to be annoyed with teacher for "Practice the words carefully" instruction

[JustDoMyLippyThenWeWillGo]

In dd's spelling book. FFS, am despairing.

Thanks tokyo, I'll try that.

Oh no, wait, it won't.

Tokyo, just that it could be a typing mistake made by Secretary and not necessarily a spelling mistake by teacher.

No one needs to spell these days, we have spell checker or auto correct etc on most word processing documents.

well I was 12 when I realised that I didn't know what any of them (verbs, pronouns, verbs, adjectives etc etc) were, so been trying for nearly 20yrs..........

And yes I did actually leave school with decent grades, got into University (didn't go though ), and am now doing a degree.

I'm not stupid, I had a shit education in my primary years (yes there were shit schools that long ago too with shit teachers it's not a new thing), I just can't spell and English and Maths have always been my weak spots.

"No one needs to spell these days, we have spell checker or auto correct etc on most word processing documents."

Which will spot the difference between too, two and to? Their, there and they're? Practice and practise? Insure, ensure and assure?

Spelling checkers, in general, merely check that you have typed a word that exists. It cannot check that the word you typed is the one you intended. Unlike a lot of people here, I have a spelling checker rigged up into web-browser text boxes, so I get little red lines under unknown words even while typing this. It would be foolish to assume that the result of that is perfectly spelt (or is that spelled?) prose.

Claw - spell check doesn't pick up all mistakes. For instance, if you use the wrong word but it is a legitimate word, it won't notice.

That 'unlike a lot of people' is a bit rude, tokyo. Spelling on MN is generally miles better than most websites.

can I just add that the spellcheck excuse is bollocks?

the American version of the verb is practise and the American version of the noun is practise.

so from that point of view, i could forgive the spellcheck not noticing if she'd put "we have a practise at 4" (as in use practise for the noun), but not this way round.
that's the teacher's error, not Word's.

oh yes I love my little red lines under the posts as I'm typing - otherwise you'd see

a) what a crap typist I am
b) what a crap speller I am

It doesn't however stop me waffling and typing complete bollox in general

I obviously didnt make that clear. That was the point i was trying to make. A typing error, as oppose to a spelling mistake.

So teacher could be guilty of not proof reading what was typed, which could have been typed by a Secretary, who was guilty of using spell checker and not proof reading. Hope that makes more sense!

"That 'unlike a lot of people' is a bit rude, tokyo"

It wasn't meant to be. I was assuming that most people use Internet Explorer which, last time I looked, didn't offer spell check in input boxes. Mac user that I am, Safari does it by default, and when my laptop ran Solaris Firefox did as well. If IE does now, that's good news.

"so from that point of view, i could forgive the spellcheck not noticing if she'd put "we have a practise at 4" (as in use practise for the noun), but not this way round.
that's the teacher's error, not Word's."

But that's a multi-dimensional cop-out. If you're going to fall back on a spell check, then you should at least make sure that the spelling checker is set to check the language you're actually using. If your computer is set to US English, fix it.

would you like to try and patronise other people any further tokyo "you assume" that most people use IE (what because they're not clever enough or something ).

I think lots of people use Macs, Safari, Firefox and Chrome (among others).

No, nickelbabe, both american versions are 'practice', I believe

Fair points, maybe I shouldn't be such a witch. Wouldn't be able to do her job.

"would you like to try and patronise other people any further tokyo "you assume" that most people use IE (what because they're not clever enough or something )."

No, because it has ~80% market share.

well I've started a thread in chat to see what browsers people use -

and I think you'll find the figure is somewhere around 60% market share now anyhow.

and some estimates reckon it's only just over half.

You can get a sense of how dirty the data is here. Mumsnet could get the information straightforwardly from their logs if you asked nicely: it varies so much by population that it's hard to be more general than "my website's audience...".

But anyway: I wasn't intending to make any moral judgements beyond the assumption that (a) the single most common browser is IE and (b) I don't think that has spell-check in the textboxes. There are many reasons to use IE (and IE8 is bloody good), not least that you can't buy plane tickets from Air France or Lufthansa without it - I was very glad that we have a virtualised Windows machine lying around for such emergencies when I wanted to go to Paris...

what do you mean you can't book tickets from Air France or Lufthansa without it?

I think actually you were intending to make judgements - as your other posts have been so condescending.

I didn't think Tokyo was being rude, read it as a straight comment on the fact that some popular web browsers don't come with a spell check.

I was talking about some of her other comments - how I was making excuses because I was never taught English grammar at school and I could teach myself in an hour if I wanted to

Actually I could look it up and read it in 10 minutes - but I wouldn't remember it in an hour....

and a few other choices comments as well further up the thread which I cba to scroll back and find.

Actually, what I was getting at above was simply that lots of MNers clearly don't need spell-checkers, but I guess the browser thing is interesting.

2rebecca, I'm actually quite insulted by your remarks that primary teachers have poor exam grades and are less well educated than their secondary colleagues.

I think you'll find that any primary teacher qualifying in the last 20yrs is very well qualified, as much, if not more so than some secondary teachers.

I got 1 A and 2 Bs at Alevel. Not amazing by today's standard but reasonably good 20yrs ago. Good degree from top 5 university plus a PGCE from another very good university. Maybe you are better qualified than me, but mine aren't that bad. Most of my friends who are teachers are just as well qualified. Even those who do a BEd need at least Bs to get onto their course these days. BEd courses are one of the most over-subscribed according to UCAS. This, of course, drives up the entry requirements.

You'll also find that due to the shortage of secondary teachers, they often need lower grades to secure a place simply due to supply and demand.

blimey, Feenie you're right! and all this time I thought it was the other way round.

myredcardigan - many of the girls from my school who went to do BEds to teach primary did so because they only needed 2 A levels at around grade D/E to get onto many courses. It was seen as something that the less academically able girls did. This was the mid 90s. So anyone my age (mid 30s) who is a primary teacher may well not be as academically able as me and many of my peers. Maybe new primary teachers do now need better grades but 15 years ago, it was definitely seen as the option if you weren't academically able enough to get 3 good A levels and do a BA/PGCE combo which was the path you were encouraged to go down if you wanted to be a secondary teacher.

It doesn't necessarily bother me because teaching is about much more than just academic ability, but I think 2rebecca has a point and she doesn't imply that it matters greatly. Not all primary teachers are that well qualified relative to secondary teachers or other professions requiring degrees.

Ah, but not all primary teachers have a BEd - some have PGCEs and some (myself included) have a BA with QTS.

I think it does matter - primary school teachers need to exemplify excellent spelling, because that's what they teach,and to a decent degree of sophistication, sometimes (level 5/6, for example).