Year 2 teacher had to be corrected on pronunciation of Pepys

[CheshireSplat]

Interested to hear opinions on this.

DD's class are doing the great fire of London and their teacher was talking about the diary of Samuel "Peppis". DD's friend told him it was Peeps in the inimitable style of a 6 year old.

Should I be worried. New teacher to the school. I don't tend to interfere but I would've thought that was pretty general knowledge.

Then when he gave them times tables he did 2 x 1, 2 x 2, 2 x 3 etc which is the wrong way round.....

Happy to be told to wind my neck in!

When I was at school in the olden days (1970s) Pepys was pronounced Keepers but ofcourss, in those days Uranus was called pronounced "your anus". 😉 What did we know?

They mostly teach multiplication with grids here. The equivalence of 34 and 43 is very much built in from the start before they even think about learning times tables.

I think their reason for saying it as 3*4 = three, four times not three lots of four is that their next step in teaching multiplication is e.g.
36
x 4
__

Which everyone as far as I've seen writes with the big number on top (so first) and I think people do tend to think of as 4 lots of 36. Of course in school they start off by doing it with tens and units blocks. Counting out four lots of 3 tens and 6 units is more helpful than 36 lots of 4 units!

Oh....how I hate autocorrect. I meant Peepees!

I was a bit baffled when my oldest started telling me about Boudicca. Then she explained, icini tribe, etc. I'm sure she used to be called 'bow-da-seea' ! I'm old too!

Onto, the fact is, they learn the times tables different way in different counties. End results are the same, as long as they understand the concept. Neither is wrong.

I’m old too. I’m sure she was boa de seer. I wonder if anyone knows?!

Fortunately I’m not a teacher so I can go around mispronouncing historical names all I want and nobody questions my ability to do my job.

Yes I'd be concerned that a teacher can't pronounce Pepys

& the times tables in the order he's teaching, are far harder for children to retain. 1x2, 2x2, 3x2 etc is how it should be.

I mean you don't even have to be a teacher to know these things

Rather OTT reaction, Persis , I thought. I did say in my OP that I was happy to be told to wind my neck in. Oh, and then I said that DD was happy which is the most important thing. So no sign of "horror". Amd "precocious", FFS. 6 year olds don't have a filter. You've really pissed me off actually. I'm came on here to gauge if it was serious, I haven't mentioned it to the school, the teacher will never know.

Thanks everyone about the timestables. V interesting, though I'm none the wiser!

I remember somebody laughing at me when I was 22 because I said peppis street. I wasn't impressed.

You also don’t get taught to pronounce random names in teacher training

Ever mispronounced Glamis, Magdalen, Strathaven, Milngavie or bruschetta?

Ha, I had an experience of me correcting my ds how to pronounce the name in my native language in one of the books my ds was reading at school. My ds said to the teacher, " My mum said it's pronounced xx", but teacher ignored it, and carried on pronouncing it wrong whole term they were reading it. Not a big deal. I hardly have anyone pronounce my name right either.

I teach all sorts, including ancient Greek, that I have only learned from books. It's not difficult to look up pronunciation on the internet. I wouldn't have a clue without looking some of it up; a teacher should probably have the skill of looking things up on youtube.

That Scottish method is identical to the one taught in most countries of continental Europe. It's absolutely not "wrong"

Ever mispronounced Glamis, Magdalen, Strathaven, Milngavie or bruschetta?

Or the US state of Maryland?

I didn’t mean to upset you Cheshire, I’m sorry. But honestly, it’s the most ridiculous thing. And I don’t think precocious is an unreasonable adjective in the situation.

Presumably he didn’t know he was pronouncing it wrong, or he would have checked. Presumably he thought that peppis was correct. That’s why he didn’t check on YouTube. There’s also the remote possibility that he might have other things to do in his free time than obsessively check the pronunciation of all the words he might use the next day. You know, eat, sleep, see his family.

But if you think it does reflect an inability to adequately educate your little one then why not ask for a meeting with the head and raise it?

poor teacher

gosh it is a tough job

if it is not a private school they may have up to 32 children in their class

i remember the 6am starts
staying in school until 7/8pm
working every weekend
it is not an easy job

go easy on teachers - please
especially if they are trying their best and have the best intentions

In Japan, we do 2 x 1, 2 x 2, 2 x 3, .....

We also distinguish between, say 3 x 6 vs 6 x 3. 3 x 6 means six plates with three cakes on each of them, and 6 x 3 means three plates with six cakes on each of them. So if you are presented with a word problem and you have to read it out and then write the sum that you will use before solving it, you have to get the choice of sum right in order to get full marks.

So I don't think the order matters, in and of itself--it varies by country.

What I do think matters is consistency throughout the whole school (a bit like handwriting). If the kids get taught one chant and then have to switch to a different one next year, it is going to slow them down and cause unnecessary muddle. I would go to the school and ask them to clarify what the whole school policy is. Times tables should have an integrated framework where the kids learn one chant and use it from Y1 to Y6, not a random hodgepodge where they learn one thing one year and another thing another year. Frankly, this is one of the situations where I feel like English schools would do better if they used state-standardized textbooks like most other countries seem to do (but that is another thread).

I don't think mispronouncing a word in a conversation is the end of the world (at least it shows that the person reads). But if I was going to lead a unit on a topic, I would check out the pronunciation of any words that had tricky spellings and ambiguous pronunciations--it only takes a second to go on YouTube and find a video about Samuel Pepys. I would mention this to the teacher.

"I think we are very lucky to have such excellent, free education. I think if you are worried about the poor influence this teacher is having on your child you should probably home school."
I'm all for supporting teachers even if they make a small mistake but this is not an obscure part of an obscure topic.
All year 2 children do it as a main topic during the year. It's not hard to check. I'd wonder what else they weren't checking.
Don't see how this is too much to expect.
As I said below, I wouldn't let the child know I felt like this about the teacher but I wouldn't think as positively about that teacher.
Hope this teacher doesn't have the same approach to children's names - can't be bothered to correct a pronunciation mistake.

Is 6x3 '6 groups of 3' or '6s in 3 groups' or is it both?
6x3 = 3x6 = 18
It is only once you add language into the equation that the meaning gets blurred. Think of it as Schrodinger's cakes - it's only when you open the box that you discover if there are 6 cakes on 3 trays or 6 trays with 3 cakes on each.

Learning 3x6 = 18 and then 6x3 = 18 is not an unnecessary muddle and is crucial to actually understanding multiplication. Learning times tables as a chant without actually understanding what they mean is the biggest waste of time going! Understanding commutativity means you have far fewer times tables facts to learn!

Another Scot taught times tables that way too. Also didn’t learn about Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London, we did Scottish history.

I can’t see the fuss tbh, mispronunciation happens a lot.

I’m unimpressed with people suggesting teachers aren’t very clever. I assume you’re happy to let them educate your children?

DDs teacher the other day was explaining that the way they teach phonics is complicated because of our accent, and she’s right.

Had to laugh at the Glamis, Milngavie, Strathaven comment, I do wonder if you could pronounce all of those OP? Also Bellshill while we’re on about awkward pronunciations.

There’s something all of us would struggle to pronounce I’d imagine. For example, I can manage Scots and Irish Gaelic by reading and sounding out, but I wouldn’t have a scooby where to start with Welsh (why doesn’t Welsh auto capitalise?).

The fact that cue has been mistaken for queue in the post about a journalist made me twitch though.

The way the teacher in the op is doing times tables is the way I learned too. It’s not wrong and actually it’s the way most children across the world other than about 2/3 of England actually learn.

I can also pronounce the words above. However, I’m flummoxed at Maryland. It’s not like Arkansas. I’ve visited there and it was pronounced exactly as I’d expect coming out only at Merryland due to US pronunciation of Mary. How should I pronounce it?

Unless you mean it to sound like Merrylin? Which is more to do with accent than pronounciation. It’s hardly Belvoir!

@KeithLeMonde that’s a great way of looking at pronounciation snobbery, turns it completely on its head. I really love MN some days, just a single line of wisdom that can completely change how you view other people; to thinking poorly about someone into thinking positively about them. Thank you

I don't look down on an ordinary person in an ordinary situation making a pronunciation error. This isn't that.