These Advocates Say Black English Belongs in Preschool Classrooms

“But with that comes a lot of shame and embarrassment because you’re being constantly corrected when you’re still in a moment when you’re just learning language,” she said.

Williams wants to change that.

As co-founder of Black Californians United for Early Care & Education, she’s part of a movement to get preschool teachers and caregivers to legitimize Black English as a way to build children’s early literacy skills and honor their cultural identity.

The work is personal for Williams because she doesn’t want her 2-year-old son, Ashtyn, to experience what she went through as a child.

“I don’t want my son to walk into any room and feel like his voice is not valued or his perspective can’t be heard because he’s not saying it in one way or the other,” she said.

Over the last year and a half, the advocacy group, also known as BlackECE, has offered professional development training to spread the word about the importance of supporting Black English speakers the same way they support dual language learners, children who are learning two or more languages simultaneously.

In California, most children under age 5 are dual language learners and the state’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care, which was released by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, recognizes the opportunity to develop bilingualism during the early years, when children’s brains are developing rapidly. It calls on educators to affirm children’s home language even as they’re learning standard English in the classroom. The 10-year road map lays out specific recommendations, such as training the workforce to support dual language learners to foster bilingualism.

BlackECE, along with other early childhood advocacy groups and education experts, said those recommendations should also apply to children who speak Black English.

“We talk about multilinguals, but we don’t include Black children who may be African-American English speakers,” said Xigrid Soto-Boykin, director of the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University. “We completely miss this subgroup of children that could also benefit from their language backgrounds to be sustained, but also to be leveraged for their own learning.”

Training educators to recognize the legitimacy of Black English is important, she said, because although elements of the language have been embraced by young people and popularized around the world, misperceptions persist.

Soto-Boykin co-authored a 2023 study that found that white early childhood educators who were familiar with Black English or received training to support children from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds were more likely to have positive views about the language. Those with less knowledge or training were more likely to believe that it hinders students’ achievement.

She said these beliefs can dramatically affect the lives of Black children.

“We see it in terms of referrals to special education; we see it in how sometimes teachers correct children and say, ‘We don’t speak like this here in the classroom,’” she said.

A national study found that Black children are disproportionately diagnosed with speech and language impairments in 14% of states.

Soto-Boykin’s study noted that veteran educators were more likely to have negative beliefs about Black English, possibly because they began their careers in the 1990s, around when the Oakland Unified School District’s Board of Education proposed using Ebonics to help Black students learn standard English. The idea sparked nationwide controversy, with critics disparaging the board for trying to dumb down education.

By contrast, early-career educators were more likely to have positive beliefs about Black English because they may have started their careers during the Black Lives Matter movement and have a greater awareness of the broader racial reckoning that followed.

“When the perception of how children speak sits at the intersection of Blackness, that perception is nine times out of 10 negative,” Williams said. “Like, you’re from the hood, you’re not speaking correctly, you’re uneducated.”

An awareness of Black English as a language is key, Williams said, “because then it allows that educator on the webinar to show up to work the next day and say, ‘There’s something here. … There’s a system behind the way that you speak as a Black child, and I want to learn more about how to support that and help you understand more standard English.’”

In webinars led by BlackECE, training begins with an explanation that Black English grew out of the English adopted by millions of people captured in Africa and forced into slavery in British colonial America, starting in 1619. Some linguists theorize that because enslaved people had to pick up the language of their captors quickly, they developed a more streamlined version of English. Over centuries of segregation, that speech evolved into a distinct language with its own rules of grammar, usage and pronunciation.

Some characteristics of Black English include double negation of verbs and the “habitual be,” to describe a repeated or ongoing action, as in “We be playin’ with Legos all the time.” Linguists say this use of “be” is systematic and more nuanced than standard English.

“When children learn that their language is valid and beautiful and follows rules, I can’t even describe the pride they feel with that identity,” said Gloria Swindler Boutte, an early childhood education professor at the University of South Carolina.

“It keeps children from thinking, ‘I have to speak this way at school and this way at home, so maybe there’s something wrong with the people at home and how they speak,’” she said.

Educators don’t have to try to speak Black English to affirm the language, she said. They could provide books that feature Black English or identify Black English when they hear children speak it and “expand their repertoire” with alternative words or expressions in standard English.

Soto-Boykin suggests creating a vocabulary wall that includes words in Black English and standard English, so that children can make meaning with all the languages they know. For example, educators could help children understand that other words to describe something good could be “awesome, great, dope or fire.”

Educators could also invite community members who speak Black English to visit the classroom and tell stories, she said.

Aisha White, founder of a program at the University of Pittsburgh focused on helping young Black children develop a positive racial identity, said Black parents could also benefit from some training around Black English. She said that when she showed segments of a documentary called Talking Black in America and held discussions with Black parents, many told her they would stop correcting the way their children speak.

“It was one of the most impactful projects because there were parents who came into the sessions with negative attitudes toward AAVE, and then decided they will not correct their children’s language anymore,” she said. “That is remarkable that parents would be willing to change their parenting behaviors based on what they learned.”

Williams said this kind of support doesn’t cost anything, but can strengthen educators’ relationships with Black children and their families. On the other hand, the tendency to correct the way they speak comes at a personal cost to the kids.

When she was in third grade, Williams won a scholarship to attend summer camp, where for the first time she was surrounded by mostly white kids. She remembers picking up on some of the ways her campmates talked and listening to Ace of Bass.

When she came home, she remembers her sister and cousin teasing her for “talking white.” In fourth grade, a teacher who was “adamant about proper English” punished the Black students in her class by making them repeatedly enunciate words like “what” and “why.”

“It made me feel so insecure, but at the same time that was the language that I needed to be considered in the gifted program in elementary school and be considered the student who always got to lead the Pledge of Allegiance,” she said.

Learning to code-switch and “talk white” in school helped her excel academically. Williams went on to study child development at San Francisco State University and earn a doctorate in education.

But having to code-switch to fit in could be tiresome and felt inauthentic.

“When I’m in spaces where I feel the need to code-switch, my imposter syndrome is through the roof. I’m already feeling like, ‘I don’t belong here, I shouldn’t belong here,’” she said. “It’s like my throat closes because I am overthinking so much about what I’m saying.”

As she learned more about Black English, Williams began to feel freer to speak a mix of Black English and standard English wherever she goes. The blending of two languages is called translanguaging, a concept increasingly recognized in education as a valuable teaching tool.

“Really at the heart of this, it’s about affirming our identity and our culture and our humanity and not having to perform as something you’re not just to be accepted in a room,” she said.

Beyond raising awareness, BlackECE wants to include Black English speakers in California policies mandating state-funded preschools and child care programs to identify dual language learners to better understand their needs and design curriculum to support them.

“We know that with being deemed multilingual learners, there’s resources, there’s supports, there’s teacher training,” Williams said. “And we’re saying, ‘Yes, and we belong in that conversation too.’”

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