to want my child's teacher to understand how apostrophes work!!!

[intothenever]

DD is writing things like 'She live's in a house' and has been taught that the plural of potato is potato's! I am getting really pissed off!

I do not teach in an ivory tower, I actually teach in a school that is part comprehensive and part secondary modern. I just do not recognize the descriptions of teachers on here, and as a senior teacher I read lots of application letters and visit lots of my classrooms to see teachers in action.

SPAG is seen as everybody's problem, not for somebody else to worry about. Commas etc are not seen as some kind of higher knowledge but the absolute basics. If basic mistakes are being made throughout the year , they have all passed me by.

I work on the principal if someone who struggled as much as I did with English can spot an error then it's a glaring error.

Indeed.

JohnnyBarthes Wed 18-Dec-13 22:45:29
"Except the lecturers can't always, LaQ. Plenty of bloody good minds are crap at punctuation - thankfully there's more to academia than prefect apostrophes."

Have you ever been able to find a publisher who agrees with this tolerant view?

Ime readers for publishing houses are fusspots whose blood pressure rises at the mere sight of a footnote sign that is not italicised in the same way as the footnote signs of all the other volumes in the series. The idea that they wouldn't care about apostrophes and faulty plurals seems very far-fetched to me.

If you are an academic these days, you have to do your own proof-reading before submitting: otherwise, your contribution will be rejected out of hand. And if you can't publish, you won't keep that job as a lecturer either.

"So the choice is the teacher doesn't know how to use apostrophoes or your very young child doesn't. Hmmm. Difficult call."

Well, it'll be the one who wrote in 'potato's' in the teacher's handwriting using a red pen; if only we had some kind of clue as to whether that was likely to be the teacher or the child...

whoops - I stand corrected re the Dutch and apostrophes.

I asked dh this morning (he is Dutch) He said they are used for omission and possession. But the rules are slightly different to the English rule.

So I asked - ''Not for plurals?''

No! he said. Then he thought about it and said ... hmm... maybe.

They do use apostrophes for plurals sometimes. Usually when it is a foreign import word. Eg photo's. If there was no apostrophe, the s would change the sound of the o, because Dutch is phonetic. We checked in the dictionary.
Still trying to work out if any non import words have them.

I then asked if people get them wrong. Oh yes, all the time, as bad as the English!

The teacher is in very good company, do you remember George Bush visiting a school?
A child had to come to the front to write potato on the board (as part of spelling test of something)
child wrote - potato
George Bush went over and corrected it to - potatoe!

'or' not 'of' obviously

That was Dan Quayle, steppemum - but a great story.

thankfully there's more to academia than prefect apostrophes.

Couldn't agree more with cory.

In the 'real world' (if not academia) perfect apostrophes are pretty much de rigueur, and if you expect your writing to be consumed by the public, then your apostrophes had better be perfect.

I work in the public sector (Ministry of Education (not in the UK, obv), so even less room for error) as a writer, and I can assure you that erroneous apostrophes - let alone other SPaG errors - are thrown back until they're corrected.

Why wouldn't they be...? Presumably you want your readers to a). understand what you're saying, and b). take you seriously.

OP - did you say anything? What was the teacher's response?

I teach in a primary school and have encountered many teachers with poor SPaG - I believe they know their weakness and are very careful to avoid such errors. Most are trying to improve given the recent focus in this area.
It is difficult to be an excellent all-rounder which essentially is what you need to be in primary teaching. We all have weaker subjects but I suppose a child gets a good balance if they have different teachers each year.

I don't think that knowing basic grammar is excellence .

It is difficult (impossible) to be an excellent all-rounder and everyone is better and worse at some things. But 'correcting' an 'error' by adding in an apostrophe where an apostrophe has no business being, is really not great.

The bottom line is that it's not rocket science. Many people weren't taught SPaG and that's not their fault, but it's actually easy to learn.

I am fascinated by this idea that being able to write simple English is a specialist skill, or a sign of excellence.

I was primary teacher. My spag is not great as I was at school in the 70s no grammar era. I am aware of my shortcomings and have self taught myself all that I needed to be a competent class teacher. I still make mistakes, but usually I am aware of it eg spellings, I will look them up or do spell check.

I find this mistake (potato's) pretty basic. No primary teacher should be making this mistake.

I don't think many, if any teachers, think that basic SPAG are a sign of excellence.

I think some people like to portray teachers as thinking it is.

They shouldn't be a sign of excellence. They should be an expected standard. If those teaching can't spell or use correct grammar, how on earth can they teach it to their pupils?

In some countries teaching is one of the courses that requires the highest grades. When I went into teaching, we all had good grades. Now the system is so dumbed down that people who are not very clever are being turned into teachers.

Babymummy you will like .

Sorry Pixel Couldn't get it to work

Oh dear, works on mine. Never mind then, was just Youtube link. Sorry!

To get into teaching via PGCE now you have to have grade B at both English and Maths. They are trying to up skill teachers but it also means a lot of very good potential teachers can't get on to the course due to old grades, pre degree.
There's a lot more to teaching than spelling, it's a shame.

If someone can't get a b in gcse maths and English (roughly a c at o level) then why should they be considered for teaching? There are degrees you can get onto without that, but hardly selective ones, and without a c at a level in maths and English not only could you not get onto any degree pre-88 but you also couldn't even get on to a 2 year cert ed. In addition a lot of schools will be nervous about even letting you do a levels without b in maths and English today.

I'm extremely sceptical about the idea that there are potentially great teachers being excluded by this requirement. It's a very, very low threshold. I think the 2(ii) requirement that's being proposed is more dubious as I don't see why a third from a reasonable university necessarily means someone isn't fit for teaching. But if you can't get a b at gcse in English and maths either at thud rind if subsequently the case is much harder to make.

Without a c at o level, not a level. That'll teach me to use a phone on a moving train.