Teaching Materials

High School

 

Lesson plan:  Intro to Pidgin as a Legitimate Language

 

Goals:

n      Explore and question the stereotypes and identities connected to Pidgin as well

n      Analyze where these attitudes come from historically

n      Engender critical thinking about what it means (socially, economically, politically, etc.) to use Pidgin as a language

n      Recognize Pidgin as a legitimate language with a grammar

 

Materials:

(1)     Handout:  general understanding of Pidgin issues. 

a.       Brief history of development – plantation roots (its first speakers were plantation laborers)

b.      discrimination against Pidgin (discrimination against its speakers) within education and politics

c.       linguistic distinction between “pidgin” and “creole,”

d.      an example of Odo orthography,

e.       an example of Pidgin grammar rules for imperatives as outlined in Pidgin Grammar (Sakoda 2005:  73-74) as well as an excerpt from the introduction (vii-viii).

(2)     Two excerpts from Lee Tonouchi’s Living Pidgin; Contemplations on Pidgin Culture (2002:  10-17, 27-33).  First – a collaborative poem about the negative stereotypes connected to Pidgin titled “Dey say if you talk Pidgin you no can.”  Second – essay (in Pidgin) titled “Pidgin Revolution.” 

 

Bibliography:

 

Da Pidgin Coup.  (1999).  Pidgin and education:  a position paper.  Honolulu: 

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Department of Second Language Studies

 

Sakoda, K. & Siegel, J. (2003).  Pidgin Grammar; An introduction to the Creole language of

Hawai¢i.  Honolulu:  Bess Press. 

 

Tonouchi, Lee A.  (2002).  Living Pidgin:  contemplations on pidgin culture.  Kāne‘ohe:  Tin

Fish Press.

 

 

 
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