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?

[RuleBritannia]

They are more likely to get a job if they speak at least nearly the Queen's English. Mispronouncing words (eg dat instead of that) could cause spelling errors as has been described here. If an interviewer thinks that, there would be no job.

Frankly, if people kept leaving a 't' off the end of a word when they say it (eg abou' instead of about), I wouldn't have them either if I were interviewing for a face to customer job. I'd want a good standard of everything in my staff and I have it now.

[SoupDragon]

They aren't saying that the Irish accent should be corrected, they are saying that TH is not pronounced D. That is not the same as saying they should speak with received pronunciation.

[RuleBritannia]

You don't have to change an accent just to pronounce a word properly.

A Scot could say doon't rather than doon' for don't.

[SoupDragon]

It's the same as learning, say, French. You don't pronounce French words as you would in English, you attempt a French accent.

[2beornot]

Ok so I haven't read ALL of the thread, but how is saying 'dat' instead of that any worse for phonics learning than saying 'barth' instead of bath? It'd be a boring world if we all sounded the same!!

[exoticfruits]

It depends whether they want to be socially mobile and want all career opportunities open to them. I wouldn't narrow them for my DCs- they should at least know how to speak correctly. It is very condescending to say they don't need to know.(whether then choose to use it or not is up to them)

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

What's 'properly', and who gets to decide?

In some accents 'th' is pronounced 'd' or 't'. How is it different from learning the sounds other combinations of letters make? If you sound out 'through' and learn that 'th' makes a 't' sound, and '-ough' makes 'oo', is it a problem? Because you'd be consistent, wouldn't you? You'd expect to come across other examples of 'th' sounding like 't' and '-ough' sounding like 'oo'.

[SoupDragon]

2bearnot... because it is completely wrong. TH is not D. Barth/bath are acceptable manifestations of an accent and only slightly different from each other. No one is saying there should be no accent, just that certain sounds need to be corrected.

[SoupDragon]

LRD, would you pronounce French words with your own accent (assuming it isn't already French :o) and insist it was perfectly correct?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Who gets to decide what's 'acceptable' and what isn't?

And doesn't that simply become snobbery?

No-one who speaks with an RP accent today would be considered to speak 'correctly' if judged by the standards of our grandparents' day (listen to old news programmes if you don't believe me). Accents change; they're not static and don't have clear-cut rules.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

soup - I'd speak French words with a (bad) French accent. But I wouldn't know if it was Parisian or Provencale. Would you?

I don't follow how an Irish accent is the same as a different language, either.

[2beornot]

Ok you're prob right. But I still think that as long as it doesn't stop your recognising that it should be th then it doesn't matter.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

(Btw, I would love my accent to be French! I'm channelling mam'zelle in Malory Towers, right now ... we need to establish if 'z' is how 'th' is really pronounced ...)

[SoupDragon]

So why do people on MN complain when English people pronounce Irish names wrongly? It's always "Oh no, you can't pronounce it like that I've never heard it pronounced like that ever you are wrong" ?

LRD, so you attempt the correct accent. Which would mean, in the case described by the OP, you would say that and not dat. It is a basic pronunciation error, not an accent.

[SoupDragon]

Friend has the most dreamy Irish accent... I struggle to concentrate sometimes. However, he manages to pronounce TH correctly.

[Tanith]

I've always understood that it's bad practice and a waste of time to try and alter a child's accent in this way.

Gervais Phinn, in his memoirs of being a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales, criticised a teacher for trying to alter her class's Yorkshire accent (hilariously unsuccessfully, I might add ).

Elocution and public speaking lessons are something different but I'd be very concerned if the idea is to actually rid them of their accent. It's wrong on so many levels.

[Curtsey]

I agree it's very important that children can spell and read words properly. In this case they can. So what's the problem?

Go back to the 'car' example upthread. I found it odd, growing up, to hear 'r' as in car pronounced 'aahh' in UK and Australian English. In Hiberno-English and American English, it's pronounced with a rolling sound. Although it seemed to me that 'my' way, with the rolling r, made more phonetic sense, I never had a problem recognising the 'aaah' for what it was when I heard it in a different accent.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

soup - well, first off, I don't complain, so can't answer for others.

But the point is, they complain when you don't approximate their accent. Just as you suggest I should approximate a French accent when speaking in French.

So how come the OP's children are being taught not to use their own accent?

It's not a pronunciation error at all. The reason Irish has 'th' sounding as 't' is because it's a Celtic country. 'Th' is an anomalous pronunciation - it's a sound that literally doesn't exist in most European languages. Why would it exist in Ireland when their exposure to English is relatively recent (and it is relatively recent, in terms of accent formation)?

To suggest it's 'correct' is dodgy, IMO, given the none-too-smooth history of the English in Ireland.

[Bonsoir]

It's quite right that school should teach standard pronunciation of English (just as they teach standard spelling). This helps with phonics and it also helps identify speech & language disorders (and children who would benefit from SALT).

Of course, everyone is free to speak with a regional accent at home, if that is what they wish.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

How does it help with phonics? Phonics is about understanding how the spoken language is represented by the letters. How can you do that if you're being told your spoken language isn't represented?

[RubyStolenBootyGates]

I don't think your accent is a speech impediment, but it might prove (in the current climate) to be an impediment to finding a well-paid job.

Think of a standard English (whatever that may be) accent as analogous to a business suit that stays in a cupboard only to be seen for interviews and formal situations.

A standard accent is a tool which you can choose to use or not use as you wish. If you don't have that tool in your amoury (horrible mixed metaphore) then you can't choose to use it, thus weakening your chances.

Your teacher was very, very rude in how she chose to present this option to you and your children, and I certainly understand your ire; but maybe it would be helpful for your children to have this skill, along with all the others that are offered by teachers and other adults along the way. The more random skills you have the better prepared you are for whatever life throws at you.

[Bonsoir]

Phonics is a representation of standard spoken English in standard English spelling. Hence children need to know standard spoken English before learning to read and write.

[LadyMargolotta]

YANBU.

As for the arguement that correct pronunciation teaches them how to spell, that is rubbish when applied to the english language. There are so many exceptions to the pronunciation of english words that a couple of words like 'that' and 'thing' won't really make much difference.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

No, it isn't, bonsoir. Think about it for a moment and you'll see why! English spelling is centuries older than current standard pronunciation.

[trixymalixy]

I live in Glasgow. My boss has two speaking voices, one he uses at work and one he uses at home/to Glaswegian colleagues. We work for a very international organisation and we speak to people in Brussels, Madrid, the US every day. If he speaks in the accent he was brought up with no one from another country understands what he says.

Learning to speak "properly" doesn't mean you lose your accent, so YABU.