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?

Children can learn French phonics when they speak standard French (and they spend three years in maternelle learning to do so), German phonics when they speak standard German, English phonics when they speak standard English -and they can do all three simultaneously. What exactly is destroying my argument here?

I can understand kids doing it, they just want to fit in with those around them.

However if I knew of an adult who switched between an English accent and an American accent I'd assume they were very odd. And insecure.

squoosh - it depends on the line of work. I have known plenty of lawyers, finance types etc switch accent in order to get closer to their client. British in London, American in NY and Santiago etc

That they can also, obviously, learn phonics in whatever English accent they chose - including RP.

Hmmmm, who knew! I'd better get cracking on my second accent then.

squoosh - oh, god, I constantly slip into a (bad) American accent when talking to my American friends!

It's not deliberate, though.

If you could have any second accent, what would you choose?

I want Geordie, or maybe a really thick Glaswegian accent. Great fun.

It is easier to learn phonics (in whatever language) when your pronunciation is close to standard pronunciation. Dropped initial h, dropped final g, glottal stops, /f/ or /d/ for /th/ are all possible impediments to the fast learning of phonics in English.

I've lived in the UK for years and people are always saying 'Oh, you haven't lost your accent'. I primly reply 'No, I haven't' whilst inwardly thinking 'That's only for the feeble and easily led'.

I might channel a bit of Yorkshire and try a bit of 'thee' and 'thou', I've always thought that's an impressive accent.

No, it's not, bonsoir.

Again, you've failed to grasp what phonics is.

Oh, 'thee' and 'thou' are gorgeous. I love a Yorkshire voice.

You, LRD, are the one who has consistently demonstrated (multiple examples) on this thread that you haven't got a clue about phonics. I wonder how many children you have recently observed learning to read, through phonics, in several languages simultaneously, not all of which they master?

OP, in the same way that my my (SE England) kids learn that lamb has a silent b, or that 'we' is not pronounced purely phonetically (it is w-ee and not w-eh), yours can learn that the 'th' in thing is pronounced 't' for them and 'th' (or 'f'!) for most of their classmates.

It really bugs me when people seek to label regional accents as 'incorrect'. Having an accent other than the dominant one won't stop a child learning to spell. It may slow them down initially, while they learn the additional rules, but that's all. If they continue to write 'dat' and 'ting' then they need to practise those spellings and simply to learn that those words aren't, for them, phonetically decodable. They don't need to learn to speak differently!

Ds used to have a child in his class from Manchester. Her accent was very different to the other children in the class. Gradually she and they learned that duck could indeed be spelled, 'd-uh-ck' or 'd-o-ck', so long as you spelled it 'duck'. Benefits all round, I'd say!

Oh, I don't think so bonsoir.

Maybe if your children are not learning to master their languages, you need to focus on problems closer to home than me.

I said nothing about my children not mastering their languages. There are multiple plurilingual children here and the issue of phonics teaching (in multiple languages and through multiple schemes) is a constant topic of conversation and debate.

The term is multilingual.

If you know of children who are struggling, and your great experience in EFL cannot help, I suggest you reapply yourself to learning the basics of phonics.

I'm surprised anyone would suggest that a child should be made aware of the prejudices against them so they can be given an opportunity to repent and change their ways in order to fit in. Anyway I wouldn't advise an Irish child living in England to change their accent - I've found my Irish accent to be a huge advantage here, and haven't experienced any prejudice apart from some stupid mocking (meant to be funny) from people whose opinion didn't matter anyway.

Would you say the same of a particularly "camp" young boy? Tell him his camp ways were going to get him judged as being gay and that that would lead to bullying so that he could change, and become less camp?

Sadly, some people would say that, cailin.

But most accents of English are mutually intelligible - vocabulary can be more tricky, and I guess there might be situations where it helps to shift a bit BUT my dad always tries to mirror the accent of anyone he's talking to, including my Scottish DH and dcs - it sounds both stupid and patronising...

I have to say habbibu, I absolutely hate it when English people mirror my accent. It comes across to me as mocking. I find it really odd Bonsoir that you know people who switch between accents as a matter of course - I don't know anyone who does this consciously (though I know a few who do it without realising) and if I did know someone who did it I would think they were a massive weird wanker.

I hate it when I do it.

I can hear myself picking up a fake version of someone's accent - and bonsoir's DD is highly unusual in being able to pick up a good accent in a very short space of time - and I cringe.

I do know someone who changed his accent consciously, and I find it very sad. Especially since - oddly - he is a medievalist and perfectly well aware of the historical roots of his original accent.

OTOH, one of my favourite teachers has a broad Texas accent, which I've been told by Texans is identifiably 'white trash'. He's an emeritus professor at Oxford.

I do wonder whether losing your natural accent does make you more liable to the sort of accent-slippage I and others get, where we end up mirroring another accent badly?

There is Received English wot they still speak on most of R4

But no Standard Pronunciation

'The Received English Wot ... waiting, patiently, in the grasses ... it spots its prey ... a moment of hesitation - and the herd of RP scent the predator. ...'

Sorry, I'll stop being David Attenborough now.