I never teach grammar on its own. When questions arise, or when I’m line-editing an essay, I try to make it clear that I’m addressing issues within a specific linguistic context. Nearly all of my courses (and if I’m limiting myself to basic composition classes, I’d say *all* of them) include some discussion of “code switching.” I don’t typically get into the linguistic nitty-gritty, but I find it helpful early on in a semester to explain a lay version of universal grammar and the evolved human capacity for language. Some version of this: Barring developmental disruption or brain trauma (to Broca’s or Wernicke’s areas, say, which might induce aphasia), every human being will learn at least one language fluently, provided they’ve been brought up around other humans. That language will *always* be grammatically “correct,” because those grammatical switches will have been set through exposure to other humans. Spoken language is natural and “easy.” I like to really emphasize this next bit: By contrast, written language is a recent and rare phenomenon that requires training. Reading and writing are *hard*, and until recently, most people on earth didn’t have the privilege of acquiring those skills (we didn’t approach universal literacy in the West until just before World War I, and it’s been declining since). I think it’s important to acknowledge (and to explicitly give students permission to acknowledge) that it’s difficult (and, in some ways, unnatural) to think consciously about one’s own language use in the way that literacy demands. It’s like a muscle that requires deliberate attention to grow stronger. Most students have had this experience in other domains (sports, hobbies, etc.) and can see the analogy.

It can be helpful to show students that they’re already speaking grammatically, no matter what they might have been told. Thanks to its influence on pop culture, quick, recognizable examples can be had from AAVE (what used to be called “ebonics” in the 90s): ask students to think about conjugations of the verb “to be” or the regularity with which sounds are transposed in words such as “ask” (pronounced “aks”). They immediately catch on that these differences aren’t applied randomly but instead follow conventions that are just as reliable as any other grammatical rule. As far as spoken language goes, every last person in the class already implicitly recognizes and conforms to good grammar.

From there, it isn’t much of a jump to think about different rules and applications in terms of “code switching.” Pick your own motivational vocabulary: Students are expanding their expressive palettes by adding new linguistic modes, broadening their identities by soliciting membership in new language communities, etc. I find that they usually want and expect to be taught Standard American English (whatever that is), because they recognize it as one of the things a university education is meant to bestow and as a path to opportunity, for better or worse. I just try to do this self-consciously. As I said in one of my annotations, we’re trying to help students become better versions of themselves, not ventriloquists. The academic voices they employ in their papers (or other formal written material) won’t be the same voices they use at the local bar, but they’ll still be *their* voices, and ought to be different than those of the students sitting next to them.