Tesco boss raps school standards

Davesnave

Blackpool_Saver wrote: »

It comes down to this, people are afraid to correct children form an early age due to this "you might make them feel demeaned crap" so you get these situations where teachers see children speaking ungrammatically and behaving badly and dare not do anything about it.
Many people with so called degrees can't spell or speak properly, you see the tutors wince but they cannot correct them either.
We are producing a nation of illiterate unemployable half wits, it's very sad.

You obviously know all this from first hand experience, so I suggest you find a better school, where standards are upheld, and apply to teach there. After over 30 years in education, I can't recognise the place you are describing, but maybe that's how things are in Blackpool.

Personally I don't find it at all odd that some people are inherently more intelligent than others, that they speak with regional dialects/accents, or that some of the young do badly because their upbringing is sub-standard. This has always been the way of the world.

I do find it strange that a man of Mr Leahy's standing seems to think schools don't teach the basics of maths and English. What exactly does he imagine goes on, and has he ever set eyes upon the National Curriculum? Come to think of it, have you?

Generali

Blackpool_Saver wrote: »

It comes down to this, people are afraid to correct children form an early age due to this "you might make them feel demeaned crap" so you get these situations where teachers see children speaking ungrammatically and behaving badly and dare not do anything about it.
Many people with so called degrees can't spell or speak properly, you see the tutors wince but they cannot correct them either.
We are producing a nation of illiterate unemployable half wits, it's very sad.

I used to spend a lot of time training the graduate trainees as a banker and I was pretty shocked by how poor a grasp of English many of them had. My grammar and syntax are far from perfect (thanks to a State education) but I have tried to improve them. Lots of the trainees had terrible English and couldn't see why it was important to improve it, even after their mangled communication ended up causing a loss to the bank.

bo_drinker

Text talk should be banned from anywhere other than texts (not needed there 99% of the time ) I visit web forums that have banned it. The problem is a lot of the youngsters have been brought up with it and it becomes the norm.
And then a lot of the white kids want to talk like they are from the Bronx.

Mr_Matey

Generali wrote: »

I used to spend a lot of time training the graduate trainees as a banker and I was pretty shocked by how poor a grasp of English many of them had. My grammar and syntax are far from perfect (thanks to a State education) but I have tried to improve them. Lots of the trainees had terrible English and couldn't see why it was important to improve it, even after their mangled communication ended up causing a loss to the bank.

I've also found this quite a lot. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that the graduates we get are very good at maths but not so good on the communication side. You don't need to be able to write well to pass economics or calculate an option price. That's not meant as a swipe at universities, it's horses for courses.

Also, for a large number of the grads English is their second language.

That's my experience anyway.

lostinrates

Mr_Matey wrote: »

Also, for a large number of the grads English is their second language.
.

But often their grasp of language -grammar is better.

Some years ago, when I was re-engaging with language DH and I had a meal with friends and the native languages numbered...7 I think. What was interesting is that the British english speakers had more trouble giving examples of things like tenses (and giving theoretical example of there usage) dpsite being confident and good communicators. they knew, for example, the passe composse, but ask about the past pefect...thy worked backwards from French! The other first language speakers could demonstate examples in their own languages and their second languages.

Davesnave

Generali wrote: »

I used to spend a lot of time training the graduate trainees as a banker and I was pretty shocked by how poor a grasp of English many of them had. My grammar and syntax are far from perfect (thanks to a State education) but I have tried to improve them. Lots of the trainees had terrible English and couldn't see why it was important to improve it, even after their mangled communication ended up causing a loss to the bank.

That's fair comment, but for the past 15 years or more, primary schools have placed much more emphasis on the basics at the expense of a broad curriculum. Recent reports have actually criticised the narrowness and heavy use of testing, not without good reason in my opinion.

It should be abundantly apparent to all that literacy and numeracy have had enough input, so if the output in terms of skills is poor, we must look elsewhere for solutions. I am certainly aware, even in my formerly privileged neck of the woods, of kids at 11 years old, fed-up and burned- out, by high power lessons and tests in English and science. There's been some very efficient exam-passing instruction going on, but not a lot of joy or excitement in learning.

The kids themselves have also changed. Many, as you suggest, 'can't see the point' in so much that goes on in school. That doesn't make their attitude valid, but it explains why so much falls on deaf ears.

So, more doesn't necessarily mean better, but Tesco, with its 'two chickens for a fiver,' might not understand that way of looking at things.;)

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

It should be abundantly apparent to all that literacy and numeracy have had enough input, so if the output in terms of skills is poor, we must look elsewhere for solutions. I am certainly aware, even in my formerly privileged neck of the woods, of kids at 11 years old, fed-up and burned- out, by high power lessons and tests in English and science. There's been some very efficient exam-passing instruction going on, but not a lot of joy or excitement in learning. ......


So, more doesn't necessarily mean better, but Tesco, with its 'two chickens for a fiver,' might not understand that way of looking at things.;)

More joy and excitement would be better! More time spent learning rather than being tested might well be better!

Mr_Matey

lostinrates wrote: »

But often their grasp of language -grammar is better.

Some years ago, when I was re-engaging with language DH and I had a meal with friends and the native languages numbered...7 I think. What was interesting is that the British english speakers had more trouble giving examples of things like tenses (and giving theoretical example of there usage) dpsite being confident and good communicators. they knew, for example, the passe composse, but ask about the past pefect...thy worked backwards from French! The other first language speakers could demonstate examples in their own languages and their second languages.

Another way of looking at it is the native speakers do it naturally, whilst others need to understand all the different tenses for it to make sense.

You instinctively know when something sounds wrong in English, because "it just is". Not so with a foreign language.

lostinrates

Mr_Matey wrote: »

Another way of looking at it is the native speakers do it naturally, whilst others need to understand all the different tenses for it to make sense.

You instinctively know when something sounds wrong in English, because "it just is". Not so with a foreign language.

Yes, but thats why I drew the comparison with the spakers of other languages at that evening, who understood the structure of their own language as well as having the natural fluency! Its something we come back to a lot because I had to revisit this as an adult. I lost two languages (I was bilingual, am now..as anyone can read, barely coping in one written language!)

Mr_Matey

lostinrates wrote: »

Yes, but thats why I drew the comparison with the spakers of other languages at that evening, who understood the structure of their own language as well as having the natural fluency! Its something we come back to a lot because I had to revisit this as an adult. I lost two languages (I was bilingual, am now..as anyone can read, barely coping in one written language!)

Yeh and it's a fair point.

What I was raising is you don't have to think about tenses if you're a native English speaker who's living in the UK. You may have learnt another language at school, but it's only in the back of your mind, and most of the world speaks English, so you'll probably be fine.

Speaking another language makes you analyse your own language more and think about things like tenses.

When I went to Germany and tried my luck at speaking, I need to choose the right tense, the right sentence structure etc. But I still naturally think in English, then try and say in German.

Out of interest what other languages do you speak?
I love learning other languages