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'm reminded of an autistic child in my class whose mum told me at parents evening that he didn't like being in my class because I didn't 'talk properly'. Apparently over 40 years of living in the south east hadn't completely got rid of the East Midlands accent that I grew up with as a child (and a mild accent at that, because my mum hated the accent and corrected me regularly!).

I was, however, always grammatically correct. He just didn't like my short a's. They weren't even that short any more, but they weren't 'ah' enough for him..

Bruv not roadman

Oh dear I'd hate for you all to hear my accent. I've got an Irish mother, a Mancunian dad and grew up in Yorkshire 🙈

@HPandthelastwish I have to Google some of the words my teens use to see what they mean 😂

I’m a teacher (but my background was nurseries first) and I do think proper grammar is incredibly important. However the majority of nursery staff are not held to the same standard as teachers and until they get the same level of respect and pay they shouldn’t be! Many are well educated but many are not. They are paid minimum wage and are overworked. It’s not ideal but it won’t leave lasting damage. A child in my class (I teach Reception) used to talk exactly like her old keyworker at nursery - mum says she now sounds exactly like me!

@Iwanttoliveonamountain Roadman slang disagrees with you. And it is all the more amusing as we live no where near London, most of my students had never visited London or any city for that matter and lived in the back end of no where and were very much Norfolk country bumpkins

If you want pre school childcare with degree level use of English language - then you’ll need to be paying for it…….

Who said anything about degree level use of the English language?

Bruh / Bruv is just mate

roadman can be an insult

I'm sorry to pick your post out, but I just find that very sad - internalised snobbery. I can also never get my head round 'well-spoken' being used as the opposite to 'has a distinct regional (= not Standard Southern British English) accent'.

The poster correcting Yorkshire dialect expressions out of her child (growing up in Yorkshire!) makes me sad too.

My sons say both of these. Call
each other ‘bruh’ and ‘roadman’ is definitely an insult.

Don’t let your kid watch Bing.

I runned into the kitchen… I cutted up a carrot … I drawed a picture of some mouses …

Because that's the correct way, that's why!

"We was" makes me shudder!

Sigh. I refer you (on aitch versus haitch) to BarbaraHoward's post above.

What a shame, my friends mum has a mixed Northern Irish/Geordie accent and it sounds lovely. Both great accents individually, shame you don't seem to think so 😐

I can't see the post that you are referring to. Aitch is the correct way, although I know some countries such as Ireland use haitch.

Happy to copy and paste for you - tldr: two different things can both be correct.

Previous post:
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.

It is strange when you raise your children in a different area to the one you grew up in. My little Northern Irish children went to the potty for a wee wee-wee and pronounce towel and tile the same. That's ok though.

Thanks but I don't need a lesson on this, given I'm Northern Irish myself.

If you're from Northern Ireland then you know haitch is also correct, and that your posts saying only aitch is correct are pretty shocking tbh. I know what those posts mean and I'm not the only one on here who does.

I perhaps missed the post saying the OP was in Northern Ireland. Perhaps I've wrongly assumed she was in England were aitch is the correct pronunciation.

I hadn't taken this thread to be related to Northern Ireland pronunciations which of course is a different ball game entirely.

I find it annoying too, but there’s nothing you can do apart from keep modelling the correct grammar.

I hated it. I pulled my kids out and became a childminder for that, and a few other good reasons! My other pet hate was "th" being pronounced "f" or "v".

Absolutely drove me up the wall.

Bad grammar?!

I get your point but at the same time I think the standard could be higher. It's not about background, education or pay level but it about what it relevant to your job. If your role is to promote language in a young child then that language should be accurate. An accent is an accent but there is in most cases an accurate and inaccurate way to speak. And there is no excuse for bad spelling, it can be corrected if wrong. Some people are bad at spelling and that's ok, but they should be open to being corrected in the same way that a miscalculation of numbers would be corrected in another job.

I work in a nursery and am very careful about spelling in communication with parents or signage in the room. I may ask a colleague if I am not sure if i phrased something properly. I model correct grammar but might speak differently at home, it's no different to being careful not to curse in front of kids. I think this should be emphasised more in training.