Teachers' Language Attitudes and Bidialectalism

The roles of teacher language attitudes in school programs are reviewed & the significance of teacher attitudes confirmed. The analysis indicates that the teachers' beliefs have an enormous -- probably critical -- importance in developing the clasroom's sociolinguistic environment, as well as in the success or failure of nonabsolutist school language programs. New approaches to working with children's language -- like bidialectalism -- do in fact demand substantial changes in teachers' language attitudes. Unfortunately, such changes are extremely unlikely to occur in the near future. Any language program containing, as a prerequisite, an alteration in the language attitudes of teachers must take into account the massive, persistent factors working against this goal. Modified HA