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?

Can’t believe you claim to know “lots” about linguistics and then talk about “essential parts” of accents. That concept doesn’t exist.

a glottal stop is a feature of an accent. It is no more or less correct than any other feature. It is not a lack of enunciation which is a lack of clarity of sounds - it was obviously clear enough for you to identify!

There was a snobby poster here a couple of months back who absolutely had her arse handed to her for whining about regional accents. She was such an utter snob and had zero life experience beyond her own snobby little backwater and she was spittle lipped with rage when she was told to stop being a prissy little snot.

That wouldn't be the OP, of course, trying again.

I definitely think you should whine about this, they deserve to know what they're dealing with.

Glottal stops are normal in Northern Ireland. Every accent has its features. Most English people don't enunciate their Rs apart from those from around Bristol etc. But it would be ridiculous of me to complain about somebody from England saying "teachuh" instead of "teacher". Would you also complain about a teacher having a foreign accent?

It should be about (the or a) teacher's use, with a possessive apostrophe. I am sure others have pointed this out to you, but I enjoyed doing so because I loathe bigots.

And of course it matters if you're claiming to be a teacher.

100%. I find it funny when people with RP type accents get outraged about people “not pronouncing” letters, when not pronouncing Rs is such an identifiable feature of their accent. And how are the poor children expected to learn to spell paw poor and pour if they are all pronounced the same?

imagine if my kids had a teacher with an English accent and I made a complaint that they werent pronouncing words properly 🤣🤣🤣

As a Yorkshire woman who studied linguistics, you're really not being reasonable. But you're a proud prescriptivist which would explain having this attitude. Most people who study the English language and accents agree that prescriptivism went out with the Ark. You simply explain to your children that there are a wide range of accents in the UK, based on both region and class background, and emphasise that what is spoken and what is written can be quite different.

Go read Tony Harrison's Them and [uz]. Think about how much great literature and poetry we would lose if we limited our idea of what is correct and worthy to RP/Standard English! It would be a travesty imo

West Coast

Of Scotland?

It was just a question!! Goodness people are touchy about it. I'm glad my parents corrected me when I started doing it in my wayward youth

No need to be such a snob

Only a prescriptive when it comes to teaching. Children should have same learning outcomes. Some are learning to use glottal stops

@queenmeadhbh many people with an Estuary English accent do not use glottal stops. Also if you are trained in a phonics programme you should be aware of the importance of using them

I would like the teacher to not use glottal stops anymore and stop saying 'let'uh'

I care about that too, but the fact of the matter is, is it's down to accent and dialect. So the kids will grow up speaking like their peers anyway. So it really doesn't matter

Unless they were teaching the children to sound out L-Eh-uh, which you have said they weren’t, YABU.

and you think that just saying ‘stop it’ will stop it?

Eh?

In situations where it’s possible to not be a dickhead I’d not be one.

My children were taught in school that you don't write exactly how you speak due to dialect and accent. Phonetically they would write a word completely different to how it is actually spelt. They just learn what words they can use and what words they can't.

Bit harshly put, but in general a good point. This won't really affect anyone's learning. I think sometimes the fact that teachers are people gets forgotten. It seems many think it is fine to treat them incredibly poorly a lot of the time.

Both of my children ended up with 'how to fit in at school' and 'how to fit in at home' ways of speaking and it was only listening in at bedroom doors that I realised. You do you at home and they soon become multi-lingual.

One of my children had a teacher that didn’t pronounce the ‘t’ in water.
He says water, pronouncing the t as we all do at home and you have far more impact on your child’s speech and development then a teacher holding a phonics lessons for 30 minutes a day.

Yep, and they wil be speaking correctly, just as much as the snotty snob of an OP :)

It's called code switching, and is really common in working class Scotland in particular, can't speak for other parts of the UK but I'm sure it's common all over.

No