Children repeating bad grammar they hear at nursery

[caughtinthesnow]

My little one is 2 and a half and I've noticed she repeats some grammatical errors. She definitely hasn't heard them from us..

The main one I've noticed is ' was ' instead of ' were '.

I know it hasn't come from us, because that's how the nursery teachers speak and write too...

It's not ideal is it? Has anyone had this issue with nursery or school ? I would expect a school teacher not to make grammatical mistakes like confusing was with were, but I don't know. I wouldn't have expected nursery teachers to make that kind of mistake.

I wouldn't worry. My child came home with a really broad local accent, even though neither of us speaks like that at home. She's shed it gradually over her first year in school. Just keep gently correcting if it's really irksome, but the chances are that she'll ultimately speak like you do. They just talk like the people around them.

Yes we are in south London and all the staff at my sons nursery were so nice but spoke with incorrect grammar “we was playing today in the garden”
At age 3 I moved him to the preschool in the hope that he wouldn’t pick it up and instead the teacher of the nursery class spoke more like us

Snap ! Same area!

I really wouldn't get too worked up about this. Also don't correct explicitly - just model the grammatically correct usage. It's unlikely to embed itself in her speech long-term.

My DS picked up bad grammar at nursery. It was corrected by primary school and then deteriorated again in high school. Now he talks like a NED.

It’s a constant battle. But rest assured there’s lots of scope for humour when they’re older!

My DC used to do the same when they were at nursery. I wouldn't worry. They grow out of it.

Have you considered it might be because they’re two and a half, and so only learning how to speak?

I don’t know if it was overly worrying but he’s thrived at pre school and his speech is lovely.

my friends child says WORR- AH for water and she horrified haha

At least he isn't picking up swear words. All you can do is model the language and behaviour you want to see but external influences are unavoidable.

Haha my eldest used to come home from nursery saying things like ‘bockle’ and ‘hospickle’ because that’s how her key worker spoke. I was horrified 😂. Anyway she’s 11 now and it didn’t cause her any lasting damage.

DS had the same through nursery (North London). I tried to correct it but he just stared at me blankly! He's lost it now he's at school though.

Don't worry at all. I live in the south west and both children picked up the local accent and many many mamy grammatical errors. By the time my children entered Yr1 at primary school all accent (bar the odd word) disappeared. It's the level of fun and care that matters most I think at nursery/pre school.

Our nursery staff were the same and it never occurred to me to be upset about it, I was just glad that they must have been talking so much to my dd for her to pick up their accent, and we found it adorable really. There are certain words she still says in a South-London-Carribbean accent like "hat". Now she's even picking up her Reception teacher's Scottish accent. It's delightful, it won't last.

Let's be honest, if you're posh, you're posh, and if you aren't, you aren't, regardless of how you pronounce "hat".

Mine started saying "go park" or "go Tesco" (instead of go to the park etc). Only a tiny thing but quite annoying! The standard of English on her reports was also 😲

I tell myself that it's not important though - the nursery carers' skills lie in being fun and caring and having endless reserves of energy - which is much more important than their grammar!

She's moved to a school preschool now and it's getting better I think🤞

Both my children had this at nursery, and it doesn’t really last.

My eldest is 16 and incredibly well spoken, and 10 yo is mostly the same. He has picked up one noticeable pronunciation difference, in the sense that it is different to the rest of our family, but this was from school rather than nursery. I can’t get upset about it though - it’s the name given to the letter “h”, which threads on here have told me causes a lot of debate!

I'm definitely not posh haha or especially amazing at grammar.

The ' was ' vs ' were ' thing just really stands out to me for some reason.

"don't correct explicitly"

Why not?
Ok maybe nursery age I'd let it slide or just repeat the correct phrase and carry on but I have been correcting mine since about P1 (reception so 4-5yo). My mother, both grandmothers, aunts and schoolteachers all explicitly corrected us from a young age and made us repeat the correct phrase.

I work in a place where schools come for educational visits almost every day.

It's very rare the teachers or TAs use correct grammar when speaking to the children.

Lots of "What was you doing over there?"

And "Why was you doing that?"

I don't remember my teachers speaking like that and my school was in the same area as I work now.

Also, the nursery were utterly fantastic at the things that mattered, school readiness type stuff, good habits like handwashing, sunblock, toileting.

That's the stuff that matters at that age.

Noooooo bockle makes me feel extremely stabby.

Do you mean saying the letter ' H ' and pronouncing it ' Haitch' vs ' aitch '?

I always pronounce it ' aitch'. No idea why.

I worked in a nursery years ago as an apprentice and I used to CRINGE every time I heard the teachers saying "you was, wasn't you?" To the kids. Happened constantly.
There was also a tonne of misspelled words on the displays on the walls.
My son came home from nursery dropping his Ts which drived me insane too. Wa'er 🤮

But that said, I'm really not sure what can be done other than going in and telling them all they must learn to speak properly 🤷

Ha, this reminded me of the time my friends DC came home from primary and called his Dad "Bruv".

They stomped that out sharpish.

That's local dialect to some extent.

Like using "them" for "those". "Pass me them scissors."

Honestly, if you look down on people who speak like that, that's snobbery really.