Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Doozergirl wrote: »

My mum, however would switch between it and received pronunciation in the blink of an eye

The family moved here when she was 12.

That seems to be about the age where you can do that.

I attended the local village school for the first few primary years, and then switched to prep and public schools.

So I can also switch the Scottish accent on and off at will.

My doric is rusty, but I can still understand most locals and speak it well enough when I have to.

vivatifosi wrote: »

I'd never heard of Doric before tonight. It is an evening for discovering new things.

The translation, although I suspect everyone got it by now......

Fit like min,

How are you?

hoos yer doos?

A traditional greeting, the literal translation is "how are your pigeons", to which the traditional response is "Peken awa" (pecking away)

Michty me, at Brit's a tumshie, caeryan oan aboot craishin hoose preeces, am fair dancin mad aboot it.

Mighty me, that Brit's a bit of a numpty, carrying on about crashing house prices, I'm very angry about it.

Fit a knapdarloch.

What a dingleberry.

Far aboots ye fae onywae, at ye cannae spik doric?

Where are you from anyway, that you can't speak doric?

Nae Glesga?

Not Glasgow?

Aye, it's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht in the deen, ye ken, but ye'll be droochit if yon rain starts pishing doon.

Yes, it's a fine bright moonlit night tonight in Aberdeen, you know, but you'll be drenched if it starts raining heavily.

Onywae, am awa tae hae a wee dram the noo.

Anyway, I'm off to have a large single malt now.

LydiaJ

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not many places have grammar schools any more. Where I lived they were closed down in the early 1970s. It's all comprehensive.

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Lots in Kent, still. Bucks, as well, I think?

Also Birmingham, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Yorkshire and a bunch of other places. See http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/schools/regions

zagubov wrote: »

There's plenty of discussion on the web about starting ages. I found this article interesting but there's loads more.

Interesting. Thanks.

zagubov wrote: »

The idea that there's rubbish schools full of educational misfits isn't something I met before I came to the deep south. What did surprise me was the vast range of teacher training courses and the lack of any need for proper qualifications to work in the sector. Getting the Chemistry and Biology teachers to teach Physics would be an example.

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

That's not a state-school-only failing, I think.

My mother was a geography teacher. At one (highly selective, academic) school, she taught, as well as geography, O level biology - which she had, herself, given up at the age of 14. She hated doing it!

Getting Bio & Chem teachers to teach Phys is pretty much universal in state schools now. It's all just science, innit? Up to GCSE, anyway. It's one of the reasons I've chosen to stay in the independent sector. I know I'm not competent to teach Bio (and thankfully have never been asked to) and although I taught a tiny bit of Chem to Y7 & Y8 some 20 years ago, I don't think I did it particularly well, and I don't want to have to do it again.

vivatifosi

LydiaJ wrote: »

Getting Bio & Chem teachers to teach Phys is pretty much universal in state schools now. It's all just science, innit? Up to GCSE, anyway. It's one of the reasons I've chosen to stay in the independent sector. I know I'm not competent to teach Bio (and thankfully have never been asked to) and although I taught a tiny bit of Chem to Y7 & Y8 some 20 years ago, I don't think I did it particularly well, and I don't want to have to do it again.

And they wonder why we as a nation are bad at science. This is something DH and I discuss. He is a scientist. He has physics, chemistry and maths degrees as well as a physical chemistry PhD. He knows nothing about biology though and didn't even study at O level. I am not even vaguely scientific, but did human biology at O level. I know more biology than he does, though if pushed, he picks it up quicker than me. But the thought of either of us teaching it makes me shudder.

I am better at things like geography, history, economics, politics, business studies, sociology,etc.

ETA: I have been wondering since posting how this extends beyond science. For example, are french teachers expected to teach german? They are both languages after all. A lot of social sciences (ie what I am better at) are more interchangeable: for example, history and politics are interlinked, business studies and economics, business studies and sociology (where it covers the means of production etc); however I wouldn't imagine for one minute that a French teacher could stand in front of a class and teach them Spanish (unless of course they knew Spanish too).

Doozergirl

The headteacher teaches French to the year 4s at DDs school. Having heard her speak French, it's pretty clear she doesn't know the language as her pronunciation is awful. DS picked up nothing from her, DD doesn't seem to be picking up anything either.

They're only Year 4, anyway, I don't see the point. Either find someone who speaks French or wait until they get to Middle School.

LydiaJ

vivatifosi wrote: »

I have been wondering since posting how this extends beyond science. For example, are french teachers expected to teach german? They are both languages after all. A lot of social sciences (ie what I am better at) are more interchangeable: for example, history and politics are interlinked, business studies and economics, business studies and sociology (where it covers the means of production etc); however I wouldn't imagine for one minute that a French teacher could stand in front of a class and teach them Spanish (unless of course they knew Spanish too).

Most language teachers do two languages, AFAIK, but aren't expected to teach ones they don't know. DS is being taught Spanish by a Frenchman, who presumably also teaches French. My school has a combined history & politics department and I think most of the teachers teach both, although I'm not sure. We only offer politics at A-level, so they all do history lower down the school. We don't offer business studies or sociology, so the economics teachers just teach economics (which is A-level only), although in previous schools I've known people who taught A-level economics and maths up to GCSE. In private schools where phys teachers don't have to do bio and chem, it's more common to meet people who teach (or have taught in the past) both physics and maths. I taught maths for a year some time ago. The A-level maths was fine, but I didn't like teaching it to GCSE and below - I could do the maths but the way you teach it is too different from the way you teach physics.

lostinrates

Doozergirl wrote: »

The headteacher teaches French to the year 4s at DDs school. Having heard her speak French, it's pretty clear she doesn't know the language as her pronunciation is awful. DS picked up nothing from her, DD doesn't seem to be picking up anything either.

They're only Year 4, anyway, I don't see the point. Either find someone who speaks French or wait until they get to Middle School.

Accent, if not pronouciation exactly, even on so e of the profession tape/ cd to learn at home systems can be bad....

A very, very dear friend of mine is a Tefl/esol teacher and while their understanding of language is without doubt in my mind the apptitude for the job IMO is. This person has never been that easy to understand, ( fast talker combined with a very pronounced lisp and particularly diificult dentition impacting on 'understandability' ). Then.......they got a tongue piercing.

I find emails so much easier than even meeting up, and phone calls impossible. How the students cope and what the sound like goodness only knows.

Generali

Doozergirl wrote: »

The headteacher teaches French to the year 4s at DDs school. Having heard her speak French, it's pretty clear she doesn't know the language as her pronunciation is awful. DS picked up nothing from her, DD doesn't seem to be picking up anything either.

They're only Year 4, anyway, I don't see the point. Either find someone who speaks French or wait until they get to Middle School.

Our French teacher at school was unable to but 3 carnets on the Metro. That it was a highlight of my Secondary school education shows as much about my enjoyment of my school career between the ages of 13 & 16 as it does her complete inability to speak the language she was attempting to teach.

The stand in bloke we used to have, who was a remedial maths teacher I think, could actually speak the language. As far as I could tell, he'd picked it up picking fruit over the course of a summer.

bugslet

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I'm sure you've heard some of their songs.

"Mud, mud, glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood, so follow, me follow, down to the hollow, and there let us wallow in glorious mud"

"

My very very first record had that as B side. I'd like to point out I was about 7 or 8 at the time.

vivatifosi wrote: »

I'd never heard of Doric before tonight. It is an evening for discovering new things.

I'm sure Hamish put up a very funny youtube clip of a man speaking Doric to a call centre. I hadn't heard of it before either.

My parents, born mid 1920s into very poor families, both managed a good though not university education, and there was an emphasis on books for me from an early age, including rag books before I was even toddling. I could read before I went to school, though a lot of that was learning to navigate and read maps and road signs whilst out and about with my Dad in his truck. Happy days.

lostinrates

bugslet wrote: »

My parents, born mid 1920s into very poor families, both managed a good though not university education, and there was an emphasis on books for me from an early age, including rag books before I was even toddling. I could read before I went to school, though a lot of that was learning to navigate and read maps and road signs whilst out and about with my Dad in his truck. Happy days.

I almost always give rag or those waterproof bath books as gifts to babies. New niece got a rag and padded ( pn, it was a a posh alert rag book ) short version of each peach, pear plum last year and so e pram/ push chair books.

I also with littlies like getting them spitting things like letters on road signs, or street signs, and colours they know, and looking for shapes.

There is an important concept in behavioural work 'learning to learn'. I think its probably the learning to learn in early years that is the crucial difference and is so well fostered by situations like traditional Sahp ( so, childminders, nannies, grandparents, small group consistent staffing nursery) where the adult knows the child/ren and can guide and encourage progress on the route of learning to learn. Then socialised learning ( nursery, play dates etc) because unlike some species we learn well by copying, imitating and 'trying things on for size'. Its why i think forcing to tears is SO counter productive because it creates negative association. Cannot remember what ideal length of time would be for littlies on the reading I would have done years ago ( animal stuff always used to go back to human for back ground reading because of contextualisation, but it would all be superseded now anyway). Learning to engage positively with progress is probably key.

I am SO gla I'm neither a teacher and a times a parent. A thousand ways a day to get it wrong! :rotfl:

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

say bye to parents who are off to their winter home for 5 months.

Where's Pastures when you need her?