Opinions please: Do I go and tell dd's teacher that she got this wrong?

[emkana]

following on from this, sorry to go on about it but I keep changing my mind whether to go to teacher or whether to leave it, and how I could hate it in a way that will not make her hate me, if I pretend to be confused when I know full well she is wrong is that not patronizing?

could phrase it in a way

What year is it?

Just go and say to her "I was checking my daughter's homework and I'm confused as to why you've marked this as being incorrect". Then when she tries to explain why it's incorrect, you could point out that she's wrong? I don't know, it's tricky but I'd hate for her to be teaching kids the wrong thing. I double and triple check when I'm teaching grammar (not English - I teach Modern Languages). Sure, she'll be embarrassed, but better that than continue to get it wrong - she'll thank you in the long run.

You're right so have a word with the teacher. Very simple. She may be embarrassed or annoyed or even pleased when you point out the mistake but that's better than her spend the rest of her career giving incorrect information to pupils.

If she hates you then that's really her problem.

It's year 3.

If she ends up hating me then it might become my dd's problem though, and that's what I don't want.

I understand where you're coming from, but if she starts picking on your DD (no professional worth their salt would, though), you go through the appropriate complaint procedure. I've had people point mistakes out to me (kids in some cases...) and although it's embarrassing, I'd rather something was said. Teachers are only human, we get it wrong sometimes. [hsmile]

Ask her to help you clear up some confusion about your dd's hw.

Take a grammar book in with you and ask her to explain why your dd's hw was incorrect because in your native tongue it would not be and you checked in the grammar book the section on using the imperative mood of verbs in English and it seems to be the same as in German.

Oh you must tell her! I was taught that anyone who imparts some facts or advice should be heard....and there is no shame in being wrong. If she can't take it then it's her problem...you're German for goodness sake...she CAN'T get offended!

I'm German for goodness sake so....

am bound to be blunt, is that what you mean?

Lol no! I mean you have more information than she does!

mind you criticism of teachers is a minefield, I can understand your reluctance and your dh recommending you drop it.

Oh, tell the poor woman. If you don't, someone else will and they won't play the 'I'm German and unsure' card, they'll just tell her.

She surely can't go on for long without someone letting her know she's wrong ...

gearing myself up for going in this afternoon...

Drop it!

Why?

I wonder if she means irregular verbs?

What's to be gained from it? If you are "pointing it out" to clear up your own confusion in guiding your dc's understanding of grammar, then I see no problem with it. If you are simply wishing to point out the teacher's error, I don't see the reason for doing so. It is a minor point. What you call the verb/mood/whatever really makes very little difference to written or spoken communication in English. Is your daughter any more or less likely to use the imperative mood accurately as a result of this error?

It can be a valuable lesson in life to learn that even teachers don't know everything.

What about the other children though who don't have parents who will explain to them what is right, shouldn't the teacher know so that she can teach it accurately?

What about them? It will make very little difference to their education. It's not an essential piece of knowledge. Yes, it was fun for me to use the imperative knowingly to respond to your OP: ("drop it!") but I didn't need to know that "drop it!" was an imperative to respond as I did.

We didn't receive any formal tuition in grammar when I was at school. It didn't stop me getting graduating first in English from one of the best universities in the world.

Tell her. It's imperative.

I think you have to tell her. I wonder if the teacher is around the same age as me (mid-twenties) - we did almost no grammar at all in school, not in English anyway. I wasn't sure what an imperative verb was! If she's teaching it wrong in Year 3, that's going to cause all sorts of confusion for those children later on.

I think it's important to know how your language works, and one of the reasons English struggle so much with learning different languages is that they don't approach it from a systematic point, which they could if they had grammatical knowledge. So for example, when I learnt English I already knew from the German what an imperative was, so the teacher just had to tell us "to form the imperative in English, just use the infinitive without to". Simple and easy to understand.

Yes she is in her mid to late twenties I think.

If I'd known more about grammar in English, it would have made learning German much easier for me! I was struggling not only with a whole new language, but trying to get my head round completely alien grammatical concepts too.