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?

YABU... I grew up in a part of Lancashire where everyone sounded like Jane Horrocks in her 'Bubble' incarnation. The teachers were very keen for us to speak a more standardised form of English and drop a lot of the local dialect and short-forms when in class. I remember being pulled up for 'I haffot go tut dining room' and told to say 'I have to go to the dining room' instead. Outside school of course, we could say what we liked. They knew that, to get on in life, it pays to be able to speak properly....

And not being able to pronounce 'th' is, on its own, no indication for SALT.

It'd be:

Foniks is a reprezentashun of standard spowken English in standard English spelling. Hens children need to now standard spowken English beefor leerning to reed and rite.

That's if phonics really represented standard English pronunciation. And that was a pretty easy sentence - what about 'through' or 'thought'?!

I don't know what your point is, LRD, but that is not standard English spelling and it is therefore nothing to do with phonics.

Why would it exist in Ireland when their exposure to English is relatively recent (and it is relatively recent, in terms of accent formation)?

But the OP isn't in Ireland. At least I don't think so.

Phonics is the way in which you marry spelling to pronunciation. Much pronunciation is "heritage" in the way much spelling is "heritage", and phonics is a way of seeing the wood for the trees when departing from spoken language (sounds) to alphabetic representations (spelling).

My point is, it's not correct that standard English spelling represents standard English pronunciation. You'd have to re-transcribe (as I did) to achieve that. Phonics is simply a tool to help children learn that graphemes correspond to phonemes. It's not specific to one accent or even one language.

Standard English spelling reflects extremely old, and now archaic, pronunciation.

You don't pronounce the 'ght' in 'thought' as 'g-h-t', but once upon a time people did. So we learn it as a strange quirk of spelling, and we know there is a pattern to these quirks, which we have to accept because our spelling doesn't quite represent the accent we - any of us - speak with.

So, there's no reason why someone shouldn't adapt phonics to their accent. It will still follow rules of the same rigour - they'll just be slightly different rules.

soup - I thought she was Irish?!

Isn't that the issue, that her kids have a strong Irish accent?

No, retranscription is not standard spelling. Standard spelling is dictionary spelling.

bonsoir - phonics is the way you understand how graphemes relate to phonemes. It works just as well in a transparent or shallow orthography as in a deep one.

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

Er... this doesn't really make sense. The OPs children are being taught to pronounce a common English sound correctly, in England. When speaking French would you say Je with a hard English J or would you use the French way? This is the same.

If I were living in Mexico I would expect to amend my Spanish pronunciation to match theirs. Ditto French-Canadian

This has nothing to do with deep or shallow orthography (English or Italian, if you will) - it is just about common standards so everyone is on the same page in a classroom (or in life).

I think you're missing my point.

Of course retranscription isn't standard spelling. I didn't suggest it was.

I pointed out that English spelling doesn't correspond to English pronunciation.

Everyone, no matter what their accent, needs to learn that English is not a transparent orthography.

So it does not matter terribly which accent you adopt - it won't affect how well phonics as a system works for you.

Yes LRD, well Traveller heritage, but they are living in England.

soup - no, it's not the same.

If I speak French, I have no clue which regional accent I use. It will be obvious I am not a native speaker, or even fluent. But people will understand me.

If the OP's children can't be understood, that's an issue. But most people I know can understand many non-standard British accents.

Standard English spelling does correspond to standard English pronunciation. I disagree. Phonics is the key to this.

It is exactly the same as pronouncing "Je" with a hard English J. Understandable maybe but wrong.

No, it doesn't. Think about it.

Do you really pronounce the letters in 'ght' of 'thought'?

People used to. It's represented by the letter 3 (yogh) in Middle English. That's why it survives as a spelling. But we've now shifted the pronunciation away from the spelling, so we elide the 'gh' bit.

And that French R at the back of your throat. Yes, you can use an English R but it would be wrong.

soup - but English is their first language. You'd correct a baby's pronunciation, but to their mother tongue. These children already have a coherent mother tongue - they're not learning to speak any more.

I don't need to be told to think about it, LRD. You do not understand phonics at all. Your point of departure is spelling, whereas the point of departure of phonics is sounds.

They clearly still need to learn to speak because TH is not the same as D in English in England. It simply isn't.

I do understand phonics.

Phonemes (or 'sounds' if you prefer) are what exist in spoken language. They are represented by graphemes on the page.

Phonics is a helpful tool to teach children how to match the one to the other.

In English spelling, one of the tasks of phonics is to systematize the ways the 'sounds' correspond to the slightly odd combinations of letters we use. That requires some careful teaching, because English is not a transparent orthography.

Everyone has to learn what sounds certain letter combinations make.

soup - why not?

It's just another way of saying the sound.

You might as well say that southern English speakers are simply wrong to use a long 'a', or Northerners are simply wrong to use a short one. There's no right and wrong to it.

If you knew what phonics was, you would know that the "ght" of "thought" is not a GPC.