negro childrenof a lowlanguage. socio-economic class.1 A position basic to theUrban Lan- guage Study is that non-standard Ne- 2The Urban Language Studywas begungro dialect has a grammar of itsown in October, 1965 with fundsprovided bywhich differs systematically the Ford Foundation. In* November,1966 from the the Carnegie Corporation madea grant togrammar of standard American En. support the project through June,1969. glish. This view has beenamply sub- The objectives of the studyare (1) to analyze the nonstandard dialect ofEnglishstantiated by the researchthus far spoken by Negro children ofa lower socio-conducted. The data which havebeen economic stratum in the Districtof Colum-analyzed suggest that this dialectdif- bia, (2) to contrast the featuresof the dia- lect with those of standard English,and (3)fers from standard Englishnot only to prepare materials for teachingstandardin phonology and lexicon butin gram- English in the schools. matical structure. 31 32 TESOL QUARTERLY

Perhaps we should pause before go-language-teaching techniques applica- ing any further and attempt to defineble in teaching standard English to what we mean by "Negro non-standardspeakers of other dialects? Are there dialect." It is certainly not the speechenough differences to make the adop- of every Negro; many Negroes com-tion of new techniques worthwhile? If mand standard English. But it is thewe adopt the traditional viewpoint first dialect learned by children in mosttoward dialect study, that dialects ex- urban lower-class Negro families.Ithibit only fairly minor vocabulary and is their basic language experience, evenpronunciationdifferences,then we though they may, as they grow up,will probably feel that the differences acquire a command of the standard orare not great enough to require such at least shift their speech in the direc-an effort. But it can be demonstrated tion of the standard. It is then notthat there are not just a few differences Negro in an inclusive sense, because alland not just minor differences. Negroes do not speak such a dialect. In standard English, for example, It israther, Negro in an exclusivenouns are inflected to show possession sense because a person who is not aand plurality. In the dialect, nouns Negro is not likely at all to have apreceded by a word indicating plural- command of this dialect. ity, such as numerals and other quali- When we say that there are differ-fiers, are not inflected for plurality. ences between Negro non-standard andThe speakers of the dialect say things standard American English, we do notsuch as: A hamburger cost twenty-five mean, obviously, that everything iscent. Where there is no such indicator different. There are broad areas thatof plurality, the noun is marked, as in: are the same in both varieties. I was playin' wif de boys. Finally, what we say about Negro There is no possessive inflection. dialect applies to the speech of ourPossession is indicated by juxtaposi- informants and the speech communitiestion. De man coat or my grar' jaw to which they belong. We are talkinghouse are the dialect equivalents of about Negro speech in Washington,the man's coat and my grandfather's D. C. It is interesting to note thathouse. other researchers in other cities are If we look at the verb system of the discovering many of the same featuresdalect, we find even more striking dif- that we are. For example, problems offerences. in standard English, verbs classroom performance related to thehave a third person singular inflection absence of the third person singularin the present general. This inflection inflection of the verb and the absencedoes not exist in the dialect. He work of the copula have been noted in sev-at the post office is the equivalent of eral places. But just how general anyHe works at the post office. one feature may be is still to be de- In the dialect, He is sick is expressed termined. as either He sick (today) or He be To return to the discussion of oursick (all the time). The absence of approach to the teaching problemsthe copula in one sentence, which is mentioned above, the following ques-a complete sentence in the dialect, in- tions should be raised. Are foreign-dicates that the action or state is tem- TEACHING A SECOND DIALECT 33

porary. The use of be indicates thatseems further to be determined by the the state or action is general or repeti-presence or absence of time adverbs tive. This is a structural distinctionand other contextual clues. We still that does not exist in standard English.do not know enough about the verb He is sick is the only structure possiblesystem to make very completeor defi- whether the state is temporary or ha-nitive statements about it. bitual. The occurrence of He sickor But the teaching problemsare ob- He be sick is not just a case of randomvious. The possessive inflection, the omission of the copula or theuse of athird person singular inflection, and peculiar form of it. The separatenesscertain forms of the copula, forex- of the two constructions is illustratedample, are lacking and must be added by the time expression thatcan be usedto the students' grammatical repertory. with them. He sick is used with ad-The noun plural inflection and the past verbials such as todayor right now.tense inflection are known by the stu- He be sick is used with all the timeordents, but they must be taughta dif- every day. Dialect speakers will notferent range of usage. accept *He sick all the timeor *He be The two separate structures in the sick right now as correct examples ofcase of He sick and He be sick have to the way they speak. The separatenessbe shown to be the equivalent of only of the constructions is further demon-one standard structure, he is sick; and strated by their negative forms. Hethe contrasts betweenam, are and is, sick is negated as He ain't sick, andand was and were need to be taught. He be sick is negatedas He don't be These are clearly problems ofa type sick. comparable to that facing speakers of In another area, the standard Heforeign languages learning English. surely does work hard is presented inJust quoting rules for the students the dialect by Hesure do work hard.does not enable them touse the re- This is what might be expected; doquired forms in theproper places. marks emphasis,as in the standard, The examples of points of difference but is not inflected for thirdpersonin the grammar of the dialect and singular in the dialect. Buta sentencestandard English are all quite clear cut. in the past tense, marked for emphasisThe teaching of standard phonology is differs more strikingly from the stan-more problematic. Pronunciation varies dard. He bin know dat, equivalent tofrom region to region in this country. standard He did know that, is notevenRegional pronunciation that isaccep- understood by people who do not speaktable in its home area may not beac- the dialect. cepted outside that area. Letus now The inflection of verbs for past tenseconsider some of the problems involved occurs in the dialect. But the use ofin the choice of pronunciation features this inflection iiffers from itsuse into be included in a program of standard standard. Its use is partly determinedEnglish for speakers of other dialects. by phonological rules: itoccurs in the As stated earlier, although Negro stream of speech before vowels, butdialect manifests differences from other not before consonants or silenceHevarieties of English, it is not different passed out and He pass by. Itsusein every respect. Take for instance the t4 TESOL QUARTERLY phonology. In the dialect, /0/, the ini-areas and to all social classes of speak- tial consonant in words such as thick,ers in those areas. We were asked by is retained in initial position and re-one of the teache.s we were working placed by /f/ in medial or final posi-with for a lesson to teach and practice tion, as, for example, in /wifawt/ in-the discrimination of these two vowels stead of without and /bref/ instead ofin this environment. The teacher, of breath. The initial Consonant /a/, incourse, is from a Northern speech area words such as there, is generally absentand had n.encountered Southern roan the dialect. It is replaced by /d/speech before. We wrote such a lesson 1 initially in words like /dem/ insteadand discovered, as we were sure we of them, and medially and finally bywould, that most of the teachers were /v/ in words like /fava/ instead ofunsure in their presentation of the les- father and /briyv/ instead of breathe.son because they themselves did not This distributional phenomenon seemscontrol this distinction in their own to be restricted to the speech of Ne-speech. Washington, after is not groes; it is one of the diagnostic fea-in the North. tures of Negro dialect.It is also a Another example of the problem is clear cut deviation from standard En-the monophthongization of /ay/, that glish. pronunciation. Most teachers ofis, the reduction of the diphthong /ay/ Negro children are aware of the prob-as in ride to a simple vowel /a/ as in lem and feel definitely that it merits/rad/. In dialect, the diphthong is re- consideration in the classroom. Othertained before voiceless consonants as in problems are not as clear cut, however.write /rayt /, but reduced to a simple In Washington, most of the Negrovowel before voiced consonants and in migragem has been from Virginia andopen syllables, as in /rad/ ride and the .olinas which are Southern/fla/ fly. But again, this phenomenon states,.Consequently, many of theis widespread in the South. Educated phonological features in the speech ofpeople use this vowel. Even &Ash Washington Negroes are Southern fea-teachers use it. tures.They are not features that In the North, all of the features I would be stigmatized in the South,have mentioned above are vulnerable since they are not class markers into criticism. People hearing them are that region, However, in most citiesapt to react unfavorably to them; in the North, these features are foundteachers will probably try to correct only in the speech of the Negro ghettosthem. Though they are acceptable in and possibly among the white migrantsparts of the country, in others they from Appalachia. As a result, thesewill be labeled substandard or, more forms are often remarked upon asbluntly, Negro dialect, whether they substandard. are or not. A case in point is the neutralization The examples just given are exam- of /r/ and /e/ (the vowels in bit andples of the types of teaching problems bet, respectively) before nasal conso-we have attempted to deal with in the nants so that pen and pin are both pro-series of lessons we have produced. nounced pin. This pronunciation fea- In October of 1966, then, we began ture is common to all Southern speechworking in the District of Columbia TEACHING A SECOND DIALECT 35

public schools. With the help of Mrs.attempt was made to stamp out the Charlotte Brooks, the supervising di-dialect. This, after all, is not possible, rector for junior h,gh and high schools,for the child does not come fr_man we began meeting with ten teachers toenvironment where standard English is discuss the nature of the dialect andspoken. He has to survive on the play- its relation to standard English, as wellgrounds and in the streets, and he as the oral-aural teaching techniquesknows, even if his English teacher will needed for teaching the experimentalnot admit it, that using languageso grammar and pronunciation lessons wevery different from that of his associ- were producing. ates will only mark him as peculiar and These lessons are constructed alongadd to his difficulties. standard foreign-language-teaching Instead of an all -or- nothingap- linesoral drills based on points ofproach, the materials were designed to difference in the grammar and pho-add to the student's language skills by nology of the dialect and standard En-helping him achieve command ofan- glish. Since the language systemna-other style, that of standard English. tive to the children is so different fromThe concept of behavior appropriate to standard English as to constituteathe situation was stressedjustas a ,quasi- foreign- language situation, it wasperson wears different clothes to a felt that oral drilling, to force the stu-dance or on a picnic, he adapts his lan- dents to repeat and produce standardguage to different situations. English utterances, was necessary to The lessons were accepted by the initiate standard language habits. Withteachers after they. hadovercome their the grammatical system of the dialectoriginal uneasiness, although theywere so different from that of standard, it isi very cooperative from the beginning. not surprising that the children experi-They were uneasy for threereasons: ence dculty and even bewilderment(1) they were unfamiliar with the oral- in their attempts to produce the stan-aural techniques required by the les- dard English demanded of them in thesons and were afraid of making mis- classroom. There is interference fromtakes; (2) they were uncomfortable the dialect on every level, and onlyabout the term "linguistic approach" carefully structured drillingon thebecause they had not hadany training points of difference can overcome thisin linguistics; (3) they suspected that in most children. Haphazardcorrec-the materials might "lower standards" tions such as "Don't say ain't" are notsince they were the outgrowth ofa enough.. The child must be familiardialect study. enough with the standard system to By now these fears have been al- know tliat isn't or didn't is required in-layed. The teachers, from ten different stead of ain't, and he must have enoughelementary, junior high, senior high practice to produce the required formand vocational high schools have be- automatically. come familiar with the techniques and Discussion of the dialect by theare convinced of their validity. The teachers in the classroom wascon-teachers have come to accept, openly ducted in terms of "casual"versusand frankly, the existence of the dialect "more formal" styles of speech. Noand Its role in the childrens' lives. 36 TESOL QUARTERLY

Ironically enough, the students -lidhad never heard language like this, the not require much convincing.Theystudents could say, if anybody both- are, in general,much more aware ofered to ask them, that they said, their language situation than their"Every mornin' whin I git up, dey be teachers are. They were quick to ad-at work" instead of "Every morning mit that their casual, style ofspeechwhen I get up, they're at work," and was differentfrom the more formalthat in words like brother, they use a style demanded of them by their teach-v sound instead of ath sound. ers in theclassroom. Consequently, The real problem we encountered, oral drilling of a type used inthethen, is one of teacher training, mak- foreign-language classroom did noting the teacher aware first of the exis- bore them because they quicklytence of the dialect, second of the sys- grasped the point of it. tematic nature of its differences from. While their teachers might say (asthe standard, and third of the useful- some have done)that in all theirness of materials based on acontrastive twenty years in the classroom,theyanalysis of the differences.

PART TWO The Concept of Appropriatenessand Developing Materials for TESOL Irwin Feigenbaum In our teaching in the Districtofsingle skill to be learned in school) and Columbia public schools, we were notin acquiring other skills taught in concerned with replacing theinformal,school, through the standard. nonstandard variety of English spoken As descriptive linguists, we cannot by a large number of thestudentssay that one variety oflanguage is in- (which, in fact, may be impossibletotrinsically superior or inferior to an- do). We were, instead, concernedwithother, but sociolinguistics does provide teaching the students to control ana criterion forevaluation and selec- additional variety, a standard one.Iftionappropriateness. We can ask the we describe"standard" English as thatfollowing questions: Is the variety of variety of English used byeducated,language used appropriate to the social well-placed members of the society, wesituation in which it is used? Does this can readily seethat an inadequate con-variety call the least attention toitself trol of the standard variety severely re-when it is used in the given social situ- stricts the opportunities for a person'sation? Using this criterion, we cande- advancement in the society.Inade-termine which variety of Englishis quate control of standard English canappropriate at home and which is ap- create difficulty in learning toread thepropriate for school activities. standard (perhaps the most important The monodialectal speaker of star:-

LlhdNl""IMIIIllgillaL±L' TEACHING A SECOND DIALECT 87 dard English makes use of many differ-scriptive of junior and senior high ent language styles:from the mostschool students, who have often en- formal to the most informal situations,countered standard English in school he chooses an appropriate style from aand on television. It is, then, a matter series of styles. The styles vary in de-of helping the students gain an active gree of formality, and together theycontrol of standard, so that they can form a continuum. The bidialectaluse it with ease and fluency in the ap- speaker of standard and nonstandardpropriate situations. English also makes use of many differ- We have found that second- ent styles. However, because the non-language-teaching methods are appli- standard dialect is very different fromcable to second-dialect teaching, but, standard English, both phonologicallyof course, some adaptation is neces- and gramMatically, there is no suchsary. For example, native speakers of continuum: there is a sharp break asEnglish will not patiently perform in the speaker goes from an informal stylerepetition-type drills, especially as a (nonstandard) to a formal one (stan-group; they do not feel the need for dard). The shift from nonstandard tothis practice, and they feel that simple standard is, in some respects, similar tomimicry is not a suitable class activity. the shift from one language to another.One way to alleviate this problem is to For this reason, we have assumed thatreplace repetition drills with simple second-language pedagogy is applicablesubstitution drills in which the substi- to second-dialect teaching. tution slot is away from that part of One situation in which standard En-the sentence on which we are working: glish is appropriate is in the Classroom,for repetitions of the third person sin- during class activities. As teachers, wegular present tense of verbs, the stu- are concerned with this situation, anddents substitute direct objects in sen- we are justified in changing the varietytences like In the winter he wears of English used in this situation only.corduroys or She likes black fish-net It is impossible to control the varietystockings. On the other hand, the stu- of English outside classroom activities,dents enjoy manipulation drills of the and, after all, nonstandard English issubstitution and transformation types, the appropriate variety for much (orand we were able to use a conventional all) of the student's life outside theEnglish-as-a-second-language format in classroom. writing these drills. In teaching speakers of nonstandard TESL methodology has helped us English to speak standard, we mustin arriving at a methodology for pre- sometimes teach new, standard formsparing materials and for teaching in and provide the students with the op-this new situation. Now it would be in- portunity to practice these forms in ap-teresting and revealing to look in the propriate situations. Very frequently,other direction, at TESL from the van- the task is not one of teaching un-tage point of teaching a second dialect, known forms. Many students have afor, in examining it from a different passive control of these forms; theycontext, we can gain some insights that have heard them, and they understandmight prove useful in the more familiar them. This latter case is especially de-area of foreign-language teaching. 38 TESOL QUARTERLY

The situation most similar to that ofsituations. For example, somewhere in standard English as a second dialect isthe first lesson of many English-as-a- that of English as a second language.second-language textbooks is the sen- In many countries English is tie offi-tence I'm fine, thank you. Often it cial language and, as such, is the me-occurs in a substitution drill with the dium for instruction in schools, and isalternate I'm fine, thanks. Thank you used for government affairs and inis appropriate in more L ituations than dealings with people from other lin-thanks. Do we wish to spend time guistic backgrounds. The native lan-drilling thanks and explaining when it guage is retained as a necessary meansis appropriate (or inappropriate)? Un- of accomplishing much of the businessless we specifically choose to teach this of everyday life. In addition, it mayform, for whatever reason, it is more be the language of social and religiousdesirable to avoid it and teach only activities. thank youeven if this means one less It would be useful to ask: Whatpattern for substitution work. type or types of pedagogical materials This problem of choice occurs with are to be used in thissituation? Thisgrammatical and phonological material, question can be more precisely an-and at different levels of mastery. Are swered by asking: In what situationswe going to teach AIM/ or ifx0/, or is English to be used? What are theshould we teach both? And what appropriate varieties of English forabout It's me and It's I? these situations? As long as the mate- At some time, we may find it neces- rials writers are native speakers ofsary to select only one form to teach English, they can rely somewhat on(due to limitations in course length, "feel"in some cases, this may be thefor example). If we cannot teach a only criterion currently available. Butform with widespread appropriateness, the variety of English to be taughtit would be wiser to select one that is must be carefully and closely definedformal. It is interesting to note that, so that we (1)teach the necessary ap-when speaking with a person who does propriate forms and (2) do not spendnot speak English very well, we accept time teaching unnecessary or inappro-a style that is too formal, although we priate forms. find humorous a style that is too in- Another common situation is that offormal. Because we are concerned with the foreigner in an English-speakingteaching a variety of language that country. This is the situation withcalls the least attention to itself in a which we are most familiar. The prob-given situation, it seems better to lean lem of appropriateness is very difficulttowards formality. here because it is necessary to have In training teachers of English as a control of appropriate varieties of En-second language, we stress the impor- glish for several different situations. tance of giving "constant, correct mod- One way to relieve the problem ofels." Another word to describe the de- choosing forms to teach for each situa-sired models is "appropriate." Dialogs tion is to choose forms that have wide-give a great amount of help, even to the spread appropriateness, that is, formsnative speaker. The teacher can "see" that are appropriate in many socialthe individual social situation and can TEACHING A SECOND DIALECT 39 present "constant, corre ,t, and appro-are often complaints from students priate" models. That there are differ-who, after several years of instruction ent varieties of English, &1 equally cor-with different teachers, are unsure rect but with varying appropriatenesswhich pronunciation to use. according to the situation, should be In developing materials for use in included in teacher training.Socio-classrooms. the United States, we linguists are now investigating stylehave had a very important, but fre- differences. This information is neededquently overlooked, aspect of teaching in teacher preparation as well as in ma-brought vividly to our attention. terials development. Foreign-language students will very Another point regarding appropriate-trustingly practice many things that ness must be consideredappropriateare apparently pointless. The native geographical dialect. In American En-speaker will not stand for this. The glish, this is more crucial phonologi-content of the lessons must be real, cally than grammatically. We haveand the treatment must be interesting. been regularly confronted with prob-Our students have been candid in ex- lems like the following: In this non-pressing any lack of interest, and they standard dialect, Indoes not occurhave not hesitated to say that some- post-vocalically(exceptafter/a/).thing sounds peculiar, thatis,in- Are we justified in teaching the stu-appropriate. dents to produce /r/ in this position, It has been valuable to examine two although it does not occur in the stan-aspects of teaching English, standard dard varieties of English found in sev-English as a second dialect or English eral areas of the United States? Weas a foreign language. The constant can only answer this in terms of geo-comparison of these two aspects will graphical appropriateness. Relying oncontinue to be very revealing in the native speaker "feel" does not help re-areas of materials development, teach- solve this problem in teaching Englishing methodology, and student per- to speakers of other languages. Thereformance.