teachers bad grammer!

Shakespeare? Chaucer? They had so much freedom with the language and were able to mould it to their purposes. What a blessing they lived and wrote before dictionaries froze English into its present forms. Thank you, Dr Johnson.

One of the revelations of Gransnet has been being able to read all the well-written, grammatical, correctly spelt and properly thought out contributions of members. I obviously do not agree with everything I read but contributors have so obviously thought about what they want to say before they wrote it.

On so many sites I have looked at before too many contributions were incoherent and devoid of grammar, spelling and thought.

A function of our age, experience and old-fashioned education.

I was appalled when I heard a teacher at my grand-children's prep school 'correcting' their English.

Grandson: He gave it to James and me.
Teacher: No, we say 'He gave it to James and I'.
I believe this is known as 'the knob's pronoun'. I wanted to say to her 'Would you say 'he gave it to I'? but I did not want to embarrass my grandson. Needless to say, the children were soon removed from the school.

I wouldn't have held back on the "embarrassing" front. I hear it so often on radio and TV from people who clearly should know better - it's almost like an over-compensation in case they don't sound "proper" enough.
"Between you and I" is another common example along with singular/plural verbs with plural/singuar subjects e.g." This kind of things make me angry" (These kinds of thing make me angry/This kind of thing makes me angry etc etc)
Could this presage The Pedants' Revolt?

Many, many people must have been 'ticked off' for saying, 'Me and my ......... did this or that'. They perhaps think that they have more chance of getting it right if they always use 'I' instead of me. There's also the misconception that it sounds 'nicer' or more polite. The idea has been reinforced by incorrect usage on tv.
I agree about the sing/plural subject and verb problem too. How often do we hear 'There's many answers to that question' ....or similar. I'll head off back to Pedants' Corner - haven't visited for a while!!

Yes, but spelling hadn't been standardised by Chaucer and Shakespeare's time. And Chaucer's English was the English of the common people, and had scarcely been written down before.

Language is a dynamic system, always changing and growing. However, we need to speak and write as accurately as possible to be best understood, and transposing "teaching" and "learning" does not help.

A TA is not a trained teacher, as has been pointed out, though heaven only knows where we'd be without them.

Nevertheless, I am pedant enough to wince at poor grammar, mispronunciation (not regional accents!) and, of course, the ubiquitous apostrophe ( but we've been there.)

I would never correct anyone's spelling on a forum, but I have noticed that some words seem to give difficulty to many people - one example is 'loose' for 'lose'.
The other forums I use are specifically for ex-pats in France, so the membership does tend to be more mixed than the erudite ladies on this forum, both as to age and education.
I remember having to parse and analyse sentences. Did it do me any good? Well, it did make me understand how a sentence is constructed and I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I have a very logical mind. I certainly would never have said 'should of' instead of 'should have' because I knew about auxiliary verbs!

I once showed a class of very bright 15 year olds how we used to parse, and they loved it, most of them, anyway. I think they liked something in English lessons that was either right or wrong!

Its all about education and the fear in England at the moment that education could, might be hard work. When I taught German for Stockport (Further education for adults) I was told by the principal not to teach grammar! Just conversation. I had to ignore her of course. A language even conversation, consists of grammatical structures. You don't have to over emphasise but to know what a noun and a verb is, is helpful.
8 yr olds learn grammar in German schools. They learn how sentences are constructed, verbs, nouns, and the difference between an adverb and an adjective.
A language does develop with time and English is now a world language and in some countries unrecognisable. But all these forms of English will have some basic structures which remain stable.
What is so annoying is the misuse of words just for effect, and when you've heard them a thousand times, there are only the gransnetters left to complain.

What most annoys me about the BBC is the misuse of the Passive tense,
They start a news item with
A man is killed in .......... This is the passive tense as the man has not killed himself and when told after the event should be
'A man has been killed ..... '
As foreign students of English, would lose marks for not using the Passive Tense correctly I feel it is a bit unfair. The Cambridge Cerificate of English which is the standard expected from foreign students, is so difficult that most young Brits woud not pass it. However they would get a D,E or F, mark and the poor foreigner would fail. No sympathy there.

I think you have to understand grammar in order use your language properly. Of course, everyone can get by without that understanding, just like you can drive a car without understanding what goes on under the bonnet. But when problems arise, you really do need to have some idea about how the whole thing works.

When you consistently get it wrong, when your use of English shows you have no idea how your own language works, then you lose some degree of credibility. You might not realise it, but it could be why you didn't get that job, or why you failed to impress that person etc.

For instance, Greatnan posted:-

^I was appalled when I heard a teacher at my grand-children's prep school 'correcting' their English.

Grandson: He gave it to James and me.
Teacher: No, we say 'He gave it to James and I'.
I believe this is known as 'the knob's pronoun'. I wanted to say to her 'Would you say 'he gave it to I'? but I did not want to embarrass my grandson. Needless to say, the children were soon removed from the school.^

A school lost some pupils here. Did they know why? (I do hope you told them, Greatnan, not that it would make much difference, I suspect)

Making life to easy for our children at school by not expecting high standards is doing them a great disservice. It is unforgivable. Allowing ignorant people to teach or influence our children is appalling.

This is not being pedantic. It is wanting the best education for our children, to give them the best start in life. Why would anyone want to compromise that?

Sorry - knowing grammar never prevents typos! 10th word of first row should be 'to'.

Children in the UK also learn grammar from the beginning of Primary School, Maggie. The National Literacy Strategy has had very clear guidelines about what must be taught in each year group. In my professional life I have observed many excellent lessons in schools and now I am retired I can see my grandchildren in England working through the programmes and spending a lot of time on homework for grammar and spelling.
I can't say that I have seen any evidence of anyone in schools thinking that education should not be hard work and I think it is a bit unfair to blame schools because BBC announcers use the passive tense. I would also be interested to see the evidence that says that young English people would fail the Cambridge exams, although clearly exams for a first language are not the same as those for a second one. I am sure someone will be along shortly to say that employers think that standards of English are very low for school leavers, but to be honest employers have been saying that throughout all the years I have worked in education and probably for a couple of hundred years before that.
Wouldn't it be nice to hear some positive views of our schools and our children for a change?

Yes, * mamie*, it would. The moans never stop, do they? There are twenty years between my oldest and my youngest child so I saw lots of changes in schools. What stayed constant though, at least in my experience, was good teaching of language skills including grammar, good teaching of mathematical skills including arithmetic, good teaching of.... well, pretty much everything in the primary schools they went to. The two older ones went to a common or garden tree-climbing comprehensive and got a good grounding there too. They are well-educated young women. The youngest has yet to finish primary school but I have absolutely no complaints about the teaching standards.

As a school governor I saw a lot of the changes from a different angle as well, but that's another story.

Like you, I wish the media and the government would just stop moaning about schools.

The saying in my house is that 'children get a good education despite school.' All four of my children had some brilliant and some horrendous teachers at their comprehensive. All went on to university, and when reflecting back on school, they remember the frustration of teachers at the inspections, badly behaved pupils, constant suspensions, disruption because of teacher stress and sickness, burnt-out teachers who seemed to hate their job, and generally hearing that they couldn't undertake certain projects, trips and activities because of shortage of school resources. Some proper investment in our children, teachers and their schools would go a long way, and they would be more likely to show their proficiency at their English grammar when they started seeking employment.

If children learn grammar as part of the Literacy Strategy, all I can say is that it isn't working! One problem is that a whole generation of teachers failed to receive adequate grammar teaching. I am a retired Assistant Head of MFL and have seen some lovely colleagues, inspired teachers, but who did not understand correct English or French grammar. I used to tear my hair out correcting school reports (practice/practise;affect/effect;lose/loose; you're/your etc) How can you teach what you do not understand?
A very bright A-level German student once asked in all seriousness "What exactly is a verb, Mrs. ......"
As for reading stuff on social networks other than GN I can become quite apoplectic (OK, don't read it then!) again, often posted by teachers who are former colleagues.
And just to put everybody's blood pressure up
(wait for it)
I should of/he could of............

It was this article that got me worried about teaching standards.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058362/UK-education-Fifth-trainee-teachers-sums-spell.html

Yes, I know it is from the dreaded Daily Mail, but they are quoting stats from the Training and Development Agency for Schools, which I presume to be reasonably trustworthy.

I'm no longer in England: my children were educated here in Australia, in the catholic school system, as catholics have traditionally been leading educators here. (I was a catholic back then, but have since moved away from religious belief entirely. I still support their educational system though, and my eldest lad teaches at a local catholic co-ed high school. Religious indoctrination in these schools is a thing of the past)

I kept an eye on what was going on, and the only thing I could fault them on, was saying 'haitch' for 'aitch'. I did mention this to the headmaster during a conversation about something else, and he laughed and said 'haitch' had been brought over here from the nineteenth century by Irish nuns, and all his efforts had failed to correct it!

I think there is a lot in what carol says, that kids learn despite schools' best efforts! Perhaps my kids learnt their grammar from me — I certainly always corrected them when they said some horror like "would of". My first name begins with an aitch and I hate haitch too! Maybe there are more grammar-ignorant people simply because there are more people. I'd hazard a guess that the proportion of grammar-ignorant people has not changed much over the years. As for teachers not knowing their grammar: shouldn't we be complaining about teacher training colleges in that case rather than schools?

Gracesmum- unless you are very recently retired I am not sure that you would have seen the full impact of the literacy strategy as these things take time to work through.
Joan, I think the DM article is misleading as it doesn't make clear that unless you pass literacy, numeracy and ICT then you cannot become a qualified teacher. Actually the DM doesn't seem very interested in ICT at all - funny that! I don't think trainee teachers should have lots of chances to pass these tests, but I would like to see the actual statistics.
Of course, there are and always have been some schools that do better than others; I had very good teaching in English in the fifties, but the maths teaching was dreadful. My children were at grammar schools in the eighties and there was a great deal of lazy teaching and lack of interest in the children.
I don't think everything is perfect now, there is still lots of school improvement to do in all phases of education, but I do believe that things have improved and it would be nice to see people recognising that. I found it interesting that very few people commented in the "Educating Essex" thread, where there was a chance to see a real comprehensive school in action.
I am also interested in why Gransnetters comment so much on English and don't have a great deal to say about maths, science, ICT etc?

Mamie, I think it's because there was so much emphasis put on English when most of us were at school. You were expected to to take both English and English Literature for O level. At primary school, reading aloud in class was a daily event - we read Don Quixote at 10.However, in spite of being drilled in tables etc, I have always been appalling at maths. My four children are all brilliant and my son has even offered to re-teach me as he feels I make hard work of something he considers to be simple!

Also, speaking as a (bit of a) mathematician, if you bring maths into conversations, they tend to end rather abruptly.

I also found that people on GN didn't much like my posting links to scientific articles.

Yes Grannylin, I am sure you are right. I think many of us (me included) tend to judge people when they make errors in pronunciation, spelling and grammar, but wouldn't notice / mind as much, if they demonstrated that they were in some way innumerate. I have noticed that some of my friends even seem to take pride in not becoming ICT literate(!) I am passionate about improving children's literacy (in the broadest sense), but I think the other things are important too.

I suppose we see the results of a lack of knowledge of English grammar and spelling in a way that does not apply to maths or science.
I also get annoyed when newspapers (we all know which ones) say that 'A' levels are getting easier - I have been very impressed by the standard of the
papers my grandchildren have taken. There is not so much emphasis on remembering things learnt by rote, but more on understanding relationships and making deductions from facts. Access to facts is very easy via the internet so the emphasis now is on using information.
I used to be a volunteer tutor on the Adult Literacy Scheme in the 1970's, and I also taught basic maths to adults - it was reckoned that there were over two millions adults without basic literacy skills, so things were not so perfect in the past either.

I was amused by Liam Fox's use of the passive voice 'Mistakes were made' Yes, mate, and you made them!

I'm going to be pedantic Mamie and correct you. I said the BBC MIS-uses the Passive Tense. Just using the passive tense is automatic for native speakers, using it correctly on the State TV news would be preferrable.
We spent some time in the education system in the UK and once my husband, lecturing at Chester College was told that he should shorten a fairy story because the students couldn't cope with more than one half of an A4 sheet of text. These were Uni students!
My husband oversaw the teaching of German for the whole of the North of England, sent in an advisory category by the German government, and some of the schools and the conditions there were terrible. The standards were always less than he expected to find for certain age groups, but he had a lot of admiration for the teachers.
Once at a cocktail party the main Inspector of Schools asked where I had been to school in Sheffield and I mentioned my grammar school.
'Oh you would have to pay for that kind of education these days' he said.
He sent his own children to private schools!

Since then 15 years have passed and I hope things are getting better and due to Mamie's glowing report, I think they maybe.
As for the Cambridge English examination, it is known to be very difficult and British children don't have to pass it. As someone says a lot of children get a good education in spite of the schools, usually because they have the right parents. These days there are so many who have parents who don't care and that applies to the rest of Europe, as well.
What we don't have in schools in Germany are rows of computers for primary school children. I'm thankful for that.