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| Fall 2006 | Table of Contents |
 Newport News teacher Rachel Swords, left, and her former CNU professor Dr. Rebecca Wheeler, right, promote a new concept in teaching students how to use Standard English. |
Teaming up to help young students
CNU professor, former student write book on teaching Standard English in urban schools
By Alumni Magazine Staff
“Dr. Rebecca S. Wheeler is becoming one of the most important professional voices in language instruction. Her work centers on reducing the achievement gap in dialectically diverse classrooms,” wrote Kenneth Lindblom, editor of the English Journal in the May 2005 issue.
Dr. Wheeler, associate professor of English Language and Literacy at Christopher Newport University, has brought a unique perspective and scholarly authority to teacher education and public school classrooms nationwide, where she consults on teaching Standard English in minority classrooms. She is a charter literacy consultant for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) – the national professional organization for teachers – and a respected consultant throughout the United States. Dr. Wheeler’s most noted work on a new language instruction technique called “code-switching” has appeared in a variety of venues.
She inspired her former CNU student Rachel Swords, a second- and third-grade teacher at Newsome Park Elementary School in Newport News, to join her in co-authoring their book, “Code-Switching: Teaching Standard English in Urban Classrooms.” The book, released this past spring, shows teachers how to build on the linguistic knowledge that children bring to school in order to add Standard English.
Dr. Wheeler explains that when minority students write school essays, patterns from their vernacular language crop up in their writing. When they use this informal English (for example “The Earth revolve around the sun” or “Mama walk to the store on Tuesdays”) in their class papers, teachers often label it “incorrect” English.
According to Dr. Wheeler, the underlying assumption is that these children do not understand some of the basic grammar rules of the English language – such as making subjects and verbs agree.
But 40 years of research in linguistics have shown that these students are correctly using language patterns of their homes and their communities and incorporating them in the classroom.
Dr. Wheeler’s “code-switching” technique allows teachers to show students how to recognize the grammatical differences between home speech and school speech so that they can choose the language pattern most appropriate to different situations.
Mrs. Swords had been teaching for about three years when she started studying for her Master of Arts in Teaching degree in 2001 and learned about code-switching in Dr. Wheeler’s class.
Mrs. Swords “decided to try Dr. Wheeler’s method because traditional methods were not working. I was looking for an alternative to helping my students improve their reading and writing abilities.”
Once her students were told they weren’t making “mistakes” but were simply using a different style that was more conducive to an informal situation, there was a marked change in their performance and their attitudes.
“Students were identifying patterns in language and comparing and contrasting home and school speech,” she said.
Test results for her students improved substantially, and minority students have equaled their white peers in reading and writing and have outperformed them in math and science, she said.
As Dr. Wheeler and Mrs. Swords are working with other teachers and scholars on supplemental material to accompany the book, Mrs. Swords gratefully acknowledges Dr. Wheeler’s support throughout the project. Dr. Wheeler credits much of her success to the nurturing atmosphere at CNU. “From the Department of English to the Dean of Liberal Arts, the Provost’s office to the teacher education department – everyone welcomed my research.”
“Code-Switching” provides teachers with step-by-step instructions and numerous code-switching charts that can be reproduced for classroom use. It is available by:
For more information, see faculty.users.cnu.edu/rwheeler/ or www.ncte.org/profdev/onsite/consultants/wheeler.