Mumsnet Talk

Lots of people have accents, but still pronounce words correctly. I don't think you can object to a teacher teaching a child to pronounce a word the way it is supposed to be pronounced. He/She isn't trying to eradicate all traces of accent.

I have a strong London accent, but I had it drummed into me as a child, to pronounce 'th', rather than use 'f'

It is being pronounced correctly, thats just the way the words sound in some Irish accents.
There is no correct way. Surely everyone knows about the TH sound in Irish accents? It is entirely normal and proper.

If your kids are doing fine with spelling and phonics, then there is no reason to change the way they speak. Well, there's no reason to change the way they speak in any case but if they are tripping up on their spelling as a result of this it would surely be helpful to have this tackled in a sympathetic way.

Karmabeliever, my point is that I don't think the way they speak is 'incorrect'

I have nothing against accents, but they can speak properly and 'ting' and 'dat' are not speaking properly.

Shakespeare couldnt spell his own name the same way twice - there was no dictionary until Samuel Johnson in the Regancy before that everyone spelt phonetically.

Live in england but I don't think it'll naturally fade as where we live, their out-of-school friends speak the same as my kids

I'd find out for certain what the teacher is proposing. I'd ask if they were struggling in phonics or spelling, and what activities they had in mind. I think it's a good idea if they were struggling in these particular areas alone. If they weren't struggling in phonics or spelling I'd tell them to bog off.

Don't be so bloody colonial. Hiberno-English is different and just as valid as any other type of English. And unless every one on this thread has a perfect RP cut glass accent, you're all hypocrites anyway.

In English though, 'th' doesn't sound like a 'd'. To me it's like a Londoner saying 'fanks' instead of 'thanks' - it just isn't the way 'th' sounds.

What you see as an accent, many see as not speaking correctly.

Sorry, but as gorgeous as an Irish accent is, 'thing' and 'that' have the 'th' sound in them and it needs to stay.

I agree it will be much more difficult for the teacher to teach a child to learn to read using the current phonics systems and blend certain sounds if children don't even know those sounds exist in the English language.

What's your point RobynRidingHood? My point is that the whole notion of "proper" English is entirely false.

"Ting" and "dat" is "proper" in Irish accents. I honestly can't believe people would think any differently.

Presumably there are millions of Irish people who are perfectly capable of understanding and spelling the word "that". Bit offensive to suggest otherwise really

But "th" does make a "d" sound in some Irish accents, karmabeliever.

I can sit here and say "oh but "r" doesn't make an "aaaa" sound in English" but 90% of English people say "caaaa" not "car" like the Scots/Americans/some areas of England do.

What about their out-of-school friends? Is anyone suggesting that they learn to speak properly? If not, there's your answer.

It's incredibly insulting to tell Irish people that they don't speak proper English. It's rude, ignorant, and a colonial throwback. And its wrong, too. Only narrow minded fools can't appreciate that there are many ways to pronounce words that are equally valid.

A teacher giving elocution lessons to rid children of their native language...do you think they'd get away with that if they were from anywhere else? A couple of Nigerian or Indian kids...lets make them speak proper English with none of those daft accents..you'd be fired.

I am Irish - and also an English teacher. Somehow my colonial brain manages to process the difference between my accent/dialect and Standard English perfectly well thank you.

Robyn - I pity you that you are so ashamed of your cultural heritage. I am proud of mine.

My original accent is cockney. I wouldn't be offended if someone told me that I wasn't speaking proper English when the cockney in me rises to the surface (like when I'm drunk or spending a lot of time with my London family) I'd think they were being factual.

I have no reason to be ashamed or feel in any way bad about an accent, so there is no reason why I should feel offended or insulted when someone tells the truth about it.

Teabrick - It's not offensive.

I'm a cockney and I've taught in an East London school. We once spent a good 30 minutes teaching children that Orse and Ouse actually begin with the letter H.

There is nothing wrong with having an accent, but having one in no way means that you cannot speak correctly. There is a time and places for speaking colloquially, school isn't one of them. It does hinder a fair few children's progress in literacy. Children are being taught to help them succeed in life, not to piss off parents.

I don't think it should be corrected. Would you find it ok if you moved to Canada or the US and the teachers there insisted on correcting your dc's pronunciation and making it more like the local norm?

If they live in the UK, they will probably lose their Irish accent anyway IMO given time since they will try to conform to the lingual norm of the dc around them, however I think for the teacher to intervene and do this is not right.

Can I drag you back to a post I n#made earlier?

As someone with immigrant accented parents, I've spent a life time covering up traces of my 'home' accent whihc of course I only ever heard pre-school. It marks you as different and children like conformity.

It was called teasing when I was at school. Now you call it racist. I stand by children prefering conformity, fitting in, not being marked as differnet because they have a different way of pronouncing words.

I do apologise so very much for daring to share an experience. I'll pop my colonial cap back on and know my place with you Brits.

The thing is that they can spell the word 'that' with a 'th' but when they read it out they read it with a 'd' sound. Basically, they understand the spelling but the way they say it is different to how an english person would say it

I don't see how making a child speak in the same way as her peers means that they will be able to spell properly. "Thought" is not phonetic. Neither is "phonetic" spelt phonetically, come to that. There are far too many exceptions to spelling "rules".

Besides which.... it's easy enough to think "how would Mr Teacher say "thing" and spell it with a "th" without actually having tp speak like that yourself.

Asife from that, the basic premise that if you don't speak like "us" then you won't be accepted is really offensive!!! Who decides what is an accent and what is "correct"? Is 1950's BBC English "accentless" and everyone else has an accent? Is it how Prince William pronouncs stuff? Is it "middle class London"? In which case most people outside of the S East I know would say "she has a London accent" not "she had no accent" .... and no, not just about people who have an "Estuary English" twang, either. Or is it Home Counties accent? You think that away from your own back-yard people wouldn't say that was a Surrey accent (or whatever we're claiming is "accentless English")?

It's meaningless to say who does and who doesn't have an accent.
Personally I'm vary wary of where the line between accent and dialect lies.

Ting and Dat are partly accent and partly colloquialism. It's ok to encourage them to say thing and that imo.

It is standard Irish dialect. In my (Irish) primary school we even had a rhyme for it.
Dis dat dese and dose
Dats da way de th goes.

Teach them that OP, and they can repeat it nicely for the teacher.