Linguistic Gymnastics: A How To

The stalwart defence of Standard English (as defined here) as the only suitable dialect for instruction requires a considerable amount of creativity at times. It seems that, once the clear relationship between power and  "correct" language has been exposed, the defence of such a dialect would be better left to acrobats than to philosophers. Of course, it goes without saying that Standard English has arrived at a particular level of precision that is beneficial for speaking clearly, but to argue that the grammar of Standard English should be the exclusive dialect for classroom use is to limit oneself for the sake of artifice alone. Such artificial limitation might be appropriate if teaching were a circus act, but I don't look good in a leotard.

However, if you do decide to limit the classroom experience to one particular dialect, there is a good company of predecessors for you who have laid out a fairly tidy methodology:

Step 1: Convince everybody that there was a time and place where everyone spoke perfectly. Make sure that no one from that time is still alive and that the language is no longer spoken, or some incongruences are bound to pop up. (Most scholars recommend Rome under Augustus Caesar)

Step 2: Convince your students that they and their families are all degenerates speaking an almost incomprehensibly mumbled derivative of Language X and that they have almost no hope of getting a good job unless they learn it right. (For tips, study the administration of the British East India company).

Step 3: Teach your students to speak and read only the language of that time and place. If students begin to notice variations in writers from that period, then narrow in on one particularly eloquent speaker of that language and include every other writer among the list of degenerates. (The individual chosen must be a white male; the Roman senator Cicero has been, historically speaking, the fellow to go with).

Step 4: If you encounter new objects that have not been described in the writings of Person X, use words from his vocabulary to come up with long-winded descriptors. (Examples of good Ciceronian Latin from the Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis published by the Vatican include: for "hot dog," pastellum botello fartum; instead of "motorcycle," borrota automataria levis; when going to the "disco" say orbium phonographicorum theca.)

Follow these four easy steps, and you'll be well on your way toward establishing the perfect classroom.

Bust of Cicero

“What effrontery then would he have who should insist that we speak, on all occasions as Cicero did? Let him bring back to us first that Rome that was; let him give us the Senate... let him give back the college of augurs and soothsayers, the chief priests... praetors, tribunes of the people, consuls, dictators, Caesars... shrines, sanctuaries, feasts of the gods, sacred rites... Then, since on every hand the entire scene of things is changed, who can today speak fittingly unless he is unlike Cicero?

-Erasmus

"It is a subtlety that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer, and also that he did not learn it well."

-Friedrich Nietzsche