teachers bad grammer!

It may have been just a slip of the tongue if the teaching assistant was not used to addressing a gang of parents/grandparents instead of children and felt a bit nervous. Maybe a quiet letter to the school putting it that way, rather than being too accusing, would alert the headteacher to a possible problem.

it's a sad fact but experienced teachers will recognise this. I've often had to help a student teacher with basic grammar and spelling and feel that the return to teaching basic literacy is to be welcomed. As a teacher, I always emphasised their importance but 'policy' dictated that these topics were to be sidelined. Yet another example of teachers who do take the job seriously and see the education of their charges as higher priority than political correctness and box-ticking!

How would you react when a student teacher 'corrected' some of the children's work by changing 'shining' to 'shinning' because she thought 'You have to double the letter, don't you?' No reason or explanation offered but at least she did sit in on some of the grammar lessons I was teaching to my 10 year-olds. She then told me that apostrophes now made sense.

I guess nursery staff are employed for their child care skills rather than their teaching skills, otherwise they may be working in primary schools. But certainly, given what nurseries charge these days, should this happen again (it may have just been a momentary slip), speak to the manager.

While I was on teaching practice during my training, I watched while an experienced teacher took a spelling lesson. He was putting words derived from "receive" on the board and someone suggested "receptacle" which he wrote up as "recept1cal". I kept quiet in front of the class, but asked him afterwards whether it should not have ended "acle" He agreed and later, in front of the children, told them that I had told him he was wrong, and wrote it up again - as "receptacal"

I kept my mouth diplomatically shut.

Sorry, typo - typed a 1 for an i there. That'll learn me to act superior.

There are two mistakes (three if you're really pedantic) in the title of this thread so I think it's a spoof.

LOL, well spotted ! Something about glasshouses & stones comes to mind.

If a nursery teacher had told me about 'learning' the children, I would not have been able to stop myself from saying "Don't you mean 'teaching"?

Grammar is a problem for many people. I remember when I was doing my German and French undergraduate degree as an older student, and I often had to explain points of grammar to fellow undergraduates. Many young people have simply not been taught, and no-one has ever corrected them when they get it wrong. So they live in a fools' paradise, until one day they have to speak in front of other people in a professional setting.

Disaster!

I am not defending bad grammar and spelling, but a teaching assistant in a nursery is not a teacher. It varies, but some TAs and nursery assistants are employed on a very low wage and have only limited training. I would also add that the use of "learning" for "teaching" is very common in some regional dialects even though it isn't correct.
Of course many TAs are highly skilled and make a wonderful job of supporting the teaching of literacy in schools.
I think a little restraint and common sense are called for here.

baggy - I regarded the 'mistakes' as ironic and a way of flagging up some of the most common mistakes. That doesn't mean that the comment is a 'spoof'.

That's true.

I can confirm this is NOT a spoof and that I am not suggesting I am above making mistakes myself, however this was a mistake by a trained professional.
someone who is going to be active in the teaching of children!

What kind of nursery is it? Is it a nursery school? Attached to a a school but not part of it? A privately run (for profit) nursery? This makes a difference to how well the adults in charge must be trained.

this is nursery SCHOOL baggy hence why I was so surprised and upset at the standard of spoken english, it is a regional variation around here however I would expect teachers to be aware of that and correct themselves. replying to an earlier remark... I was willing to forgive one slip of the tongue and put it down to nervousness but twice I was reluctant to overlook!

If it is a regional variation, that explains it. It means that although it's what Chambers calls a 'now non-standard' usage, it isn't wrong. Language is for communication; if people know what is meant and there is no confusion, it has served its purpose, dare I say 'correctly'. Where I live there are lots of non-standard words and phrases in common usage, not to mention accents. I love them and I think it's just snobbish to want everyone to be the same. Pedantry about written grammar is one thing, but pedantry about regional variations in speech is, well, snobbery. Sorry if that seems a bit blunt. I do not mean to offend, just to speak truth. I hope you will allow for that.

As per my earlier post Grandmagaain - was it a teacher or a teaching assistant? There is a big difference.

Mamie it was the teaching asisstant who was leading the welcome sessions for parents etc and who will be actively involved with teaching the children.
baggy
I do not accept it is snobbery to expect children to be taught correct use of english.

I agree, grandmaagain, that it is not snobbery to expect that children should be taught the correct use of English. I didn't say it was. I said it was snobbery not to accept, be tolerant of, enjoy (even!) regional variations of usage which, while defined in certain places as 'non-standard', are not incorrect. Non-standard means non-standard; it doesn't mean incorrect.

A further small point is that in the situation you describe, if I have understood it correctly, the person speaking was (a) not a teacher and (b) not teaching.

I'm actually very fussy about both correct grammar and clear articulation and always corrected my own kids if they spoke incorrectly or in a slovenly manner. I don't call using regional diction (which is what's being talked about in your example) bad grammar.

The point of all this is, surely, that if we do not get the basics of correctly spoken English and good grammar across to children from an early age, bad habits will set in. I am extremely fussy about correct use of the language and I like to think it is reflected in the way both of my now adult children write and speak. Standards in some areas, however, are appalling. We are currently in the process of selling our house and the standards of written English among estate agents, as evidenced in their details, leaves one close to tears. Assuming that someone, somewhere, is supposed to be proof-reading the stuff they put out, then either they haven't got a clue about spelling, punctuation and syntax or they just don't care. If they haven't got a clue, then it is due to the fact that they are leaving school and going into employment not having been taught to use the language properly. I would hate to think they are being taught by people who don't have a clue! Sorry to sound pompous but this is a huge bugbear with me. I feel that our language is going to hell on a handcart!

It's horrible to read stuff about your house that is badly written but I suspect that until the sloppy language some of them use prevents estate agents from selling houses, then they won't care. They probably use a lot of jargon phrases too.

I think the language at its best is quite safe. There are plenty of really good writers of English in the world. Plenty of bad ones too but I expect there always were.

Why does everyone use the word impossible, when what they really mean is "difficult"?

Have you seen Shakespeare's erratic spelling? He even spelled his own name differently at different times. And the man had the cheek to invent words too.

We once had estate agent's particulars of a house that had, apparently, 'defused' lighting which I thought slightly worrying!

Shakespeare was a pedant compared to Chaucer.