AIBU / When is it dialect and when is it just wrong?

[ecuse]

We live in East London/Essex border. I'm not from here originally. My little girl (6) has an East London accent. I expect this, this is where she is from, it's fine, in fact it suits her.

But she's all with the "you woz", "we woz", "wozzn't you, mummy?". I understand she picks this up from her whole peer group. BUT. When I go into school for reading morning etc etc I realise all 4 of the teachers she has had so far say "you woz" etc.

AIBU to think that teachers should not do this? They are teaching her literacy and that's just gramatically incorrect.

I don't think I'd ever have the bottle to bring it up but AIBU to be vexed, or am I just being all Hyacinth Bucket about it? Is it legitimate dialect or is it just wrong?

It may be different in Wales then but I am SLT/English lead in my Lancashire school and this was discussed at length recently with an Ofsted inspector.

hit enter too soon....I was talking about childrens accents, words they use in speech, rather than a teachers anyway, but dialect words used by a child wouldn't be within our remit to correct. Our jobs as SLTs is to have children who are understandable. If a child was irish and used 'tick' instead of 'thick' we wouldn't correct that. Similarly, if a child was liverpuddlian and used 'cloch' for 'clock'. again that is fine.

LRD, it seems a smattering of basic linguistics in schools could eradicate quite a bit of prejudice.

At my Dd's school most of the teachers say fink, fort and fank you and make huge grammatical mistakes that Dd comes home to tell me about! She's 10 and has told me for 3 years about her jaw hitting the ground when these assistant deputy head teachers speak English so poorly. It makes my stomach spasm to hear it.

Everyone on MN thinks that RP is the correct way to speak.

Not all of us.

swiss, one would hope.

The damage done by ignorant people who think accent and dialect are the same really annoys me, though. There's nothing wrong with being ignorant, of course. But why not admit that you've no clue what you're talking about?

I expect you all say barth instead of bath too. Now that is wrong.

Well yes because there is no r in bath so it would be very wrong to add and r sound to the word.

Accent is a different thing and of course should not be corrected and dialect will be picked up naturally but children need to understand that in terms of grammar this is incorrect. Teacher modelling is part of this.

I speak with an accent btw.

Everyone speaks with an accent. Of one sort or another.

To be specific, I speak with a regional accent.

DH's family use that grammar and it sounds, well, uneducated to my ears. I really wish he wouldn't model it to DS (as his written grammar, unlike his parents') is correct. However, it's obviously a sensitive subject where it crosses over into dialect.

So yes, I would expect a teacher to model correct grammar.

My dd is also 6 and does this a little bit, but dropping t's is the one that makes me grimace.
I mix up repeating back and correcting, just correcting, and with the t's asking her to spell the words and highlighting when she says t when spelling or just pretending not to know what she's saying until she says it correctly.
I think teachers should be teaching standard language although I will admit to being greatly amused by the South African twang when she was learning phonics last year in reception with SA teacher.
That was genuine accent as opposed to dialect or incorrect imo although I'm not a linguistic expert.

Sigh. Dialect is not incorrect in terms of grammar. It is a different system.

Everyone speaks with a regional accent, blonde.

Maisie - if you teach kids phonics wiv fanks will never work - how can you teach a method that makes no sense? It's not accent it's just wrong.

I said grammar should be correct blonde thats not the same as dialect.

Some people even speak in a mixture of regional accents!

sky, why would a RP accent make more sense with phonics?

I said grammar should be correct blonde thats not the same as dialect.

But different dialects model different grammars, don't they?

Bottom line is teachers should be modelling Standard English according to the curriculum and Ofsted.

RP is not a regional accent in terms of English linguistics so no, not everyone speaks with a regional accent.

Indeed, LRD. See below.

Wish my 6th form were on mumsnet. This is revision gold for Tuesday's exam.

My (real) kids say 'i done' and 'birfday'. We are far from London. I model SE but am fighting a losing battle. And I hate myself because I know there is no such thing as 'correct' English, but it still pisses me off because I like rules-even stupid man made ones stuck on a mongrel language.

I have a Scottish accent, but I've lived in Yorkshire for years. Lots of people say 'we woz' and 'he were' but they did that where I grew up too. It puts my teeth on edge, sorry, but it's always sounded wrong to me. Local accents are fine, some use of dialect is interesting, but bad grammar, no. We're currently reminding the youngest grandchild to say 'those' rather than 'them' apples, sweets etc.

Unlike a previous Scottish poster, I've never used 'yous'.