to be shocked that my friend's nursery staff have been sent to elocution lessons?

[deaconblue]

She and other mothers have apparently complained that their children are not speaking "properly" and so the nursery have sent the nursery nurses to elocution lessons. Am amazed first of all that the parents have complained and secondly that the nursery hasn't just dismissed it as snobbishness.

My father was a very pedantic man and we were raised to a very high expectation of how the language should be spoken. So yes, I speak my first language very well.

However, I didn't notice how important those language skills were until I moved to this country and started speaking in another language, as a person who is not especially talented with languages, I still have plenty of grammatical and pronunciation problems.

The amount of missed opportunities, the way that people stereotype you (negatively) as soon as you open your mouth, etc. So yes... I might be a bit pedantic but knowing the bad time I have had, the correct use of the language by the staff was in my checklist when I was looking for a nursery or DS's first school.

I would not only welcome that staff, that spend most of the day with my child, attended elocution lessons.... I would be joining myself...

nowt wrong with a dialect

'we're having us teas' follows grammatical rules - just not the same as 'standard' English (ie middle class middle england). they are not making grammatical errors - just not using a certain form of English that is considered 'high prestige' - which is why the, no doubt, rich parents are going mad!

on the plus side and to labour my earlier point, when their kids grow up they will be able to pretend to be working class and make lots of money as famous pop stars

I used to be (jokingly) threatened with this as a child- I thought it meant electrocution...

Personally I'd rather the staff were sent on training courses related to childcare than elocution lessons - unless of course they were in their own time, not the nursery's. I think the nursery must have a lot of extra cash sloshing around to be able to do this.

Seems I'm in a minority tho. I find it quite funny when my DD comes back saying 'naaaaahhh' in a broad Essex accent.

DS' daily report card comes home with countless spelling mistakes on it (but DH's spelling is no better to be honest).

The thing that really grates is that DS is called Feo by a few of the girls - they seem incapable of pronouncing Th at the start of a word (south London dialect or not, it's bloody annoying!).

The f/th thing really annoys me too Norky. I teach yr 2 and we work incredibly hard to teach the children to say th. For some of them, they simply have never heard it before in words.

Riven I have an Essex accent (not a "proper accent" ????)

And I went to Oxford

Sorry, the ?? was in response to Seabright's assertion that Estuary English isn't an accent.

there is a TA at my dd's school, she helps children with speach delays, they do one ot one with her and read from flash cards and learn to prounounce
I mean she shows 'em cards an' they learn ta pra nance them.
It's laughable.

what a snobtastic thread

Children don't learn correct pronunciation, a mastery of grammary and a wide vocabulary from people who themselves do not have these skills.

YABU.

It isn't snobtastic to want children to use their language correctly- once they know the correct usage they can mangle and play with it as much as they want.
I imagine most children speak completely differently at school amongst their friends compared with how they speak in the home with their parents- we certainly did 30 years ago.

grammar

Grammary- a silo used to store words....

. I think it's snobtastic, I think it's useful to be exposed to a range of accents and styles of speech. The staff would be better off sent on training courses to help them help kids to develop language in general.

Why am I so shocked? Everyone says regional accents are fine but dropping certain letters like T from water isn't OK. I'm a cockney and drop my T's, so is every regional accent OK apart from cockney OK then? And actually there are people from poor parts of London who don't have time to worry about speaking properly, because they're struggling to get through life. If there are prejudices surrounding how people talk then it's the prejudiced who need to change. And yes I'll be ripped apart and told I sound thick as has happened on similar threads, but before the stereotypes start I'm actually university educated, as well as working class.

All accents are not equal in the RL, however...

If you can't speak and pronounce words correctly then it will become frustrating when people don't understand what you are saying.

I don't always understand what people are asking me for when dealing with some of the public - they can't talk properly - it makes my life difficult for about 5 minutes, there life is made difficult all the time through frustration of not getting through what they want due to lack of being able to talk properly. Nothing to do with accent.

My dd speaks 3 dialects, southern (because DH and I are from the south), baby talk, and Yorkshire. She loves consciously slipping from one to the other. Am convinced she's going to be a very talented linguist one day

Thank god I don't work there to be honest I would be thoroughly p'd off to be told that I need to go and learn to speak properly - I may not speak like the queen but I do think I speak properly and don't often resort to motherese or other such nonsense when speaking to a child.

I am a nursery nurse/nanny by the way.