Banning The Use Of Parallel In The Classroom

Standard English is what students are expected to write and speak in society. Students go to school to learn about standard English. People who are learning English will learn standard English. An aspect of language is slang but is often considered to be separate. The truth is, slang is becoming a part of the language and is evident with students in academic settings. Students enter the classroom with slang. They will use it in papers and in presentations. In papers, students will sometimes use informal language in their writing and get marked down for it. When students are presenting, they will sometimes use slang because it is what they use on a daily basis. An example of this is the usage of "like" in a presentation. A question teachers

The fear is that if slang isn't banned from schools than students won't be as marketable in job interviews. Instead of banning slang from schools, educators could teach students when it is appropriate to use this informal language in the right contexts and how language is always changing. Drummond (2016) states "What we should be doing is encouraging students to explore the fluidity, richness, and contextual appropriateness of an ever-changing language" (p.2). If we can teach students that slang is used certain scenarios and not others, we would help students understand that language is appropriate in certain contexts. The problem of banning slang is that can restrict student talk within the classroom. Students will become aware of how many times they are corrected when they say like or um. This will just result in them not speaking up in class and sharing their ideas. "All it can possibly achieve is to make young people self-conscious about the way they speak, thus stifling creativity and expression" (Drummond, 2016, p.3). Instead of focusing on how many likes or ums a student utters in a presentation or writes in a paper, we should listen attentively and analyze with students how words can adjust the meaning of the paper or speech. Slang is a part of language diversity and we as teachers should embrace it instead of restricting it within the