TEACHING COMPOSITION: A REPORT ON A BIDIALECTAL APPROACH

Whichever theoretical position one holds regarding the problem of nonstandard dialects, it is clear that productive competence of standard formal composition style is a mandatory skill for anyone who wishes to obtain a university degree in this country. An outline is given of a rationale for choosing a bidialectal approach for teaching composition to users of nonstandard dialects including a description of the approach, the assumptions, and the class objectives. A description is then given of some of the methods (e.g., contrastive analysis and the study of dialects and registers) and classroom techniques (e.g., lectures, discussions, exercises) which were used to achieve the objectives. The discussion includes an evaluation of the success of each technique and concludes with an informal evaluation of the total experimental program. HA