Advice Needed - Any Teachers on here ?

[argeybargey]

(I posted this in Relationships by accident so am posting this again here. All advice appreciated;Thankyou in advance)

I need some advice how to handle this.
Dd1 goes to a state primary that is very good in many ways that I consider to be important (including pastoral care).(Also Estyn (Welsh equivalent of Ofsted)grade 1's across the board.

However, lately Dd1 has started using speech patterns that we do not use at home. Most notably 'I've give' 'I've took' 'I've broke' and 'I've chose'

Two teachers that I know (one teaches at the school on supply and has taught my daughter in past)and one who doesn't (but who I mention in this as I am wondering if she is typical of teachers nowadays?)speak in this way. Also many of the classroom assistants and probably some of her little school friends do also.

I worry that dd1 is going to struggle later on if she is getting such mixed messages as to what is correct. I do correct her (which I don't enjoy doing)and I am getting quite angry about the situation(for her,not at)as she says 'but my teacher says it like that'- in her head it must be right if her teacher says it that way, and she is getting confused that I am saying no, actually, this is the right way.

I just don't know what to do. I don't want to hurt the feelings of the classroom assistants (who my daughter adores); if I say anything I will just come across like a raging snob. Yet I worry about the implications not just for learning sentence construction/grammar later on but also if she wants to go into certain careers... or is it normal now not to correct bad grammar at school ? I would appreciate any help on this please ; I know that it is a sensitive issue, how people speak, and I do not wish to offend anybody reading this as this is certainly not my intention

She will learn to code switch as she gets older, if you continue to use standard English at home and correct her.
We lived Oop North until my DD was 6. Due to having a househusband with Oxbridge English as well as a mother who was less posh but grammatically accurate, that's how she spoke at home, and at nursery.
By the time she went to school, she'd learnt to speak with a strong Lancashire accent including grammar and pronunciation differences. She swapped over without any prompting from one to another, depending on to whom she was talking.
We never said or implied that one was better than another, just different. Snobbery wouldn't have helped her learn at school, or given her friends. She'd have been disliked by the staff and beaten up by the children.
OH had enough trouble himself speaking posh, and he couldn't adapt his accent either.
We're now South again, she code switches between teenspeak, normal and posh as the situation demands.

I agree that children readily switch between the speech of the playground and more formal speech but I think to write well thy need to be aware of standard spoken English and the teacher should really use grammatically correct English. I recently worked in an inner city Northern school where all the children had English as an additional language and in order to help them in school we had a whole school drive on good speaking skills including the staff. So whilst dialect is important, it doesn't help children if the teacher is using incorrect grammar.

I used to teach in a school where the staff mostly spoke broad Lancashire.
One of the people who caused my lovely DH grief was the deputy head who always assumed that he was an arrogant snob. She wasn't alone, but she was the worst and very vocal and childish about it.
We were not allowed to correct spoken language, but they did attempt to teach correct written forms.
Not good in my opinion, but adults can be incredibly defensive about their own language and hostile to any attempt to standardise oral speech.

My children have always been completely tri lingual - "posh English" at home, Yourkshire with the cousins and Estuarine Kentish at school. Never been a problem. Don't correct her, just modela different way of speaking at hime. She'll sort it out as she gets older, I promise.

I'm afraid you do sound a little snobby... BUT I completely understand your concern. I certainly don't speak perfectly but as someone who shudders when people say 'bored of' instead of 'bored with', drop their Ts etc, I really do sympathise.

But it's not worth getting hung up about this, I think it could send out quite a nasty message to your DD actually - that you should look down on people who talk less than perfectly (not saying that's how you feel, but it would easily come across this way).

You could get a teacher/assistant who talks 'common' but is absolutely brilliant, approachable and intelligent, or you could get a perfectly spoken one who is in every other way a rubbish teacher - which would you rather?

I would just carry on gently correcting the mistakes but don't make a big deal out of it. Keep modelling the correct version. She will learn eventually.

Also IMO (and IME!) it's actually quite a valuable skill to be able to differentiate your speech (and later your writing style) according to what situation you're in - street slang with your mates, formal for an interview etc.

HTH :)

We have playground voices and classroom voices and even the youngest children understand that the way we speak with friends isn't the way we talk in school. I've only ever worked with one LSA who's grammar made me squirm to the point our Deputy Head wouldn't have her in literacy lessons

ooh. why were you squirming? how bad must it be?!

love the term 'classroom/playground voices' do you explicitly refer to them as such?

We have a talking voice,for use in the playground and with friends, and a writing voice for use with me and in writing, using the former I can cope with colloquialisms and "slang" ( although double negatives drive me spare and I worked hard last year to eradicate them, I also hate "could of and would of!) In written work I expect correct grammar and sentence construction ( unless the style of writing -eg speech-demands alternatives!)

She would say things like "where did yous went?" and " I done it"

Sorry I am not a welsh speaker but I just wonder whether this is an issue relating to the bi-lingual nature of welsh education. Could it be something to do with the translation of welsh to english? How welsh is your school or is one that only does the minimum required in welsh.

Hello, both my husband and I speak reasonably nicely and with reasonably grammatical accuracy, but we have also noticed that since ds started school last year his speech has changed depending on the group he is with. In fact, it makes us both laugh. He heard his local friend playing outside yesterday, opened the front door and shouted "Come 'ere, will ya"......

Occasionally he makes the odd slip "Will ya put me chain back on me bike mum", but on the whole he's eloquent and articulate at home, and only starts mimmicking others when he's in their company. I think it's normal, I work in a private school and speak far more nicely there than I do if I'm speaking to a neighbour.

Helen xxx

I would not be happy at all about it

I just picked this thread back up . . admission, it is not a Welsh medium school; my dd's school is English medium.

AgebraRocksMySocks - I so agree with what you say. I do really worry about sending dd a negative message about people being different.It also goes against what I tell her and try to teach her,namely that we are all equal. I don't actively judge people at all on basis of how they speak so it is strange for me that it bothers me so much ! I am wondering if perhaps this is something that is ingrained from how my mum was about us having to speak properly.

Also, I adore accents ! It is just the whole grammar thing that I get my knickers in a twist over. I'd hate it if dd got left out at school or was bullied because of how she speaks yet i'd rather she modified it of course than be bullied. I remember doing this modifying myself at school because people called me posh (we sooo weren't):( It makes me quite angry that she should have to change herself to avoid getting bullied though - home edding would have been so much simpler ...

There is a thread running on the TES primary forum at the moment debating whether children's speech should be corrected.