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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

tribunalgoer I don't get what you mean!

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'!

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