milky  +  315450 Mon, 15 Jan 07 11:53 AM Are ESL teachers prepared to teach standard English to U.S. vernacular speakers? milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

	Marvin A.  +  315585 Mon, 15 Jan 07 05:22 PM I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "vernacular speakers".  Do you mean native speakers?  What do you mean by ESL teachers?  Teachers that are qualified to teach English to foreigners, or teachers that are non-native speakers of English?  If you mean non-native speakers of English who are not very proficient in English, then no, it probably wouldn't be a good idea for them to teach native speakers of English standard written English.  If they were proficient in English, then of course that would be fine, as long as they knew how to teach correct standard written English. Marvin A. Joined on Fri, Dec 8 2006 Regular Member 638

	milky  +  315714 Tue, 16 Jan 07 12:04 AM Marvin A. <I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "vernacular speakers".>  Those that speak a dialect which is not the standard or prestige form. <Do you mean native speakers?> In general, yes - ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers already teach nonnatives world over, so we don't need to talk about nonnatives.   milky Dialects, English as a Second Language

	Mythical Lady  +  316297 Wed, 17 Jan 07 12:15 PM I have never thought that the vernacular is to refer to a dialect, but rather to a language. I have first encountered with it while reading the history of the English language. The writer said that English contuines to be use alongside the vernaculars in the colonies which gained independence. So I think he refers to the mother tongues (used in the local areas) which are completely different from the standard language (used in more official bodies). We can't say that the vernacular here could be a dialect becuase dialect means a variant of a language, not a language. Regards, Mythical Lady Joined on Wed, May 3 2006 Full Member 232 What lies behind us and what lies before us are TINY matters compared to what lies WITHIN us Regards, Dialects

	milky  +  316323 Wed, 17 Jan 07 01:19 PM <We can't say that the vernacular here could be a dialect becuase dialect means a variant of a language, not a language.> And Standard English is also a variant. milky Dialects

	Mythical Lady  +  317029 Fri, 19 Jan 07 12:38 AM Yea that's right but what I am trying to say here is that English has been used by the vernacular speakers as a lingua franca. That's all.And I haven't expected that this term could be used to refer to different English dialects as well. But if this is the case, thanks for the info. Mythical Lady Dialects