Sofia: Hello and welcome to our podcast “A New Way Forward: Learning from previous experiences and creating awareness to traditions of literacies.” I am your host Sofia, and I am joined today by Stephanie, Annamarie, and Madison. We will be sharing experiences from when we were in school about how our teachers addressed language use. Let me now bring in my group members.

Steph: Hi!

Madison: Hi, I’m Maddie!

Annamarie: Hi I’m Annamarie and I’m excited to spread awareness about respecting language in the classroom!

Sofia: We thought that it would be beneficial to share specific stories from our childhood to highlight what harmful biases and ideologies relating to language have long been at play in the classroom and how they made us feel as students.

Sofia: We also decided to create a poll on our Instagram stories asking how many of our followers have experienced language policing during their school years and Anna’s gonna share the results

Annamarie: So about 70% of individuals/ have experienced language policing in a school setting
80% of individuals have been corrected on their use of language specifically while using African American Vernacular English or Spanglish or other types of language and 55% of individuals have had their first/last names mispronounced by a school teacher

Some followers wanted to share their specific story, so following Follower A states,
“I always make sure to correct my teachers and they never have a problem with it. I am not offended as long as they correct their mistakes. Follower B stated, “I never identified with my first name because of the way it was pronounced in English. I would’ve preferred my teacher asking me how it’s pronounced instead of assuming, so because of this, now I just go by my last name”

Annamarie: Personally, I have always had my first and last name mispronounced, so I understand the frustration of many individuals and I would have you preferred my teacher to ask how I want my name to be pronounced or how it is pronounced or if I go by a nickname or something else. I know that would have definitely made me feel more comfortable in the classroom and more comfortable trusting my teachers as well.

Steph: I totally agree, I always felt that it was so easy to just ask how to pronounce my last name first instead of saying it wrong. I’m used to it by now, but I don’t understand how a teacher will pronounce it incorrectly first and then ask for me to correct them. I feel like when I am confused on pronunciation, I never attempt to say it until it’s explained to me

Madison: I also had an experience like this growing up. Typically, a lot of teachers would pronounce my last name wrong and instead of asking me, they would always pronounce it wrong. I did have one teacher that was never bothered in learning my last name and how to say it correctly and then it would go on to like the students and they would kind of make fun of my last name because they were they would hear it from like the way the teacher would say it and no one would really correct them and that would kind of frustrate me as a child because that’s not how my name was supposed to be said. So, it really does happen still now that I’ve gotten older, but I don’t get as upset as I as I did when I was a child. I’ve again, like Steph said, I’ve gotten used to it and people are just going to say things the way that they hear it or they feel it’s the way it’s said. Some do have good intentions, but it’s nice to know that some people are willing to learn how to say certain names and not just ignore it.

Sofia: And while I’ve never experienced this in school, I feel like I have more common name even though there are some mispronunciations. I have seen a lot of my peers have their names said incorrectly and like even when we had substitute teachers you could see like with the look on the teachers face when they got up to the one child’s name that they were unsure how to say it so they would just make a face , look a little nervous and the student would just say here and wouldn’t even bother to hear the mispronunciation because they just been so accustomed to everyone feeling uncomfortable saying their names instead of the teacher making an effort to learn it and it was sad because the teacher, the teacher would make the kids feel like their name was a burden and the kid would try to avoid confusing people. But names are such a huge part in culture and identity, and kids shouldn’t be ashamed to have their names pronounced correctly.

Annamarie: I agree Sofia. I feel like my names are a huge part of our cultures and who we are and not only that, just, you know, the languages we speak as well paly a huge role into our identity. A following follower said, “I am one out of 2 brown people and 1 out of 6 people of color in my school that is a predominantly white university. I often get made fun of for having a city accent. Aside from just our names, I know personally there was a lot of West Indian kids in my elementary school and most of their parents were immigrants with accents in the way they’d speak so most of the kids would say things the way their parents would and then be by the schoolteacher school official that it’s the improper way to say it.

Steph: I’ve also had a lot of positive experiences with language when I was younger. There was a girl in my first-grade class who knew sign language and she tried to teach us simple phrases like thank you. I wish she taught us more because that’s so important.

Sofia: And I also had a similar experience with sign language when I was in second grade. My teacher made a point of teaching us sign language at the end of lunch or whenever we had free time. So like if there were a few extra minutes at the end of class, she was teaching us the alphabet and at one point I was completely fluent and saying the Pledge of Allegiance in sign language and I wish that more teachers would have made that effort because now I’ve forgotten most of it and I wish I would have been able to keep up with it and that’s a skill that I wish I had now, but I think it’s really great that for that one year my teacher was putting the effort in and expanding our knowledge of language to include more people

Madison: Definitely when I got older, my experiences with different languages were amazing. In my high school we would have a whole week dedicated to each different language every culture and we learn the different language and have stories about like, culture or the food that they’ve eaten. Then some students would bring it in as well and we bond over that and talk to each other. Some students would also teach other students how to say certain phrases in their language that they grew up with and some points we would have the students compete with each other to see who could remember the most and what they learned with everyone and it was just a great bonding moment, to get o know everyone a little better and learn everything about their culture and their language.

Sofia: As future teachers, we hope that we can undo the harmful biases that were more normalized when we went to school. We know how it feels as students to be told that our language is wrong, and we want to try and actively do better. We also want to carry the good things that we were taught by our teachers and school and continue that when we are in our own classroom.

Steph: Our goals are to not unnecessarily correct students for their words, to have a culturally inclusive classroom, and embrace any language practices that our students may bring with them

Annamarie: We also want to acknowledge the uniqueness of each individual student and allow them to tell us how to say their first name or last names before we try and make assumptions about how to pronounce their names and make them feel frustrated or angry

Madison: All languages are useful in creating a learning environment and we will respect all languages because our words have meaning.

Sofia: Thank you for joining us today. We hope that this makes you think back to how your teacher’s addressed language when you were in school, both good and bad, and really makes you aware of what you would like to carry forward with you as a future educator. Have a great day.