How Myths about Language Affect Education: What Every Teacher Should Know

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How MYTHS ABOUT LANGUAGE AFFECT EDUCATION What Every Teacher Should Know David Johnson Kennesaw State University Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2008 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America e University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper ISBN-13: 978-0-472-03287-7 2011 2010 2009 2008 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. ∞ ISBN-13: 978-0-472-02979-2 (electronic) The presentations of tables, figures, and/or images are dependent on the device and display options. Some image content or language characters may have been removed or may be altered depending on the device used to read this eBook. Dedication This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother,Tommie Johnson, who was my first English teacher. I would also like to dedicate this book to those who continue to teach me about language: my father, Gene Johnson; my wife, Priya; my daughters, Emily and Sarah; my in-laws, KM and Ann Mathew; and most especially the many ESL students I have taught through the years. Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the many colleagues who have contributed to this project. First,I owe a debt of gratitude to Judy Holzman (Kennesaw State University) for allowing me to participate in her U.S. Department of Education grant. With the support of this grant, I was able to have the time needed to finish this project. She is a dedicated colleague and admirable person. I also wish to thank the many colleagues who have read earlier versions of this book and provided valuable comments. I especially wish to thank Margie Berns (Purdue University) and David Schmidt (Kennesaw State University). I also would like to thank my wife, Priya Johnson, for reading multiple drafts of this book and for marking all my typos. I want to thank Paul and Aya Matsuda (Arizona State University) for helping me with the example of Japanese postpositions. I owe a special thank you to Kelly Sippell at the University of Michigan Press for all of her help during the entire process. The book is far better because of her insights and attention to detail. I also wish to thank three anonymous reviewers at the University of Michigan Press who helped me to clarify issues in the text. Finally, I thank all the students in my linguistics classes during the past ten years who have asked probing questions about my examples of linguistic myths. ...