Speech - how to approach nursery about dropped 't's!

[pasteldama]

I am not sure if anyone else is having this problem, and I don't want to seem like a snob or being discriminatory, but I think I might need to raise this with the nursery and I just wondered if anyone had any advice. My son is just over 2 and his speech is developing well. There have been a few staff changes at his nursery over the last couple of weeks, and since then he has started to say "matter", "better", "little", and things like "eat it" all with dropped 't's. We live in south east London so I am under no illusions that he will not pick up the sarf London accent at some stage, but I would prefer that it isn't during the early stages of learning words! None of my family or friends fall into this speech habit so it has to be that he is picking it up at nursery. We are gently correcting him without making an issue of it. I am not saying that I speak the queen's english but surely it isn't unreasonable of me to hope that he is taught the correct letter sounds this early in his development? Up until a couple of weeks ago he was saying these words fine. I am not sure if I should just let it go and make sure that what he hears outside of nursery is emphasised, or whether to speak to his key worker, in which case I am not sure how to broach it without sounding like I am being judgemental. I am really happy with the nursery otherwise - the staff I know are great. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Don't broach it. It will sound judgemental. Don't correct him, you will flustered him. He will pick up all sorts from all his contacts. You can't stop that.

Just keep speaking the way you want him too. He will speak as you do. If he is still doing it at school you can start correcting him. Not while his speech is developing

I wouldn't worry too much - I'm up north and most of DS's nursery nurses had the local accent, as did his nursery teacher when he started school - but DS doesn't. He's 6 now and understands that some people speak with different accents and indeed comments upon it. Work on it at home as you are doing and he'll be fine. (We sometimes would deliberately not understand words until he said them 'correctly' (eg I'm sorry, what did you say you wanted on your bread?, no, still don't know what you want...' etc ) almost making it into a fun game - I don't mind him speaking with an accent when he's with his friends as long as he knows how to pronounce things 'properly' when he wants to)

Agree with Pagwatch. You will sound snobby, and what could they do about it anyway? You can't expect a member of staff who speaks in this way to suddenly be able to change their own accent!

I would not correct him at this age as it's confusing for him and may hinder his speech development.

Just a thought, have you had his ears checked. My child all of a sudden started dropping her t's and I found it very frustrating. In the end a friend told me to check her ears, turned out she had a mild glue ear, doctor said it would drain by its self and in a few months she was back to speaking proper like what I dose. :)

How long is he at nursery for? A good friends DD now 2.5 says 'ta' instead of 'thank you' from the nursery staff. She's 40 hrs a week. Her parents are livid so to speak but have not been able to stop it. I also know American children sounding English due to the Nanny etc. Not sure how you would tackle it to be honest.

It will stop again by school age if you leave it alone. Don't mention it to the nursery - they will just think to themselves you should have got a Mary Poppins nanny instead.

"Just keep speaking the way you want him too. He will speak as you do."

Don't think so! Most kids speak like their friends rather than their parents.

I wouldn't be correcting nursery staff's speech though.

DP is from east London, our CM from West London - they both drop their t's (among other pronnunciation delights). I'm from NZ so I speak "Funny" anyway :)

DD (now 4) also started dropping her 't's and I correct her - I always have done. It's not affected her development in any way (but she is really good with language/vocab etc) - we talk about how people all talk differently, how we shape our mouths to make the hard 't' sounds etc.

DP & CM both make an effort with her too now I've brought their awareness to it. Of course DD will have a London accent, but I am not going to stop encouraging her to speak 'properly' - at least in regards to pronouncing 't's etc. It's caused no confusion at all. I think our nursery is great in this regard - no 't' dropping there AFAIK.

My NZ family thinks DD sounds 'posh' - she doesnt, just English

At 2, you will be his greatest influence. They copy friends at a much older age.

Thanks everyone for your help! I am really happy with the nursery overall so I won't bring it up with them. I was just anxious that it might be harder to correct later and therefore would be better to do it sooner in his development, but I defer to everyone much more experienced in this and will continue to speak as we do and leave it alone. And I wouldn't expect someone to change their own accent, I guess I just thought that you would emphasise letters as they are meant to sound when you are teaching children learning them for the first time.

Really stoprainingplease? You don't think bigger children can flit between how they speak with mates and how they speak at home?
I was always able. I am sure my dc are way more relaxed talking to each other than to their teachers.

oh and she does 'f's instead of 'th' too which I also correct - fink instead of think

What exactly would you gain from the situation? Presumably the staff speak in their own accents, so you'd be stating that you didn't want your child to sound like them. And how would they address it - by correcting the child then carrying on with their own, normal speech? By correcting their own speech? You'd be on very thin ice and would sound like a prig. You can't insulate your child from the local accent.

and haitch!!!! DD & I are having many conversations about 'haitch' which they do say at nursery - I correct her to 'aitch'.

No child of mine ........

If one of DS's teachers did this he would probably pull them for 'glottal stops' (he's 6).
We are raising a min-pedant .

I grew up in Chatham and my parents had the 2p jar for any "finks" and "foughts" so they made sure that I pronounced the TH! I am not against regional accents but the regional accent (and it's where I grew up as well as where I live now) is lazier than most in that it misses out pronouncing letters altogether rather than pronouncing them in another way.

It goes in phases, in my experience. I do correct aitch and haitch because I can't bear it, I just can't, but with issues like glottal stops, which intersect so much with social class in the UK, I think it's important not to cultivate any idea that 'correct' speech is 'superior' and therefore that people who speak 'correctly' are better. You want your son to value and respect the nursery staff, and the only way to do that is to show that you do. Most children, globally, speak two or three languages anyway, so the human brain is well adapted to learn that different contexts require different speech. I'm happy for my kids to fit in at nursery and school, especially if they can also fit in with different speech patterns at home, and not learn to feel disrespect for others based on accent and pronunciation.

Having said that, I do correct our two a bit, as I'm not keen on the local accent in this area (I grew up here, so am allowed to say that .) But I wouldn't dream of raising it with the staff.

My kids may well modify their speech at home, but they don't sound like me - or my DH. They have a local accent. So did I - yes I changed my speech at home, but from a broader local accent at school to less of a broad accent at home, not to my parents' accents.

And the many times I tell DD2 not to say "them books" etc. just seem to go in one ear and out of the other .

I really wouldn't worry. My DD is a similar age and seems to have a range of accents: some pronunciations I can attribute to me/ DH/ nursery, but to my knowledge she doesn't see anyone from New Jersey on a regular basis "outta the do-ah!" . It's very common not to pronounce the 't' sounds in 'better' etc at a young age, IIRC, so he may well grow out of it.

I wonder how many more times I will have to read that my accent is "lazy" before my head just pops off my neck.

It's really quite an offensive thing to say you know?

My children are older and speak differently at school and home. At home I will correct them if they drop t's and use non-words like ain't but at school they speak like they are from Eastenders.

When they tried speaking with no t's at home I pretended that I couldn't understand them. 10 year old ds caught a bit of "Only Fools and Horses" a few weeks ago and spoke in a bad cockney accent for a couple of weeks. That was irritating!

Different viewpoint here.

I had the same thing with DD and, as I've always had a very good relationship with the folks at our lovely nursery, I broached the subject. They completely understood and said they'd listen out to correct it. It seems to have largely stopped now, apart from occasionally when DD puts it on to see my reaction .

Really wasn't a biggie, so ask them if you feel you can do it without being offensive; I didn't make it about the way that they speak (staff have lots of different local and international accents), but was just asking them to look out for DD pronouncing her own words properly.

ShirleyKnottage - I didn't mean to cause offence. I am from Chatham so I am very familiar with the accent across London and the South East, and it's my opinion that it seems lazy to me - I grew up surrounded by it and still am! From a developmental point of view I was asking for opinions because I also wonder later on how much of a leap it is for a child to learn that li-aw (phonetic spelling) is actually L-I-T-T-L-E. The English language is hard enough with all the exceptions to the rule!

Well, my children managed to grasp spelling and basic literacy even with my "lazy" accent! How awful that you would presume that because I speak the way I do that my children must have been somehow more intellectually challenged, simply because I don't always pronounce the "T's" in every word!

Unfortunately OP, you are merely the poster of yet another post about how shudderingly awful the S London accent is, and you've just so happened to get my back right up.

Is the scottish accent lazy? What with all the "dinnae" instead of "Did not"? Or the Yorkshire accent with all their dropped aitches?
Or the flattened vowels of the midlands? Surely they should be using their mouths in a better way so that they sound "normal" (ie: Southern, but "nice" southern, nice and MC Southern though, not horrible WC Southern )