To think teachers should be able to spell

[Brieandcamembert]

I have increasingly noticed recently teachers (often of primary age) who make very basic spelling and grammar errors. Surely having excellent basic skills in this area is an essential criteria for teaching it?

I'm really concerned that we are raising a generation who will have appalling literacy skills.

I have seen the classic "of / have" confusion
I have seen "been" used instead of "being"
I have also seen phonetically similar words interchanged with one another.

@saraclara

I'm really embarrassed seeing so many fellow teachers on this thread defend regular poor spelling and punctuation. If primary education is as important as we all claim it to be, then children should not be exposed to incorrect spelling, and especially not to their own correct spelling being marked as incorrect. There simply is no excuse for that.

There should be a straightforward way for SMTs to pick up on any staff weakness in that area, and for there to be further training for that member of staff. It shouldn't be brushed under the carpet with the excuse of "well teaching is a hard job so you can't expect perfection".
There are some things that can slide in a primary school, but spelling, punctuation and basic grammar ('could of' is simply inexcusable) are too important for that.

Some of the alien words provided by the DFE for y1 to practice contained real words(not necessarily used in common vocabulary,but real words nonetheless). That wouldn't be too bad because the aim is reading , but children were asked to sort them into real and alien words.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll probably not as important as your job
But i know lots of jobs where it really isn't a big deal other than basic
Even your posts will have some errors in if you follow all grammar rules
Yes it is but are you happy to pay teachers a lot more and more taxes as the pay is pretty shit nowadays for what teachers do, they have to do so much more than teach

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll dyslexia is not comparable to a blind electrician , my own ds cannot be an electrician due to colour blindness
Dyslexia does not stop a teacher being a good teacher and I think it is wrong for you to say that and you are comparing apple and pears

I used to receive various school forms sent home in my DD's schoolbag. If there was a mistake made with the wording or spelling, I always corrected it before completing and returning the form. I don't suppose it made any difference, apart from annoying my DD, but it's a matter of principle with me...

@saraclara but its not all of us experiences and some are citing grammar errors that won't be picked up until much later
Are you saying you have never made a spelling mistake
If someone has that much of an issue surely you bring it up with headteacher
I have seen odd spelling mistake in my kids end of year reports , i accept it as a mistake
If my child had a word corrected wrongly I would speak to the teacher

I think it's very dismissive to state that an electrician "only has one job", when there is a great deal that s/he will need to know in order to do the job - a large knowledge base, experience and practice, training, troubleshooting, keeping up with all of the latest regulations and changes in standards/types of materials and tools.

You might as well say that teachers "only have one job" - to help kids learn basic knowledge - which is also a grossly inaccurate oversimplification of what teachers do.

@JudgeJ You mean ‘quandary’ not ‘quandry’.

I've never forgotten going into my daughter's primary school on a parent's day and seeing in one of her books that her teacher had crossed out her correctly spelled word "scary" and written in red "scarey"! I was not amused.

The standards for teacher training have dropped loads in the last few years. So sad but true. We have had loads of students with poor literacy/numeracy skills recently. It’s very hard to recruit good candidates now.

@annabell22

Some teachers have dyslexia- it doesn't mean that they shouldn't become a teacher.

I do agree but at the same time there should be someone checking in that case, teaching children incorrect grammar and spelling is a problem.

@worriedatthistime

In the scheme of things, I wouldn't say that my own job is particularly 'important' when compared to many others, but it does involve written communication, for which basic language skills are required.

As I said earlier on in this thread, I never think badly of a plumber, cleaner, shop assistant, taxi driver etc. if they don't have good written language skills, as that isn't their main job. You are right that it isn't especially a big deal in many jobs, but in many other jobs, it is. How can teachers know what jobs their children will want to do when they grow up? Why would you want to limit what they learn to deliberately close off a large field of opportunities to them?

I know teachers have a lot of pressures on their time - as with many other professions - but why does it always come down to paying more taxes in order for them to achieve some of the foundational standards?

I would certainly be in favour of government-funded on-the-job training (maybe even evening, weekend or non-term-time classes, if there was a desire for it) to redress these weaknesses for those teachers who need it, but I don't see how just increasing the salary of a teacher with very poor SPaG will suddenly make them excellent at it.

dyslexia is not comparable to a blind electrician , my own ds cannot be an electrician due to colour blindness
Dyslexia does not stop a teacher being a good teacher and I think it is wrong for you to say that and you are comparing apple and pears

I asked a genuine question earlier on and stated clearly that help, allowances and adaptations should be made wherever feasible, to enable somebody to do a job; but sometimes, there will be people and jobs that are probably not compatible, such as with your DS.

I did not say that somebody with dyslexia cannot be a teacher, but I would expect this issue to be understood and addressed, so as to counteract the difficulties where possible.

There are so many software programs nowadays that can help greatly, by underlining and querying potential errors or typos. If you know that you struggle in this area, I would expect you to take particular notice of these helping mechanisms and not just ignore them, as many presumably must do. If spelling is a challenge for you, keep a dictionary to hand and remember to consult it whenever necessary.

I would say the same for any job. Supposing you're very short, but want to be a painter specialising in ceilings - nobody is stopping you, but you would need to make sure that you have a long ladder or extending pole with you at all times at work. You wouldn't just hold a paintbrush above your head, keep leaping up into the air and expect to end up with an acceptable result - then get frustrated when people criticise your work and angrily retort that "Short people can be perfectly good painters, you know" - which is indeed true.

I agree and, as a deputy head, the teachers know that if I see or hear something that is incorrect they will be alerted to it. I see it as everyone's responsibility to identity and correct errors. We all make mistakes and it's important for the children to see that but we also need to correct our errors where we can. I am happy for people to correct me too. Where I teach there are fundamental grammar errors as part of everyday speech (estuary area) often until it's pointed out, people aren't even aware it's incorrect. Teacher training doesn't pick this up unless the tutor is from outside the area!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

First of all, SPAG wasn't taught for many many years in school. So you will have teachers that never learned it, or were taught when it was in it's infancy by people that never had to do it before. They went to school,they got good grades ,they went to uni successfully etc. and they were good enough. Even if that was 20 years ago, the ripple effect continued for a lot longer.

Appropriately remunerated wages means a larger number of applicants. Don't forget teachers didn't lower standards the government did. Just like they allow academies to hire unqualified teachers or let TA's teach. That was in response to the teacher recruitment crisis. They took the easy way out. Instead of making the job more attractive, they lowered the standards. If teaching becomes more attractive as a job, the number and quality of applicants will automatically increase. This also means that standards can rise again and unis can be a lot pickier over who enrols on their courses. While that wouldn't solve the issue with teachers today, we need to talk long term here. The aim has been quantity not quality for a while. They're just lucky that a lot of applicants actually are good,dedicated teachers even if sometimes they fall short of the MN standard.

It's easy to spot the problem, it's also easy to put a plaster over it (or pretend it's not happening like the government did in the early 2000s). It's a lot harder to come up with a viable, working, long term solution.

I would think most know 'how' to spell, but when rushed or writing a lot make mistakes.

I'm not a teacher but have to do a lot of writing in my job, if it's end of the day and I'm flagging a bit I make some silly spelling errors

[quote Villagewaspbyke]@WhenSheWasBad - that’s actually higher than most “degree educated professionals”. Perhaps even all (excluding city lawyers and bankers in London- but then starting salaries for newly graduated lawyers and accountants outside London are lower than teachers). As I said when you take into account the huge pension, it’s better paid than most graduate jobs.

Hours are much shorter than many other professions and holidays are better than most if not all. It’s not for everyone but it’s not a bad deal. My ex was a teacher and his job was a lot shorter hours and less stressful than mine.[/quote]
Excellent, so I guess you'll be retraining as a teacher then? Schools are desperate for staff!

I’ve got a few family members who are teachers. One is, frankly, thick as two short planks & teaches A levels. They scraped through all their own exams, including 2 degrees with help from others, but just keep ploughing on through education higher & higher & will no doubt be lecturing at a university in the future! To be fair, they are adept with handling teenagers, and also good at absorbing information and regurgitation, but original thought is absent. Their IQ score was below 100. Forget any spelling or grammar, they don’t read unless it is to cut & paste from.

@Brieandcamembert

I'm not sure I agree with the notion of not having enough teachers, so the standards have to drop. I do hope no one ever takes up that idea with surgeons.

I don't think anyone thinks this is a good answer to the problem. A better idea would be to address workload, behaviour and conditions in order to attract better candidates and retain good teachers. However, that hasn't happened and this is the result.

First of all, SPAG wasn't taught for many many years in school. So you will have teachers that never learned it, or were taught when it was in it's infancy by people that never had to do it before.

When are we talking of? I'm in my mid 40s and I learned it. To be fair, if you're a confident reader - which I would expect most teachers in academic subjects to be - you're exposed to it from books, whether it's explicitly taught to you or not.

It's not like the English language itself was in its infancy a few decades ago, so the knowledge must have been there all along and understood/taught by enough people to keep it going.

I do agree that successive governments are to blame for not making it a top priority for so many years. If they had done, we wouldn't have the issue of people who are intelligent and academically-minded enough to become teachers but still completely bereft of what should be very basic skills.

I remember when they brought in focused 'literacy' and concentrated the curriculum on it; I was astonished that this was seen as a new innovation and ever abandoned in the first place. It must have been like teaching basic car maintenance classes for decades, but never thinking it necessary to mention oil.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

• For several decades up to about 2000, most state schools in England taught little or no grammar, and it is still normal for school leavers to know virtually nothing about grammar; for example, in 1998 it was found that “younger teachers had generally not been taught grammar explicitly as part of their own education” (Anon 1998b:26).

Most younger teachers know very little grammar and are suspicious of explicit grammar teaching. Not surprisingly, therefore, new recruits entering teacher-training courses typically either know very little grammar (Williamson and Hardman 1995) or have no confidence in their knowledge, presumably because they have picked it up in an unsystematic way (Cajkler and Hislam 2002).

Some older teachers were taught some grammar under the old system, but this knowledge is a mixed blessing as a preparation for teaching the new syllabus (“Older teachers did not see their school experience of traditional formal grammar as relevant to the present” Anon 1998b:26)*

You might say, well that was 22 years ago, but the effects probably lasted for several more cohorts or children/teachers.

When are we talking of? I'm in my mid 40s and I learned it. To be fair, if you're a confident reader - which I would expect most teachers in academic subjects to be - you're exposed to it from books, whether it's explicitly taught to you or not.

Until the introduction of major grammar into the SATs a few years back, it hadn't really been taught for several generations. I've taught foreign languages in secondary schools for over 25 years and also teach adults (mostly retired ones). They tended to know what a noun was, and maybe a verb if you were lucky, but that's about it.

Expecting everybody to be able to just rely on picking up good spelling and an understanding of grammar is unrealistic and smacks of middle class privilege.

Primary school teachers aren't always very academic, and they are being expected to teach grammar they were never taught themselves.

Oh btw I'm 50 and went to a good grammar school. Spelling always came easily to me, but I don't remember really being taught English grammar at school. I learned everything I knew about grammar by doing French, German and Latin.

[quote worriedatthistime]@PAFMO because it really doesn't matter does it
You knew what she meant perfectly well so why jump on it
These posts are generally just full of judgement and pretentious people
Most people give zero fucks for the odd mistake
And don't pull me up on any grammar or spelling as I don't care , just continue being judging others and putting them down if that makes you feel better [/quote]
You miss my point rather spectacularly. I jumped on HER post precisely because SHE is being an arse about other people's poor English.

Search my user name. I post on many of these threads telling the people slagging off and correcting other people's SpaG to fucking give over. Mumsnet is a mummy forum not a university dissertation platform.

It is, however, well-known that you absolutely do have to jump in and correct the twats who think they have some kind of superior knowledge about English yet make mistakes themselves (generally pretty basic ones- like that poster did in the middle of her smugness about how wonderful her own SpaG was) and they always, always do.

So yes, you'll see me pulling people up on their SpaG. But only vicious twats who've belittled others first.

That OK with you?

I'm a primary teacher and I think poor spelling and grammar from primary teachers isn't acceptable really. If you're a primary teacher and struggle with spelling, for example, you should really use a dictionary or spellcheck! Rogue apostrophes drive me mad too.

@WalltoWallBtards

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. As long as they don’t make them while actually teaching SPaG rules - which they won’t as they’ll be working from a lesson plan- I wouldn’t sweat it. I’ve been a copy editor and the most educated people making little mistakes all the time.

Didn't you read the posts further up the thread where teachers/TAs were crossing out correct answers and ticking the wrong ones? So "that won't happen" doesn't fly.

There is no excuse whatsoever for a teacher to make mistakes with spelling, grammar or punctuation. Being tired and so on are not excuses. Either they can spell and punctuate, or they can't. If they can't, they ought not to be teaching. I would have been very fed up if any of my DC's teachers had not had flawless written English.