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.

When I did my NNEB about 50 years ago we did voice production for a term or so. Remember we had to recite “Do you remember an Inn Miranda…….” The NNEB was quite strong academically

My kids spoke beautifully up to 11/12. My daughter likes to say fink instead of think to match the boyfriend. I hate it. I watch her when they're together and she actually makes it look difficult - I mean why bother?

Model the correct grammar and you’ll be fine.

My kids picked up “ain’t “ from school and I pretended that I didn’t know what it meant. They went back to “isn’t” very quickly.

That is IMO an entirely different matter from NT adults saying ‘we was’ or ‘I done it’.

I well remember a younger sister saying, ‘We’ve brunged them all in, Mummy,’ re toys left the garden. And small children often say e.g. ‘I goed’ instead of ‘I went’ when their brains are still sorting out regular/irregular verbs.

What an insufferable thread. A school mum told me she was very unhappy her child was dropping the ‘t’ in water due to the pronunciation by the nursery staff. It made me judge her a great deal more than I judged the nursery!

We are very lucky to have a lovely and caring nursery environment that has taken fantastic care of both our children and set them up very well for primary education. The staff have a variety of accents and speaking styles, including grammar and pronunciation that isn’t RP; both children picked it up for a time. It never crossed my mind to care about anything other than the love and care my children were surrounded by there.

Also, this completely. My DS’s key workers were absolutely wonderful women and I remember them fondly.

Most nursery workers nowadays are the kids who did apprenticeships straight from high school, lots of them didn't get GCSEs.
It's a form of care work essentially being a nursery nurse, it's not viewed as education.
Usually there is 1 eyfs teacher in a preschool who just does paperwork but doesn't really work with the kids much.

I've worked with some amazingly intelligent women who have been poorly spoken and barely educated but had incredible but undervalued skills.
Had those women been men they'd have likely made fortunes in building work or on ships. I think it's a shame that accents, being illiterate or poorly spoken holds a woman back in life far more than it does a man.

Mine were nicely spoken until they both went to northern unis where they were called ‘posh’. They both came back all glottal stoppy. Much to my consternation.

Ah yes. I remember my DSS saying “but she beed mean to me!” When explaining why he wasn’t his best friend’s friend any more. The cuteness was off the scale.

I hope all the poorly paid nursery staff decide the pay isn’t worth and all leave. As there is no real chance of advancement.

Is this her not just being 2?

Sorry, not sure I understand. Do you mean dropping the aitch and / or using a glottal stop?

Haitch was absolutely not correct when I was growing up. It sounds awful, and is harder work to say, especially if you work for the N Haitch S!

Just try to be happy that your child talks. Some children never do.

I think haitch actually predates aitch.

Haitch is standard in Ireland (i.e. the formally correct version taught in schools), and here in NI it's a shibboleth - broadly speaking British/unionist/Protestant = aitch and Irish/nationalist/Catholic = haitch. If I proclaimed either to be wrong at work I'd find myself being called to HR (haitch oar, not aitch ahhh ) for sectarianism.

This isnt sonething you can complain about in London as its likely a number of the staff are not native English speakers and even those who are may have strong accents reflecting the diversity of the city.

Ha my daughter came home with all sorts woodchester sauce was memorable, as was her saying all of her meals needing to be ‘co- shed’ not kosher 🤣 she was also adamant that her nursery key worker was right and we were wrong. I heard her key worker myself. It doesn’t and didn’t matter as my god she was loved by them.

It's not snobby to speak your own language correctly.
I work in a office with people who say 'I done' and 'I seen' and I find it so irritating!
We had to teach my nephew to say 'go TO THE park' etc because apparently nobody at his nursery used definitive articles.

Well I'm a teacher with a very strong northern accent and I teach a lot of very Scouse kids ! You'd be horrified to hear us (or should I say 'youse' ?)

That’s the OP’s exact point - the child is learning to speak and copies what he hears. That is how children learn to talk in the first place - they don’t sit down with a grammar book and sometimes confuse “was” and “were” ! It’s all modelled language.

Yes, but strong foreign accents are a rather different thing from natives habitually making very basic grammatical mistakes.

I’m sorry but if you want your child to speak like you at two and a half the best way is for them to spend the majority of their time with you.

My kids have picked up a class Geordie accent at nursery and school. They code switch beautifully at home to Northern Posh. I love it!

As long as they eventually learn the difference between written grammar and spoken dialect, I'm not bothered.

It’s not. young children find rules and they test apply those rules. For example for many words add an ED to the end makes it past tense children notice that and use it for example ‘I runned to the park.’ They are not copying what they’ve heard they are applying a rule

I've noticed parents often call staff 'teachers' but not all or maybe none of them if a private nursery will be teachers.
I'd expect qualified teachers to speak correctly.
My daughter often says 'go toilet' I can't stand it! I correct her everytime with 'go to
The toilet'