difference between French and British way of correcting homework

[iamnotaprincess]

Niece is staying with us who is being educated at a French school. She showed me her school books, FULL of red marks to correct anything from spelling, grammar, etc.

My own ds' school books instead have stickers, smily faces, the teacher does not correct all the errors.

Who is doing it right?

Am not from the UK, so all new to me....

Both kids are 7.

[MathsMadMummy]

yep I do like things that are logical. which English sometimes isn't unfortunately!

[MathsMadMummy]

oh actually yes I do having read the subsequent posts sorry

it was only a couple of years ago (I'm early 20s) that I worked out the rule for using 'who' or 'whom'!

[MathsMadMummy]

tribunalgoer I don't get what you mean!

[ViveLaFrak]

Re: effected/affected

The election was effected by Mumsnet. So the election was carried out by Mumsnet.

The election was affected by Mumsnet. The election was influenced by Mumsnet.

That's an amusing example but there is still a subtle yet important difference between the words! I agree that practise/practice is a bit archaic though.

[civil]

It must depend on the age of a child. If a young child (5 - 6) does a brilliant piece of creative and descriptive writing, working out their spellings from their knowledge of phonics etc. then to correct would be harsh.

As children get older, their spellings probably should be corrected. At 7, well - depends on the child. If they've tried really hard and produced some work that is better than any they've ever done before, then no. If they haven't tried at all, normally spell correctly but put no effort into this piece of work, then correcting is probably appropriate.

However, educational research suggests that children of all ages (secondary included) never read teacher's comments!

My dd in year 1 (year 2 next year ) does lots of descriptive writing and the teacher is keen for them to write a lot and creatively. But she is only just 6 and you can see her spelling of words correctly itself over time.

[ViveLaFrak]

Is it that my explanation is a mathematical formula?

I suppose it is - but as long as the pupil mathsmadmummy gets the objective of the explanation and can presumably apply the rule in future, what does it matter? The majority of my students seem to get the difference with what is essentially targeted trial and error.

Practice/practise is a key example of how children (and adults) often can't sort stuff out for themselves and need to be taught it. That doesn't mean that spelling and grammar needs to come at the expense of creative writing. Firstly they're different subjects and secondly people need to be shown errors with the correction, or encouraged to deduce the correction, in order to learn when they are using language, which is what written expression is at the end of the day.

[ZZZenAgain]

Someone posted: "Spelling and grammar do not need to be taught to a high level surely"

Actually I think the answer is that yes, they do if so many school leavers feel unable to spell and insecure about grammar usuage. That indicates to me they could have done with spending more time on it at school.

We have had so many threads on MN about teachers (bless them I mean no harm) sending home letters, reports, etc with words spelt incorrectly. We hear about this so often. These teachers were obviously not taught spelling and grammar to a high level, how then can they teach it? And so the problem perpetuates itself really.

[MathsMadMummy]

brilliant

[ViveLaFrak]

It's the noun in that phrase.

It comes with experience (noun).
It comes with ice-cream and experience (noun + noun).
It comes with practice and experience (noun + noun).

If you try to substitute the verb it doesn't work.

It comes with scream and experience.

The verb would be used like this:

Practise using grammar and it will come naturally.

[cazzybabs]

clearly this is why I don't correct every spelling.... I think it is supposed to be the verb...you need to practise to get better

[MathsMadMummy]

practise is the verb - scream
practice is the noun - ice cream

that's how we learnt it in school

however looking at the sentence 'it comes with practise and experience' I actually can't figure out whether it's supposed to be the verb or the noun!

guess it's too long since I wrote an essay!

[cazzybabs]

isn't practise the verb?

willing to be wrong.....

[MathsMadMummy]

they won't always sort it out though tribunalgoer, my DSD is a prime example. fantastic at writing stories, very creative but will not get far with it as it stands because of her poor writing skills however I'm following MN advice and may get her a dictaphone so she can get her creative ideas out, and then focus on writing it down with a bit more accuracy.

also correction is about context too I suppose. as you can see my grammar/punctuation is pants on MN, but it's enough to understand what I'm saying (hopefully!) - I don't need to be grammatically perfect on a message board. but throughout my academic career I've been able to produce grammatically perfect essays, and when I'm a teacher one day I'll be able to teach my charges properly (unlike a lot of my DSDs' teachers). that's where it counts.

[RockinSockBunnies]

I care because a PC's spelling and grammar check doesn't pick up an awful lot of errors.
And, sometimes, just sometimes, people actually hand-write things (invites, birthay cards, thank you cards....)

DP is terrible at spelling - I re-did his CV for him, and the spell checker hadn't noted that reading the January addition of a magazine might not help him get a job, whereas if they'd searched an architectural magazine's January edition it might have helped.

[ViveLaFrak]

I think there's a difference between writing, say, a novel where it doesn't matter how many times you have to rewrite and writing a document where you're on a very tight deadline and there simply isn't the time for rewriting. If all your energy is going on spelling and grammar then clearly that deficiency is impeding communication! Good spelling and grammar, or good enough spelling and grammar, should be effortless and that only comes with a lot of practice and correction.

It's also, IMO, dangerous to rely on spell-checkers etc. Last time I checked GCSEs, A-levels and most university exams weren't done using a computer and not only are there points available for spelling, punctuation and grammar but at university level grammatical or orthographical errors could completely change the meaning of a phrase.

Getting thoughts onto paper is a skill which either comes naturally or needs to be learned. A knowledge of grammar needs to be acquired regardless of the facility with which one can articulate/write thoughts.

Now I'm sure the spelling/grammar/whatever of my posts on MN could be improved, but 99% of the time people can understand what I'm trying to put across because it's being done in sufficiently standard English. If my posts weren't in standard English people would probably have to work a lot harder to decipher them, which takes time and effort, which in some industries quite literally is money.

[cazzybabs]

So none of you can spell or have good grammar...

it comes with practise and experience

[IndigoBell]

Bonsoir - Wow! You are absolutely the first creative writer I have every heard saying that getting spelling and grammar right first time is a good thing. It is absolutely irrelevant whether it's right first thing - or after a session with a spell checker.

I don't know how many revisions (probably about 20) I had to do on my book - but it certainly became better with every revision.

[Bonsoir]

"No one could write a novel if they spent all their energy focusing on spelling and grammar. That comes after many many rewrites and edits."

I used to earn my living writing long, creative documents (not novels, but similar process). Very little editing or rewriting was ever necessary - thank goodness, or I wouldn't have earned much!

Getting spelling and grammar right first time round is absolutely essential.