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?

I have also studied Linguistics, LRD. Linguistics and English tuition are not serving the same master. Which you ought to know.

Oh, dear. Standards in education must have been very low in the past, then.

We have been trying to explain to you about linguistics and EFL tuition being different. I am pleased you've now understood a little better. Perhaps now you will stop pretending that your EFL experiences are relevant to the debate.

I'd have gone for the OED, but yes, dictionaries do choose a pronunciation for the words they include, and historically that's been RP. A pragmatic choice of an accent that's not really regional by dictionary makers doesn't make it part if standard English, except in EFL contexts, again for practical purposes.

If you were to think that it did, and that all children should speak it, would you have all Scottish children lose their rs, or all northern English children lengthen their vowels?

I think that what we are really talking about are variants people feel prejudiced about. So in general rhotic accents and short vowels are ok, but dis, dat, 'im, and glottal plosives are not. And I guess we should tell children that some people will judge their character and ability not on what they do, but how they sound.

Even if it was prescriptive, not descriptive, it's talking about British English - it has completely different ones for American English and appears silent on Irish English which was the OP's children...

I bet "bella" is finding all this really helpful...

Yeah yeah, hully. You and your insistent banning of tangents...

Habbibu - DD pronounces the r in car and farm - and if she didn't I would pick her up on it as to my mind they should be pronounced with an r in them.

I get that this is about DIFFERENT pronounciations as opposed to RIGHT and WRONG ones. It was just that there is clearly a debate going on about whether "dis" is a correct pronounciation of "this", and as some Irish people were saying that in Ireland it is generally accepted as correct, and as this is not my experience of growing up and being educated in Ireland, I expressed my surprise. I know plenty of Irish people who would say it is a common Irish mispronouciation. Not saying they are right, just saying what my experience in Ireland is.

heh heh

I think ideas about language are in a state of flux, and though regional accents are now much more accepted in, say, the BBC and other areas of public life than 50 years ago, when dictionary makers are making a pragmatic choice, they do hark back to RP.

I don't think, however, than anyone, even Bonsoir(!) is suggesting that all non-RP speaking children should learn RP as a matter of course in school - what would you drop to make room for it?! - but clearly there are deeply rooted prejudices about certain pronunciations, and there is an argument that children should be informed about these prejudices, and the alternatives, so that they know where they stand and what their choices are. I don't know. I'd love to say I was free of prejudice, but I did stop my daughter using a glottal plosive in water the other day. I do admit that it's prejudice, though!

Macmillan can even help you pronounce the very phrase Standard English, for those of you unacquainted with it . Practice listening several times, all you numpties novices

Damson, are you Irish? And your daughter is a Londoner? So her friends say caa and faam, and she says carr and farrm?

I guess we're using different terminology. I genuinely don't think, that within the bounds of communicative clarity, there are any "right" and "wrong" pronunciations, (so people know I mean this if I say "dis", but not if I say "sertig") but one might argue that there are typical and atypical forms, and that there are some which many people don't like, and feel reflects badly on the speaker. Because the r thing demonstrates that there's a really fine line, if there is a line at all, between regional and "wrong".

I think the point about Irish pronunciation is that there is a sliding scale between 'Dis' with a very hard D and 'This' with an RP 'th'. It isn't a case of people choosing one of only two pronunciations, most are somewhere between the two.

I get it, Bonsoir, but say Scotland became independent, and you, for whatever reason, started living there, and they insisted that all children speak with rhotic accents. Would you want that for your dd? (Genuine q, btw)

yy, squoosh. went to a really interesting paper once where they did spectroscopic(??) analysis of speech, and the distribution of variants which weren't consciously audible was really interesting - really!

habbibu - I would want her to be "bi-lingual" in her two accents.

She went to the US this summer for three weeks, to an American summer camp, and came back with a perfect American accent (and vocabulary and sentence structure). She was very pleased with herself and I am very happy for her - she still speaks Standard English with me and at school, though.

Why would someone want or need two accents? Languages yes, get as many as you can, but two accents for speaking one language?

Which standard English? English English? Standard Scottish English is different. I am also not sure two accents are necessary. If your dd came to Scotland and was bullied for having an English accent I would think that was outrageous, and blame the bullies and the system rather than thinking your dd should change her accent.

I think many people need more than one accent for a single language in the way that they need to adjust their lexicon depending on whom they are speaking to, in order to make themselves understood and/or accepted.

Standard English is a tool many teachers believe will help their pupils acquire a full range of language skills (listening/speaking/reading/writing) that will help them develop and further their progress in life. They aren't trying to harm them FGS.

It's not about bullying. Adjusting your accent to those around you so that they understand you with ease is just common sense and not complicated, providing, of course, that you don't have neurotic people telling you to stay true to yourself, never adapt, bla bla bla.

The problem with the prejudice argument is that if you take a group out for extra teaching in language, you're giving te others - an already priviliged group more education on something even more productive on their future prospects.

That's why you have to fight the prejudice, and part of that is not portraying it as wrong in the school re-enforcing the prejudice in all the children there.

Oh, I have two accents. At least.

But I am not a child trying to learn phonics. Therein lies the difference.

I'll go and amuse myself by thinking of all the very successful writers whose 'full range of language skills' did/does not include 'standard English', much less RP.

I realise some people alter their accent for reasons of appearing to be more or less 'posh' for example but I'd find it bizarre if someone had both an English accent and an American accent that they could switch on and off depending on company or location.

Why would there ever be a need?

Children can learn reading through phonics in three languages simultaneously, at age 5/6. I'm not sure why you think helping them adjust their pronunciation to the standard English of standard phonics is going to be beyond a child...

I know loads of DCs who can do both American and British standard pronunciation! School can ask for one, home the other - or you go to summer camp and speak American.

Kinda destroying your own argument, aren't you?

If children can learn through phonics no matter what the language (which they can), why bother changing their accent? You were claiming earlier it was to make phonics teaching work.