My son had a teacher who wrote words wrong on the board, and admits he’s an atrocious speller. How is the student expected to be better than the master? And how is the teacher expected to discover my son’s spelling errors in essays etc if he cant spell himself?
I was on ebay looking for teaching resources and came across a teacher selling teaching aids and homemade readers. On the list of animal readers was “mere cat”. Meaning Meerkat. So the reader was about “mere cats”, with pictures of meerkats…how are kids supposed to learn properly!!
That just drives me nuts!!
Mere cat??? lol lol lol
Wasn’t it you and me who had this conversation on the forum way back when? I agree, teachers need to know how to spell, unless they’re math teachers, then they just need to know how to spell math words lol
Spelling and grammar are one of my pet peeves.
Once we as parents know something that is happening is not correct, is there someway it can be conveyed to the baby so that he doesnot pick up the same?
Or should we wait for the long term so that he will let go anything wrong he would have picked up?
nhockaday I remember having a whinge about this yonks ago, but I wasnt going to search thru a pile of old posts to find the thread… but this issue really does make my blood boil. And monkey see monkey do… I’ve read newspapers with wrong spelling, even novels, and I as a kid assume if it’s in print and published it MUST be correct spelling. As a visual learner I take a snapshot of the word in my brain, and instantly memorise it. And some of the words have been wrong…
joyMegha… I dont think learned errors just correct themselves. If a baby sees a word spelled wrongly that’s how they’ll visualise the word, how they’ll recognise the word, and what they’ll believe it to correctly be. So correct errors straight away.
nhockaday… I have noticed that US people do a naughty grammar thing. They say something’s “real great”, instead of “really great”. (Need the LY at the end). And even in a old dr seuss book recently, I noticed someone sat “in back”…I thought the opposite of “in front” was behind. See, these things creep into kids picture books and then get accepted as correct. I’m sure I’ve heard these terms on US kids shows like sesame street.
A lot of people in the US use bad grammar. I hope that is one thing that my son doesn’t adopt. Plus, we live in the south, so there is a lot of ain’t and ya’lls, and people generally don’t speak well. I don’t think you can really count on DR Suess books to be too grammatically correct though.
But it was a beginner reader… to teach kids to read… in English. And I remembered where I first heard “in back”… it was an episode of barney on video. I dont think they deliberately put errors in there, to have slang for some reason, I think they genuinely are so used to the way they’ve been taught to speak they dont realise it’s wrong.
If teacher’s can not spell then I do not see why they are on the government payroll??? We as tax payers particularly in Australia where teachers earn good wages in SA they earn $60000+ a year shouldn’t have to pay for 2nd rate teachers.
Hear, hear. Or is that… here, here. If I was using a spell checker it mightnt pick up the error, as the spelling is correct either way. And there’s teachers that wouldnt pick up on these errors either. They should be expected to pass literacy tests before being allowed to study education.
I feel your pain. :yes:
Am I the only one who finds it amusing how replete this thread is with spelling and grammatical errors, or are they intentionally facetious mistakes? lol If not, the thread title “Teacher’s that cant spell” must be peeving everyone! lol
I wasn’t going to say anything :nowink:
One area where I think teacher spelling has become a critical issue is in substitute and bilingual education, especially in low-income urban areas. I taught first grade in the South Bronx (New York City), and was allowed one “prep” period per day. I cannot tell you the number of times I cringed as I watched the prep class (literally, a 45 minute “filler” class period of fluff and coloring pages) teachers write things like “hollyday” and “oxigyn” on the board. This was not, however, unique to only bilingual teachers, though I think that bilingual educators need to be truly bilingual. There were plenty of native-English-speaking teachers who had similar spelling issues. I became convinced that so many educational challenges that children face in low-income areas (vernacular language, spelling and grammatical struggles) are further complicated by less-qualified and emergency-credentialed teachers.
Often times I found it was preferable to lose the prep period, use the prep teacher as a teaching assistant for small group reading, and teach my own lesson. It would take more time to ultimately undo the damage long-term from taking the prep instead of just teaching during that time.
Yes, I see that tax-payer dollars shouldn’t go to underqualified teachers. But- it’s hard to lure qualified teachers to the areas that really need them, and the teachers that come out of low-income areas are often lured to better paying teaching positions elsewhere.
all what you’ve said worry me. Being a non native English speaker I don’t think I can always tell if the teacher is wrong in spelling or grammar. and yes it makes sense that not all teachers are good at their job, much like any other profession. Not to mention the salary for primary teachers (who are supposed to help build the foundation of English language for our kids) is the lowest of all in education. People do not always choose a profession just because they have a passion for it.
As parents what can we do? Just wait and correct our children whenever we happen to see a mistake? Or is there some way to prevent it?
Teachers salaries are not the issue and a teachers salary is not there just to cover the school day! Teachers put in a lot of work both seen and unseen in and out of the classroom never mind when trawling through both classwork and school planning during holiday periods.Fine there are a number of teachers that can’t spell but I bet there are plenty of things they do exceptionally well- making learning fun for instance! It’s fine to moan but there a lot worse for children to contend with than the odd spelling error. We all make them!!! :mad:
Hi Tarasweeney,
No one here is denying that teacher’s salary is not there just to cover the school day and no one denies that teachers don’t put in alot of work in and out of school. I also had some wonderful teachers who I remember fondly, who made school a truly wonderful place to be.
What I completely disagree with is a teacher who is plainly making spelling errors on the board and teaching this to children is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. A teacher, at least in Australia must complete 3-4year university degree before they can teach in the classroom. A university would not accept spelling errors in any essays and would have no problem in marking you down for that mistake. I think if my taxes are paying for someone who is university qualified they should be able to teach my child the correct spelling of a word and not just say to me as a parent “Oh, sorry but i’m an atrocious speller” DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY. :mad:
Moreover, A teacher is paid to teach our children correctly and salary whether you like it or not does reflect competancy. A teacher in Australia who is earning in excess of $60,000+ p/a and who has a university degree should know the basics in teaching the correct spelling of words, after all it is what they do for a living.
Also, teaching the incorrect spelling of words to children who are learning how to spell, who believe, that this is the correct way to spell is setting them up for future failure. It also makes the job of their future teachers twice as hard when they have to correct all the errors of the previous teacher made in teaching the child in the first place.
I am not university educated (yet) but I do work for the Australian Government and I am on a performance based wage. If I wish to get a payrise I must pass a series of ‘tests’ plus write about my knowledge of my department, and if you hand up your ‘essay’ with spelling errors in it, they will not accept it and you are told to do it again and you miss out on your payrise. I think if that is expected of me to have correct grammar and spelling to receive a measly $1000 a year payrise. I think I can expect from a teacher to teach my child the correct spelling of words! :yes: ?
Not that there’s any good reason to take my advice, I would say… (1) home school, (2) give your children extra training in phonics (phonics training is well known for making for good spellers), or (3) give the poor kids extra spelling work in a book you buy. (I’m sure they’ll love that!)
Poor spelling is one of the reasons why I am not going to send my boys to the local public school and will home school them instead. I was on the school’s website and immediately found a couple. I wasn’t even looking for them. They didn’t seem like typos because they simply looked like words that many people seem to misspell.
I see horrible spelling on forums also. So many people think that “a lot” is “alot” and “definintely” is “definately.” Yikes. Who know’s though? This is exactly how language evolves over time. 