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Dana Alsader Ms. Linda Holfman English 1101 15th November, 2012 SRTOL Throughout my academic experiences, I have witnessed many kinds of dialects that people speak in my country. In Kuwait, diversity is taking over many schools, companies and even homes. Many Kuwaitis have more than one dialect, like me. In public places like school and restaurants, I intend to use my native language or dialect; which is Ku waiti Arabic. However, most of the people who do not know much about my family history do not know the fact that I speak differently at home! My mother is Jordanian; therefore, my sisters and I adopted the Jordanian culture and dialect into our lives. Further, for me it is easy to switch between two dialects since I live in a country where I can use Kuwaiti Arabic fluently. I studied high school at a public school in Shameya city. Students in my school were from different parts of the Middle East. Our teachers gave us the right to speak how we wanted. I couldnt recall any moments where any of us were judged or misunderstood by our teachers. We all speak with our native dialect. Alternatively, we can only use one form of Arabic language when it comes to writing. It is the formal Arabic language that we use in writing, in other words, standard Arabic. We never argued about changing the way we write. Growing up as a student in a public school in Shameya, we were taught that written Arabic is different than spoken Arabic in school. Non-standard written Arabic is only used between friend and family in texting or social networking like Facebook and Twitter.

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I think language is considered the soul of every culture and therefore should not be impeded. Despite the fact that there are languages that are considered acceptable and promoted to be able for people to communicate and understand each other, it is not imperative that learning the universal language or the national language should conceal and neglect the dialect that one individual has grown accustomed to. There is nothing wrong with learning a new language but it is indeed wrong to attempt to kill ones own language and replace it totally with another language. In schools, it is expected that students use the national language or the universal language, for everybody to have one common language to interact. However, there are students who would prefer and rather use it especially in writing because they feel more comfortable in expressing their thoughts in using their own language rather than using a language that they are not very familiar and comfortable using which limits them in writing or expressing their thoughts regarding some ideas. Imagine one person who is very smart and articulate. That student has been one of the most brilliant students in their school back in his or her home but because that student likewise wish to further his or her knowledge, then that students decided to relocate to be able to attend to a school where the quality of education is superior than where he or she comes from. Unfortunately, the school uses a different language that he or she is not very fluent yet. It makes the person start from square one learning the language and certainly it limits the student from participating or sharing his or her ideas in class because he or she is not able to articulate it in the new language. This makes the student feel helpless thus affecting his or her self-esteem. This is the reason why students should be given the right to their own language for them to become an active member in the environment where they are circling and for them to have a meaningful

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experience at school, being accepted for who she or he is, being accepted for his or her language and race and not discriminated for speaking a different language than the others . Studying at UNC Charlotte exposed me to a wide range of cultures and dialects. My teachers and professors are very open to all of the students speaking in their own dialects. As long as we all share our ideas and interact with each other in a sufficient way, there is no need to force us students to change the form of language that we use. Studying in a school like UNC Charlotte made it ordinary for me to hear English language in more than a hundred sounds that I can imagine. You can see Asians, Arabs, African Americans and Hispanics. We all have the right to communicate with each other and share our ideas with the professors. On the other hand, I would still understand if some of the teachers would defend Standard American English as a must to learn. It is also their right to teach us the profecional way in terms of using a certain language. I believe if we all embrace different dialects either standard or non-standard, we would be able to use, switch or mix both standard and non-standard and be as professional or casual as we want to. A dialect is a diversity of a language applied by some definable group of people. Everybody has an individual account of language, a linguistics, which is different from one to another, and strongly associated groups of linguistics compose dialects. In fact, some dialects are oral. Others are in print. Some are collective by the group of people in general. Others are restricted to small populations, neighborhoods, or social groups. Therefore, most speakers, accidentally, or contrived, utilize more than one dialect. The requirement for different dialects may occur from a speaker's membership in dissimilar age or educational groups. Or, it may take place from association in groups joined to physical localities. The explanation of what a dialect is turns out to be complicated when we distinguish that dialects are formed as answer to various kinds of

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communication requirements. And additional complications take place for the reason that the user of a particular dialect, as a purpose of custom, can decide alternating forms which appear valuable for specified situations. It is very important that the society particularly the educators become aware and respect the dialects and the other languages that students would like to use in classroom especially in writing for them to be able to apply their ideas accordingly and effectively. It would make one feel satisfied knowing that they are being respected and accepted for their uniqueness in terms of their language especially in a community that speaks one common language. Language teachers are supposed to be the ones who should what this truly mean to students. And numerous of us have educated as if the purpose of schools and colleges were to remove differences. Teacher can also offer assistance for students who discover themselves in courses whose teachers stay irrationally restraining in terms of dialect. They must support students to focus on vital precision of substance, and must convince their fellow teachers to disregard their personal biases concerning dialect long enough to distinguish and revere this better type of correctness. Expressiveness and breakthrough as much as communication stipulation think about discovering the precise word and phrase, other than that precision can be established in any dialect, and the cosmetic aspects of refined communication can be completed, when required for social reasons. Overall, I stand for students right to their own language. I strongly believe that all of us students have all right to speak and communicate with our own dialect or I should say own identity. Our dialect is what makes us different and special from one another, it is who we are. Therefore, we shouldnt change it for the sake of perfection. We are perfect just the way we are.

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Further, I give all my respect to all the teachers who understand and embrace all the cultural differences in our classrooms. They show good example of highly educated minds.