to not want school to teach my kids how to speak in the way the teachers wants?

[bellabreeze]

Having irish accents the teacher of some of my kids has told me they would do little speech classes so they speak different.. its not the accent but its things like saying 'ting' not 'thing' and dat not that and stuff like that really.. I think.. I don't think it is important enough to waste time doing? But maybe I am wrong?

Is it to help their spelling?

If you say "dat" but it's spelt "that" IYSWIM?

It's to help with spelling - it's very much harder to learn to spell if you're not pronouncing the word the way it's spelt!

You'd be amazed how many of my kids spelt "thought", "fort" cos that's how they said it!

Your childs teacher is encourgaing 'ting' and 'dat' ?

I must have not been clear. I was talking about the way my kids speak for example saying ting not thing and dat not that

What pirates says.

My Dd had very crooked teeth from thumb sucking and this made it hard for her to say "th" - she would say "f" instead. Because schools teach phonics, she struggled to know how to spell "th"words which he was mispronouncing.

Also what does IYSWIM mean please? Ive seen it a lot of here but got no idea

I'm just unsure cuz its not a speech problem it is their accent

Of course they should speak properly. 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.

The spelling argument would only hold water if all words were spelt phonetically

If you see what I mean...

If You See What I Mean

Robyn I am not sure if speaking in their own accent isn't speaking 'properly' though :S ?

If they are having phonics lessons though, surely the teacher has to sound out "th" not "d" for "that"?

I shall ponder that one. I suppse there is time enough for complaining when they start coming out with ain't, innit and gotten

How is speaking in your own accent not speaking properly?

And seriously, all children should conform and lose their accents? WTF?

OP tell the teacher to fuck off, thats just how we sound. And I think we had quite enough years of English people telling us how to speak, don't you?

It's more of a dialect than an accent, however I don't think your DCs necessarily need intervention. Has there been any problems prior to this decision from their teacher? Are they struggling with literacy?

Definitely Sam, the thing is that this isn't part of the class with everyone else, the teacher is offering seperate little classes for some of my kids to change the way they pronounce words, I'm just unsure because first of all, my kids out of school friends all speak the same as them (irish accents, not saying 'th') and also my kids are very proud of their background, they have no problem saying dat but spelling 'that' its just the way the word comes out of their mouth if that makes sense

I'm assuming it's just something they will do for a while to help with spelling, not a life time of dialect anhilation...

My dc have the local accent and I've had to model/explain to them how else it gets pronounced to help them understand how it is spelt.

"Speak properly" FFS. English evolves. People have accents. The idea that there's some form of English that is somehow superior to another makes my linguist brain itch.

"Gotten" is actually "proper" English. Shakespeare used it, for a start.

Is it just in phonics that this is happening, OP? I can understand why that is, but not if the teacher is saying they must speak like that all the time.

In our local accent (which is the one where we live) many words are mispronounced. They are still taught to pronounce them properly for phonics as others have mentioned.

X-posts.

bella that's just not on, if you want to have them to have elocution lessons that's up to you not the school!!!!

Are you living in Ireland? I ask because children tend to lose their accents anyway when they are out of the environment. I was friends with an Aussie woman and the teachers here were trying to get rid of his Australian Questioning Intonation, which is Godawful in British kids but is, in fact, how he talks. I think it's wrong but you should talk to the teacher about their thinking.

It's just a different way of pronouncing "that" imo. Like I say for example "bath" with a short a sound instead of baarth like some people, no doubt some would think I was pronouncing it wrongly. Vive la difference I say.

My dc still revert to the local way of pronouncing it btw, the school aren't trying to instill it as a life long thing afaik.

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'