Teacher dialect

[MaverickGooseGoose]

No doubt I'll make a mistake on this, Sod's Law and all that...

All the SLT and from what I've heard a lot of the teachers speak is sard east London dialect.

Free / three / roof / ruth / we was etc.

It's grating on me, if Roof was on the roof and needed free pounds to get off but her mum was coming to get her where was she going?

I understand dialect / colloquialisms but some of what they say/write doesn't make sense.

Anyone else as irritated as me? It's the same
on the radio now, the guy on capital is giving away free fousand pounds for free. Argh.

What region is it from?

My husband speaks with a South East London accent. It's an accent, not lazy speech. It has its own words and slang for things, most of which I don't understand. He does miss the ends off words, and has phrases I've never heard before. His Dad and his brother and pretty much everyone in or associated with my in-laws talk that way. Sometimes I can be in the same room as them and not have a clue what they are saying.

It's a disappearing accent. The family come from Camberwell and only a few remain now, most have moved away. It's more prevalent in the outer parts of London now.

When he's not speaking to people who sound like him, he does speak more neutrally and puts the ends on words. My daughter has grown up without much of an accent at all, very neutral.

I find it quite offensive that people do not accept others simply by the way they talk. I am from the Midlands and people judge me in London, and call me a bumpkin. One person thought I was Australian .

The way I explain it to my team is as a form of code switching: for so long the language of ‘professional’ jobs in England (can’t comment on rest of UK) was middle class English, that that is what became the accepted ‘professional’ norm. Therefore whilst dialects are fine, when writing we need to use business English, which is essentially middle class English, as then we can all understand it. When speaking, accents are fine, but again, when it’s formal comms, even spoken, business (MC) English is needed for clarity, so outside of internal team meetings, that’s what we use. If I used West Country terms with my team in Spain for example, I fear I would just confuse them. So speaking just within the team we speak ‘normally’, but in formal meetings we switch to business English.

Absolutely spot on.

Accents are beautiful, mispronunciation, however is dreadful in teachers! It's not snobbery as some have said. It's teaching and modelling something incorrectly.

I also can't stand 'nothink'.

They are pronounced the same, like bear/ bare

Free instead of three etc. is nothing to do with accent- it's just mis-pronunciation. Otherwise, every single person in the area would speak like that and they don't.
Likewise- could of, we was etc. is just bad grammar.
I work in school and the class teacher doesn't have the word written in her vocabulary- she says phrases like, "When you have wrote the date.."

Aaargh! “Wrote the date”!

I love regional accents and think teaching is all the richer for the diversity. The 'free' for 'three' is just accent rather than dialect or sociolect so that's ok in my book.

Non standard English is confusing in an academic setting though. I used to eyroll at 'he was sat there' from posh teachers when we lived in the South West. Then later 'we was' in London. I like hearing variations in informal contexts but it needs to be Standard English all the way at school else it's confusing.

Annoys me so much too, thankfully my kids went to school in an area where the teachers spoke properly (posh midlands was the predominant accent)

Free / three / roof / ruth / we was etc.

A friend’s DH talks like that, and called his daughter Ruth

When DD was little and learning her spellings I used to correct her on the sound of H. Her teacher said haitch, and I said that was wrong, it was aitch. DD said the teacher says it this way so it must be right.
I’m South London, the teacher was Yorkshire.

We are in the North East of England. My 4yo came home from nursery a couple of weeks ago saying 'that was proper funny mummy!'. I was horrified. I am an English teacher (secondary). I have an accent too but I do try and make sure I speak 'properly' in lessons. Modelling incorrect English at any age isn't acceptable.

I'm irritated by it too and it happens just as much up north.

When I was training as a teacher my school based mentor did it all the time and it drove me crazy - the worst one was during a spelling test "The word is wevver, What's the wevver like today? The word is wevver." Those poor kids! I've never forgotten it.

The word is wevver." Those poor kids! I've never forgotten it.

How do they expect the children to spell a word correctly if it is mispronounced like this?

Yes, yes, yes! It IS a language! I meant the dialects within Scots. Glaikit/ dreich/ skelf are 3 favourites similar to eejit.😅

All this talk about accents and class and I can't help but notice that the OP and many others are very specifically picking at the 'th'/'f' pronounciation which is a really common minor speech impediment and can come with certain dental positioning.

Are we suggesting that anybody with a minor speech issue (that is still perfectly understandable if you apply even the slightest bit of common sense) should be forbidden from the teaching profession. Mandatory braces and speech therapy for everyone who doesn't meet pronounciation standards?

And don't forget that the 'th' phoneme doesn't exist in many languages and phonetic contraction means that it is very unlikely that people picking up a language after early childhood will be able to perfectly produce phonemes which don't exist in their native language. I assume you want all immigrants banned from teaching as well?

It is dialect. BUT. I don't speak that way (raised in the right area), my parents don't speak that way (one was, one wasn't raised locally). one of my sisters doesn't speak that way, my kids were raised in foreign countries, yet they do speak that way, so it can also be laziness.

Personally, I don't sweat it. My youngest also has a lisp and can't pronounce Rs so I have bigger battles, and my eldest has a distinct American drawl drawing in from the International/Irish English his friends speak. If they care to, they can change their accent later.

Free for three is a regional accent from South London, just as the Irish tree for three a PP mentioned is. Only one seems to cause pearl clothing though because its considered a bit 'common'. God forbid your children sound like they might be working class!

Apparently there are more words to describe the weather in Scots than in any other language!

A skelf is a skelf - splinter sounds stupid. Glaikit, if you like.

See also - jag. C’mon kids, off you go to the library for your HPV jags. Inoculations/injections/vaccinations sounds ridiculous.

I agree! However my son had speech therapy when he was younger as he couldn't pronounce l. I mentioned that he also said F for TH and she said they wouldn't treat for that as it's so common especially in southern areas! I was shocked. Luckily he grew out of it

Well as a Glaswegian, I can assure you it’s common here - but it is absolutely not the norm for our accent. It’s considered an immaturity of speech.

My child IS working class.

I don't speak that way (raised in the right area)

Just realised how that might read - I mean, that in the area I was raised, Fumb and Fingers is totally normal, it would have been un-remarkable for me to pronounce it that way - although my parent's didn't so I presume that's why I don't.

I know there are some words that do sound the same, but if all th's and f's are pronounced exactly the same, that has to get confusing? I assumed there was a subtle difference.

Nah - that's why when I tried correcting my kids, I got fumb and finger, or Thumb and Thinger (youngest was honestly trying) 😀

This is silly - loads of words have non-phonetic spellings.

Leaving aside accent snobbishness, a person of average intelligence will be perfectly capable of saying wevver and writing weather - I say tuff but write tough for example.

I think we can model Standard English all we like, so kids at least know how to slip into different registers, but so much is influenced by peers. The kids I teach think I'm posh, because my accent is fairly neutral these days and because they assume local=like them; not local=posh.

I live v far from London, but loads of kids use 'f' instead of 'th' round here, which didn't really happen when i grew up. I'm losing the battle for SE at home too:"in school, we was..." "I done it" . Dc claim not be corrected in school either, whereas i repeat the SE version back:"oh right, you WERE...."
You would not think my children were the offspring of an English teacher.
I blame their dad, who could pronounce his 'th' once upon a time, but now can't.