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 don't know what GPC is, so I am ignorant there.

Do you honestly believe that when you learned to read, spelling had nothing to do with phonics?

It's not just another way of saying the sound it is the wrong way of saying it. DS2 struggled with R, substituting W. Is that "just another way of saying it"? No, it was wrong.

It's simply not the same as bath/barth tooth/tuth. THose are slight differences. D/TH is completely the wrong sound.

It's pointless arguing this as you think you are right and I think you are wrong.

The trouble if you go around talking about 'dese' and 'dose' instead of 'these' and 'those' is that people are going to tink you're a bit tick.....

Fair enough, soup.

GPC - grapheme-phoneme correspondence. The heart and soul of phonics.

Out of interest, would people arguing for 'correct' English pronunciation also expect a child with an American or Australian accent to learn an English accent if at school in the UK?

bonsoir - no idea what your point is, sorry.

What are you trying to say about 'ght'?

My point is that it's one of those combinations of letters that exist in our spelling because pronunciation has changed since the spelling was formalized. Do you not believe that?

It's not "correct" English, but standard English. All children (be they American, Australian, Irish, French or Hungarian) need to master standard English to learn to read English using phonics in an English classroom.

LRD - I suggest you study phonics. I really cannot give you a lesson here!

Why?

So now we are thick and ignorant because we speak a different type of english? Do keep it coming, its useful to draw the twattery out.

I don't think you understand how phonics works.

You don't need to learn standard English to use it. Honestly, you really don't.

@LRD... yes I would. When in Rome and all that... An American friend who arrived making all the usual errors (like Birming-HAM) has gradually learned to adopt the correct pronunciation. Accent still remains, of course, but at least they don't embarrass themselves.

Btw, as to 'studying' phonics ... yes, it's never been part of my work at all, what with the PhD in English Lit and the work on the history of English orthography. Oh, wait ...!

There is no standard pronunciation of English. Should Scottish children speak with English accents at school?

cogito - fair enough. I never found an American accent embarrassing ... I kinda love the Eddie Izzard 'sherrif of NottingHAM' parody, though.

All would be crystal-clear to you, LRD, if you had an understanding of phonics, so why don't you go off and educate yourself rather than displaying your ignorance to all and sundry ?

@MrSunshine... I'm sorry but people do make value judgements about intelligence on the way others speak, write and how they appear. Call it twattery if you like but that is the way the world turns.

I'm Irish and I've lived in England for nearly 5 years. I say "dis" and "dat" and I pronounce the end "t" in words with a sort of "sh" sound so "cat" sounds a bit (though not entirely) like "cash." It has never stopped me getting a job, in fact since I've been here I've been interviewed for, and got, 3 jobs, including two jobs as a primary teacher. I have no intention of ever consciously changing my accent. Yes, sometimes people have a bit of trouble understanding me, but my French and Chinese friends have the same problem and it's just something you get used to.

Incidentally thousands of Irish children every year learn to read without pronouncing "th" the English way.

The way I speak isn't a dialect to me, it is my English, and expecting me to change it would be like asking an English person to speak English with a French accent - why on earth would they ever do it???

Bonsoir, why don't you explain what your point about 'thought' was, so that if we are talking cross-purposes, we can at least understand why.

I do not know why the teacher is doing this, but I think there may be advantages to taking her up on the offer.

DH is Irish and has a beautiful accent. However, others undeniably found him hard to understand. He could not have succeeded at his chosen career unless people found him easy to listen and were able to follow his ideas in conversation. In consequence he has dramatically modified his accent.

You could not be more proud of your culture than DH, but he has chosen to live in England and understands that to succeed in some areas it is important to make himself understood by the majority of English people.

This may not be about prejudice or racism but creating opportunity.

Eddie Izzard wouldn't be able to parody the pronunciation if there was nothing inherently funny about it.

Oh, I think you underestimate Mr Izzard!

i agree with all the people who say that teacher is doing to help with their spelling and phonics.