AIBU to feedback to school about teachers use of glottal stops

[TalomaPaith]

Children at Dcs school are split into different groups for phonics.

Parents are sometimes invited to watch lessons. I observed a lesson by a teacher using glottal stops I.e Let'er instead of letter.

Would IBU to mention this?

there may be something amiss with how you are decoding sounds as that is a definite tap, and example 25 on the water link is a clear glottal stop. If you click through to that speaker you can hear the glottal stop on his pronunciation of “butter” “Scotland” and “not” as well.

I have already said that insisting certain accents are correct and others are not correct is classist and discriminatory. It is classist to call standard speech correct and non-standard speech features such as glottal stops incorrect. You said did you not that you do not want people who speak a certain way to teach your children. There’s the discrimination. PP references the Sutton trust report on accent and social mobility which explains very clearly the impact of this.

@queenmeadhbh , Might be the audio quality on my device.

I have already said that insisting certain accents are correct and others are not correct is classist and discriminatory.
I have not said that certain accents are correct and others are not.

isnt this whole argument because you say that saying water, letter, butter, with a glottal stop is incorrect? And didn’t you say that you wouldn’t want someone who pronounced f with a “v” sound teaching your children?

you then go round in circles saying that these are not features of accent but lack of clarity/enunciation and that is where you are wrong.

I think @queenmeadhbh is right, though I would put it slightly differently

The argument is whether a glottal stop is a feature of accent and dialect, or not. You’ve said that you think it isn’t @YYYDlilah. That’s absolutely your call, but it is unsupported by significant evidence, not just in what I’ve shared above but a tonne of other peer-reviewed evidence.

Of course, evidence is also up for debate and so there may be some evidence which says that it is lazy, but I’m yet to find it.

My view is that the glottal stop is still stigmatised, and the impact of the stigma is significant, unfair and long-lasting

I asked whether she was on benefits after her vile comments about me and the lack of understanding about using different grammar on Mumsnet on the phone compared to working teaching children phonics.

That is incorrect. In Norwich (Norfolk) the accent includes the glottal stop. That is just one area of the UK I know about, so I'm sure there are more.

That doesn’t make it right

I think you should report the teacher @TalomaPaith. I would pay good money to see you get your arse handed to you on a plate by the head teacher.

Not if I do it by email copying in the trust

Wow. Just when I thought I’d seen it all on this forum. Imagine reporting a teacher to a trust for using a glottal stop.

That'd be the email to end all emails wouldn't it? 'I don't approve of the accent of the teacher taking Y1 phonics. Her use of the glottal stop is actively inhibiting my child's learning.'

When your child ends up with a stream of supply teachers I hope you'll feel it was worth it. You're aware we're in the middle of a teacher retention crisis?

Honestly, I don't know why you don't just go private since you feel you can dictate who teaches your child.

You put it much more generously than I do 😉

my view is that words like “lazy” have no place when describing language. Shortening or elision etc for convenience or for social signalling or for whatever reason is to my mind morally neutral, and any claim that it is “badly spoken” “lazy” or “uneducated” is just the power structures at play.

(I don’t get the impression you think the opposite btw! Just that I don’t think there ever could be evidence that eg glottal stop is lazy speech because I don’t think the sin of sloth is ever relevant to linguistics!)

Exactly. What ever next? Use of the passive voice? Failure to use an adverbial opener?

Talk about Govian (he of the coked up Parliamentary appearances) grammar.

I don’t think the sin of sloth is ever relevant to linguistics!

English teachers pet! (I love it.)

This thread has made me want to speak now using a glottal stop. The snobbery and lack of perspective are crazy. Esp when the thread has been started by a teacher with questionable literacy herself. Doesn’t she have better things to do than nitpick at another teacher? Can she not model the language she wants at home? She needs to get a grip.

I once heard a headmaster SPLIT AN INFINITIVE

Yes!

In some languages, a glottal stop is a distinct phoneme. Saying it’s the omission of a sound isn’t really correct. It’s a substitution.
Also there are far more glottal stops used word finally or just before a final stop consonant in English spoken in the south east of England than word medially but no one ever seems to complain about that. I wouldn’t really say a [t] at the end of the ´that’ in the sentence ´that’s it’. I’d say either [ðæʔsɪʔ] or [ðæʔtsɪʔt].

Actually I thought of a better example - in the sentence ´that’s better’ more people are going to put a glottal stop in ´that’ than in ´better’.

The horror! The horror!

The only possible remedy is a sternly-worded letter to Ofsted, and you might as well copy in the education secretary too.

Yes! Do it! 😈🍿

And what purpose do you think you're serving by 'using different grammar' or 'code switching' (or whatever other inaccurate description based on your own misconceptions you'd like to use)?

All of the errors you continue to make cause it to be more difficult to be understood or communicate effectively. None of them are natural changes in a less formal context when you already know how to use the standard version. Most point to lack of understanding and an inflated sense of your own awareness.

Nothing you've said about teachers, schools, the line management structure, or the training and qualification process indicates you have any specific knowledge of the education system. And nothing you've tried to explain away suggests secure understanding of language, linguistics, or indeed phonics.

Your OP was ridiculously prejudiced and every further comment you've made has been hypocritical and ignorant.