Grammar and spelling

I'm a " scream at the radio and TV" person. Haitch is my pet hate, followed closely by conflab. The word is CONFABULATION, but it's used by supposedly educated people on the BBC.

I came into teaching in my mid 40s after working in law in the City of London. Fourteen years on I am still amazed how unworldly our teachers are and how poor their grammar and vocabulary understanding is. Recently I was in a classroom of Year 9s where a student teacher was introducing a new text to the class. She came to the word 'municipal' - not only could she not read/pronounce it but she did not know what it meant! If this teacher had not experienced this level of vocabulary, how could she expect to teach it with conviction?!!

We are expecting our children to take GCSEs but sadly, some do not have the basic level of spelling, grammar, punctuation or word power they need to scrape through, let alone get good grades. Every primary school should teach basic English and Maths properly. No child should get to Year 7 without understanding the rules of basic punctuation or their times tables! Letting a pupil leave primary without being able to read is outrageous neglect!

Every subject on the curriculum springs from English and/or Maths so lets do it properly. Let's leave behind all extraneous subjects e.g. Business Studies, PHSE and concentrate on getting the basics in place so our children excel at their studies. Don't get me started on apostrophes!!!

I love teaching and building confidence in my pupils but I really worry about them too.

Jane43 you said "The use is ‘yourself’ or ‘myself’ instead of ‘you’ or ‘me/I."
Oh thank you for reminding me! It's always someone trying to sound pompous and pulling rank in my experience. They sound so stupid! I don't know why, but this really grates on me! I have even asked a quite nice young person not to do it if he wouldn't mind. I made a joke about it as I didn't want to embarrass him. Usually, though, it's men who really think they are the bee's knees yet are so ignorant!

I remember going to parents' evening when DS was about 8. I picked up his spelling book and found only two words in it, one was seceratary and I can't remember the other one but it was also wrong. I bought him a dictionary, showed him how to use it and told him if he got stuck to ask me instead of the teacher. In all other respects we thought he was a good teacher.

Another DS and another teacher - while waiting to talk to her we looked around the classroom and noticed on a map that she had written in the names of the oceans. We did tell her that it was not the Artic ocean and she was very happy that we had pointed it out. Not sure all teachers were that approachable.

Hilly60 I can't tell you how my heart goes out to you! I am so glad you are there in the classroom. I was scared when I wrote about the enormous breadth of the caliber of teachers in case some teachers took offence. I saw so many wonderful and inspiring teachers. The problem was they were getting burnt out trying to carry the load because the other teachers simply could not pull their weight.

Good luck in your teaching. Please keep going. Just having a year with one good teacher stays with a pupil all their life. For all you know your expertise and attitudes may rub off on some of the lesser mortals in the profession and particularly on the student-teachers.

If you don't think I'm being a bit above myself, indeed I say this very humbly, may I thank you for carrying on when you can see so much that is not perfect? I know how hard you work. Thank you for all those children you have affected so beneficially and will affect in future. You do make a difference.

Nonnie I am sympathetic to "black/white board mistakes" including the type on the map one you saw, because I know sometimes teachers make them when creating posters, writing on the board etc. and are often talking at the same time.

I explained earlier, I was asked to go to different schools regarding the National Curriculum.

In a Reception classroom one morning, I was rather impressed when a little boy asked me to write "draught" for him on his spelling book.

Later, the Teacher showed me his "News"...
"I went to the Zoo. I saw a monkey a draught a lion..."

And 'Thour throgs?'

OP said "there are many people for whom English is not their first language" I simply have to say this, then I'll stop with my anecdotes!

While going round schools, some of the highest standards in written English, in handwriting, spelling, grammar and content were in schools with Asian children. In particular there was one school in a very run down area where there was frequent serious crime.

I never forgot reading these children's reports of their visits to Bangladesh. There were no mistakes, the writing was beautiful, the descriptions were very interesting and the pieces were very long. I told them I was extremely impressed and asked why they were so good. They looked puzzled! For them, aiming to do do well was normal. None of the children spoke English at home with their family.

If John Torode says 'tumeric' one more time I will throw something at the television. It's 'tuRmeric'. You would think a chef would know better. Grrrrr

bRought is the past of bRing
bought is the past of buy
The R (or lack of it) is a good way to remember.

Thank you. I shall remember that.

Liz08, I agree with you about 'gotten' in standard English - it is wrong, and an Americanism. However, in some British dialects, including in the North-East of Scotland (and I think in the South-West of England?), 'gotten' has never gone away, and is still used frequently.

I find the use of 'loose' instead of 'lose' very annoying. It appears depressingly frequently in medical notes and also pops up on threads about weight loss, as in "How can I loose the weight I've just put on with the Easter eggs?" Aaargh! Just think about how these words sound!!

I read so many post on Facebook that I have begus to doubt my own spelling. People use aloud instead of allowed sat instead of sitting and I saw someone wanted advice about a Ginnie Pig .

I`d never dream of correcting anyone`s spelling or grammar, but it always makes me smile when I see caravans advertised for sale as 3 or 4 birth, rather than berth. I picture these caravans as having been use for thed births of many babies, lol!

I belong to a book group the general IQ of which is stratospheric. Can they write decent English? Only one of them ( apart from stupid, boring old English teacher me). Why? Why can’t people spell, punctuate, write correct agreeable English and not write, ‘ Can I get?’?

Boom.

That is the sound of me exploding.

Its wrong to blame the teaching. You can find some children can do it and others in the same group of children with the same teacher at the same school just don't get it or forget quickly. Some people find it comes naturally and others think it is incredibly complicated. Just as I find maths difficult but it comes naturally to DH and my son. But DH finds spelling difficult even though highly educated. He's pretty hot on grammar and punctuation though.

Does it really matter though? OK, I'll qualify that: does it really matter enough to get as angry as many of the posters on this thread seem to be?
Surely the main, or should I say 'the sole' purpose of language is communication. If someone writes "I should of" I'm positive anyone reading it will understand what they mean. So they have achieved their aim: they've communicated something and their audience has read and understood the communication. I think people need to take a deep breath and let these little transgressions go. I'm sure they'll feel a lot better for it

I'm glad you've brung this to peoples attention.

This is a grammar & spelling thread Bathsheba therefore it follows we feel strongly about it.

Here’s a good one:
“ You does cake icing very nice! Will you learn me how to do it?”
My daughter’s friend asked her this. She’s a lovely girl, but has suffered what you might call ‘educational disadvantages’.
I have the feeling that she’s a bright lass, and feel sorry that she’s been prevented from reaching her potential.
Anyway, my daughter did learn her how to do cake icing. She picked it up very quickly, and now does it real nice!

And if I read another 'bored of' instead of 'bored with' I won't be accountable for my actions!

However, 8 year olds now have to identify and use frontal adverbials. Sadly, I have no idea what this means! ?

I wonder how many of them can identify and use fronted adverbials by the time they're teenagers!

'Gotten' is not an Americanism. It crossed the Atlantic with the colonists and has not died out there as it has in Britain, although we still have the form in forgotten and begotten. American English is English. The two forms diverged before dictionaries standardised the language, but with the merging of the cultures through cinema and other media, the two forms are tending to re-merge. I understand that the same thing happened with Spanish and I wonder how the speakers of 'pure' Castilian Spanish look on the language of the erstwhile colonies in South America.

This is a grammar & spelling thread Bathsheba therefore it follows we feel strongly about it.
True Sodapop. However it's in the Chat forum rather than Pedants' Corner, and therefore it follows that we can just chat about it without feeling strongly if we wish