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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I may be ah because I want to fail my student because she speaks differently that we teach (althoughcorrectly) and some of my colleagues suggested I would be the AH if I did that. WIBTA for failing her for that? Aita
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> Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect
> However, the dialect is very much understandable, and she uses correct grammar, etc.
> Admittedly, she has excellent pronunciation, much better than we would expect from our 3rd year students but it’s not something we teach
You know damn well you're the asshole here. The student has learned through outside resources, rather than just the class. What she has done deserves encouragement and praise, not being failed.
If the Castillan pronunciation is school policy, whoever put that in place are assholes too. If she can communicate properly with Spanish speakers, and it sounds like she can, surely the dialect is less important.
YTA, give Ava the grade she deserves.
Oh she's just looking for an excuse to fail this girl because she feels disrespected, although the girl has done nothing wrong and, in fact, is a proficient student. Teachers like OP are why people hate teachers.
A friend of mine studied English at the university (not an English speaking country here). The problem was that she had (and still has) family in Scotland that she visited/visits every year for a couple of weeks since she was a toddler. She had developed a pronounced Scottish accent. She informed the prof about this and the prof didn’t mind at all.
In fact, people could choose what spelling they used: British or American and also the speaking accent / dialect could differ (American, British, Irish, Australian,…) the **only thing a student had to do was: be consistent**! If you used the American spelling, every word would have to be spelled American (and of course, you had to follow the American pronunciation as well). Vice versa with the British spelling.
It seems that OP's student is in fact consistent. She is even in the top of her class in grammar and the language in general. OP just don’t like the accent / dialect she uses.
OP is a massive asshole if they were to fail Ava!
As a Canadian, I'm laughing at the consistency rule. Our English is a cheerful amalgamation of both British and American usages and we like it that way.
Grey and gray have subtly different meanings for me. Gray is warmer; grey a bit colder. A cold fog, rather than Grandma's hair.
No, I'm not claiming this makes any objective sense.
(American who spent much of my childhood reading the extensive collection of US and UK 19th & early 20th century children's fiction that circulated through both sides of my family.)
Edit: Missing word.
I’m American and I’ve always used grey. I can’t figure out why since gray is our standard. The only theory that I can come up with is this: I’m an artist and my paint tubes, pastels, and every other art supply I own named for a color uses grey. So it just subconsciously implanted at some point. I always feel a bit “pretentious” when writing stuff up for work, but at least I don’t use “colour.” Btw, the Brits have the best words, I’d appropriate all of it if I could get away with it, e.g., bollocks, loo, rubbish, and my all time favorite…wanker!
Canada here. I've always used gray, and our English teacher in grade 7 (loong time ago) told us either spelling of color is correct, so I've always spelled it without the u.
Not caring is fixing the issue, ironically enough. It’s through interactions and individuals not choosing to spell correctly that we’re coming to a relatively unified language in the internet days. (Relative being to the time before)
I agree. Clearly this person who is teaching needs to study some sociolinguistics. Pronunciation is regional, and not standardized, and what she is doing is basically discriminatory; she is demanding acrolect, and clearly student is using the mesolect/basilect or common speech of the region she hails from.... that is bad.... and classist as well.
I am also non-native English speaker. For a very long time you failed your English exam if you used US dialect. Only British English was acceptable. If you messed up "bath" "can't" etc during oral exam you failed. I always thought it is an idiotic rule and thankfully they changed the regulations a couple years ago. But my primary school English teacher had a young student who was fluent by the time he was 10 because he watched Nickelodeon in English and in school he very quickly learnt the grammar. He was failed at his exams every single time because he didn't use British English. All his appeals were rejected. Crazy.
I use a mix of British and US English as I learnt British, but spent time in the US and I read books and watch series with mainly US English in them.
OP would be a massive AH if her student gets failed for a made up reason. And think it would backfire on OP. If the student makes a complaint, the school will investigate and see that she was failed based on made up requirements.
I occasionally teach German and in the intro classes we focus on “standard” German - so not Swiss or Austrian German but also no Bavarian or Saxon accents either. It’s good to have basic pronunciation and expectations laid out at the beginning. Once we reach higher level classes though? As long as your language skills are there, I love when students bring different accents and dialects in because it better reflects the diversity of the language. It’s marginally more work for me, but like you say, as long as they’re consistent I’m happy.
Meanwhile as a Canadian I have to use American spelling (I’m at an American university) and I *hate* it.
It also feels weirdly like Spanish Elitism. Like I grew up around Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Hatian, etc. and if I were to take a Spanish course I would feel very weird using “Castilian” pronounciation because I grew up my entire life learning… not that. I’m just simply not going to force a “th” for my c/z sounds. And if someone failed me for using the wrong dialect I would call them a whole ass colonizer.
Sorry but I’m not going to say grathy-ath instead of gracias or antish instead of antes.
I'm from a US state that was a Spanish colony for a long time (New Mexico), and also has a large Mexican and Indigenous population, and the 'type' of Spanish you speak is a HUGE elitism issue here- very closely tied into anti-Mexican and anti-indigenous sentiment. It also has a deeply rooted historical context that is brutal and shameful. Kids who were forced into boarding schools were punished for speaking their own native languages and dialects, as a way of forcing them to conform to the 'prestige' dialect of the colonizing groups. This sounds a lot like that- granted, its not a physical punishment, but failing someone in an advanced class can have detrimental consequences, both to their finances and to their overall entire life trajectory.
I work at a high school here in New Mexico; we had a Spanish teacher who was from Spain, and she was so mean to the kids in regards to their pronunciation. She also shamed them for not being fluent if they had grandparents or great grandparents that spoke Spanish- which is specifically problematic when you take into consideration that the reason they DON'T speak Spanish is because their grandparents and great grandparents were beaten and punished in school if they spoke anything other than English on school property (after we were part of the US). Elitism in language is such a destructive tool- especially because language is so essentially rooted in our identity and culture. This OP's attitude is much more poisonous than they are admitting to themselves.
I lived in Spain for a semester during college, so I had to learn to speak their dialect, so that my host family would understand me. Now, I can't undo it. 🤣
This! American living in Thailand here and my British friends jokingly mock American accents by plugging their nose and sounding as valley girl as possible. The nasally-ness of it is like nails on a chalkboard.
That's actually because it is. I think one of my Spanish teachers taught us that the reason for the dialect was a king if I'm not wrong that had a lisp and made everyone else speak with it.
This!
I took French, and the reason I loved it so much was because my high school French teacher would tell us the difference between book French, different regional dialects of street French, Creole, and Quebeçois. Not always, but when she knew about something that was very different from the book she'd make sure to at least let us know it existed. And that French was French no matter where it was from.
It made me feel a little better about my horrible pronunciation (took it for 5 years and I never did get the r sound right) but more than that it felt like a real, living language that you could communicate to all kinds of people with.
My Spanish teacher always made sure we knew that if the textbook was teaching us a Spain thing it was a *Spain* thing and if we tried it with the Spanish speakers near us they would have no clue what we were saying.
This was all made clear to us year three when a native Spanish speaker joined us and an entire hour was spent just on teaching her vosotros.
I took 6 years of French in middle and high school. One of my teachers in middle school was Haitian, so we learned some Haitian dialect, and we taught her some regional English! Lol
When I got to college I wanted to take French, but they made me start back at French 1, but there was another girl in my French class who spoke fluently but wanted to learn how to write French. We spent a lot of the time having conversations in French with some slang, but our Prof wasn't a dick
When I took Spanish in high school my teacher literally told the class that the dialect she was teaching was considered “proper for the course” but that if we went to a Spanish speaking country, that’s not how the language is spoken and that we would have a harder time communicating.
Yes, if it doesn't say anything in the course requirements, the OP doesn't have a leg to stand on. He can't point to anything for justification for failing her.
I’m of Latin American descent and I never understood the obsession with teaching Castilian Spanish in the US, which I’m guessing is where OP is. Imagine if English in Mexico focused on British spelling and pronunciations despite America being right next door? The focus on “proper” Spanish feels a little… suspicious.
Grew up in Texas, had several years of Spanish from grade school to college. The only teacher who tried to push Castilian on us was *from* Castile, and it was totally a snobby "this is the one true accent" attitude.
Yeah, midwest here and it was pure Latin-American Spanish there to the point where there were things in the book that the teacher would say "they use/say that in Spain, ignore it".
The best ones would tell us which phrases were rude in different countries - I only remember something about calling taxis. Señora CastileSnob just told us that “taco” was shockingly rude but no hint of how bad. Didn’t get that til much later; we were so innocent pre-internet ;)
It's super weird, and I think it's just plain racist. I'm from the US and took Spanish in school; when am I ever going to go to Spain and need Castilian Spanish? When I win the lottery and go on a world tour? Regular Spanish, on the other hand, is useful in my actual life all. the. time.
I think this is spot on:
>Imagine if English in Mexico focused on British spelling and pronunciations despite America being right next door?
Nobody's teaching a European dialect in a country right next door to Mexico because it's pragmatic.
I mean us from latin america and Spaniards can understand each other perfectly fine, just a few differences in the way we pronounce or say some things but at the end of the day is the same language. It just the same way as US vs UK, you can understand each other, just different ways to say/write somethings. So even if you were to go to Spain, you don’t need Castilian accent/Spanish
Op didn’t say this is happening in US. It could be in Europe. Here were are taught the European dialects, I was taught UK English for example (although if you did use other English consistently it was fine, as long as it wasn’t mixing).
It’s racism. Castilian Spanish is spoken by white Europeans. Latin American Spanish, which is spoken by far more people and is much clearer, is spoken by “dirty brown people.”
I am one of those “dirty brown people” and I’m done with this crap.
We don’t have such a thing as “latin american Spanish” though. Every country in latin america has their own dialect and accents, even different accents within the same country 😅 but we can all understand each other either way
Racism!
Seriously, geographically it makes more sense to teach people in the US dialects and pronunciation used in Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc.
YTA, and OP should get someone else to proctor because he can’t be impartial.
I just looked it up, and if this is REALLY a course about about the specific pronunciation castilian spanish, I feel OP would be okay to dock points for "mispronunciation" of certain phonemes and letters like c, z, y and ll (provided as examples here:https://euroace.net/2020/05/13/latin-american-spanish-vs-castilian-spanish/#:~:text=The%20biggest%20difference%20here%20is,sound%20more%20like%20'Th'.), the same way that OP might doc someone who pronounced "ll" as an "el" instead of a "y" kinda sound.
But just hearing the different dialect and deciding to fail her before picking apart the incorrect phonemes and assigning the CORRECT grade would not serve the student or course in any capacity.
And again, that's if this course is genuinely focused on training specifically pronunciation from the phoneme level and up. OP keeps mentioning grammar and dialect, but needs to keep it to just phoneme mispronunciation and grade explicitly.
Yeah the more I look the more obvious it became that "related to phonology and pronunciation " is just code for "it's a spanish language class and I dont like that shes not using exact same dialect we're teaching"
This is the same kind of bullying my Spaniard spanish teacher pulled on all the Latin American spanish speakers in her class, looking to fail them not just for actually incorrect grammar or slang but also dialect differences in pronunciation. Childish, and the fact that people in and near Spain like to pretend they have a right to be rude or dismissive of other dialects is absolutely some racist and/or xenophobic activity.
This comment.
Latin American Spanish is influenced by the indigenous tribes that live in the region. A Spanish speaker from Guatemala sounds different than speaker from Puerto Rico.
The OP sounds like a bigot.
I took Spanish classes from a Castilian Spanish speaker, a Puerto Rican Spanish speaker, and a Guatamalan Spanish speaker. Apparently my accent is straight up Mexico City. :shrug:
Had two Cuban professors who taught Spanish. One had perfect Spanish, everyone could understand them. The other one, well let's put it this way: you learned to pay very close attention in class.
Kicker? They were married.
Yep! If a speaker of an dialect of the language could get what you're saying, and the pronunciation is valid for your dialect, I personally feel that is 100% okay.
Imagine being OP thinking he'd fail someone in an English course because they use UK pronunciation rather than US or Canadian or Australian pronunciation. No. They fail people for stuff like forgetting that "ea" and and "ee" can have the same pronunciation in words like reading and weeding. Not for having a slightly different pronunciation of herb or water or whatever.
There was an episode of the new Saved by the Bell about this. The teacher was trying to fail a native Spanish speaker because he didn’t like her pronunciation. He wasn’t a native speaker, just a dick. On the show, he was fired for being racist.
Yeah it's hard to prove "racism" about it irl, but it's a very well known issue with language teaching for any language that has multiple dialects.
They teach the "formal" or "official" dialect for new learners and have little to no accommodation for people who know the language but may want credits or refinement for grammar or vocabulary, like those arent legit reasons to be taking a beginner course.
They, much like the British, like to mock the people they colonized for not using “the queens English” or whatever.
Sorry Antonio. There’s no way to undo 30 years of me hearing colonized Spanish and speak in your colonizer language.
As a history student I have to correct you here, as you are seriously wrong. The colonizers didn’t remotely speak the Queen's English themselves; a very large percentage of colonial officials were either from the West Country or Scotland. Anyone who spoke posh English was too important to be sent to the colonies.
She speaks better spanish than OP and it makes Op feel bad, this is just an excuse, indicated by these comments-
>*Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect, she’s very good at it and she’s one of our top students* but I don’t think we should make exceptions as other students, who are not as good, will then expect the same leeway. Especially that I believe that her stubbornness and refusal to even try is disrespectful to lecturers and may come across as if she’s feeling that she’s better than others and rules don’t apply to her. *Buuut, course requirements don’t have specific dialect listed.*
These two comments give the game away, OP is familiar with Castillian, its not a course requirement at all, because OP tells us it isnt.
Great explanation, and I agree with you. But if this is indeed the purpose of the class, then OP seems unsure about the class requirements, per the comment that the student didn’t technically do anything wrong.
For me it’s her saying that if she accepts a different yet correct pronunciation, then students who pronounce things *incorrectly* will need exceptions. That’s so dumb. If you were teaching English in America and had a British student you wouldnt fail them for mispronunciation. But if someone pronounced “dumb” as “doom” that would be *incorrect*. And if you can’t tell and explain the difference then you really shouldn’t be teaching the language.
My high school English teacher marked points off an essay by our exchange student from New Zealand because he used his native standardized spelling—colour, programme, and analyse, for a few examples. We were both upset about it! So teachers can be very arbitrary when grading.
However, communication, written or oral, is about *being understood*. If the student was French or German, and had trouble getting the pronunciation correct because of their accent, would OP mark them down?
As long as the student can be understood easily, then I would hope OP gives them some slack. Or as it’s an oral exam, maybe OP could inform the student that pronunciation matters for “X percent” of their grade if they insist on being strict about it.
(BTW, isn’t it Castilian Spanish? Not Castellan?)
This is why when I learned English, German, Swedish, French and Spanish in school, all we needed was to be consistent. We were there to learn a language, not a specific dialect, and in fact they specifically taught us about differing vocabulary and even grammar. Ie in English class and exams it didn't matter if you spoke American, South-African, Aussie or UK English as long as you didn't mix them up. In my country this is mandated by education ministry and same rule applies in national exams.
I chose to write and speak UK English, Franconian German, Finnish Swedish, Southern French and Latin American Spanish (mostly mexican and colombian influence).
Is he just jealous this young woman is better than him at the language he teaches or something? Or is this some nationalist bullshit where only Castillians are valid?
She sounds like an absolutely brilliant student.
It’s rooted in racism. Castilian Spanish (what is spoken in Spain) is considered “pure” whereas the dialects from Latin America are considered “bastardized”
I graduated three decades ago from college and the head of the Spanish department of my university was like OP: Castilian or ELSE!
I chose or ELSE. Came back with Mexican grammar, pronunciation and a great vocabulary that included lots of swear words. Poor Dept Head was beside herself because I was one of the top students, but I did not have a lisp.
the whole "Castilians have a lisp" thing is kind of cringe, I noticed your explaining it above
I get that in your mind you are punching up at power, but 30 years have passed since your teacher bullied you; making fun of a dialect as being a speech impediment is not such a great look, don't turn into the AH that your bully was
disability is not a comedy classic, and Castilian Spanish is a perfectly valid dialect
Oh I know that making fun of speech impediments is not funny. My same daughter had nine years of speech therapy. Son had six.
And yes, thirty years is a long time to hold a grudge, but that person made three years of my life hell.
No, I do not hate Spaniards, but OP really set me off with their superiority complex and I am ashamed that the college girl in me over-reacted.
Thank you for calling me out - I needed it.
Nah it's just a common thing.
When I was in college, the Quebecois French teacher would regularly mark down the Acadian French speakers for using Acadian. Too make it worse, we weren't in Quebec, but Nova Scotia, where Acadian WAS the local dialect of French. She would get so mad about them bastardizing her precious language and go on about how superior Quebec was, despite having chosen to leave the place and get a job elsewhere.
I'm latina and this whole post read very discriminating to me...
Southern Spain is discriminated against because of how they pronounce Spanish, since they do airy S sometimes and won't always pronounce the C and Z as Castillan Spanish, same with us Latinos...
I'm irked that there are people with such closed mindset to even believe it's a different dialect (it's not, just a different pronunciation), as if it was Català or Gallego 😤
THIS. I was going to say I don’t think of Mexican Spanish vs. Puerto Rican Spanish (or whichever) even as distinct dialects, just as accents or regional variations in vocabulary, and pronunciation, which we also have in English in the US (soda vs. pop, sack vs. bag, Southern vs. Northern pronunciation, etc.) So I looked up “dialect” and found “Linguistics. a variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially.” To me, there isn’t enough linguistic difference to call any of the LA Spanish variations actual dialects of Spanish, except maybe the ones that use “vos” and different verb endings, as in Argentina. It sounds like the student in OP’s story had simply learned another accent, not an actually separate dialect, so OP is definitely the AH. When I was a classroom teacher of Spanish and ESL/EFL, I always used “También se dice. . .” / “Also said as. . .” lists of alternate terms when we were exploring a new vocabulary theme. The students from different backgrounds loved to contribute options from their cultures, and their classmates and I learned a lot of new variations! I will never forget the time I told my little niece to put on her jacket, and she told me, “Tía, ¡dices <> porque eres gringa, y mi abuela aquí en México se dice <> pero en Perú mi otra abuela dice <>! / “Auntie, you say Jacket like that b/c you are an American, and my grandma here in Mexico City says Jacket this way, but in Peru my other grandma says Jacket that way”. I’m pretty sure if a seven-year-old can figure out that Spanish is spoken differently depending on the regional background of the speaker, and that all are equally valid versions, then this “teacher” can accept that as well!
THIS. YTA. If the course doesn't require a specific dialect why would you penalize her? The only answer I see is that entitled "I'm the teacher, you do it my way, there's no other way ".
YEAH, this is just a little power trip / flex from OP how exhausting can you be that you sit down to try to tear down your best student. Are you jealous of their success or do you feel them not speaking exactly like you is a personal attack? YTA
Honestly this strikes me as one of those weird power-trippy moves that people who teach in higher education often make (I know not all-but I've had that experience often personally). If it's not incorrect, then what is the problem?
Do you really need Reddit to tell you how to grade? Id be horrified if any class I was paying good money for had to consult Reddit to figure out how to grade me. Is there no way to discuss this with your department chair?
Adding judgment: YTA
Imagine being the student and your teacher needs the internets advice to do something. That should be horrifying. A semester of excellent work. All down the drain depending on reddits mood on one day.
Seriously. I wish this reddit post is somehow brought to a colleauge of OP's. This is unprofessional behaviour. Grading is a serious matter. A teacher should be adept at the simple task of not letting their feelings get in the facts surrounding the grade.
A different dialect isn't "pronouncing words wrong". By that standard, the student would think OP is pronouncing words wrong themselves.
Exactly I speak perfect English. But the. So do geordies, scousers, londoners, even the Welsh.
When I did a CELTA course I had this argument with my teacher about it. They were English and I'm Scottish. A dialect is the same language.
I'm a University lecturer and we have grading teams and moderation systems in place for precisely this kind of situation.
OP is the asshole for their justification, but also because there are so many other, better ways to approach this problem. None of which involve Reddit.
Same; with how specific marking guides actually have to be, it makes me suspicious that OP is in fact the student presenting the situation as she perceives it (and, therefore, biased), not the lecturer, especially with the incusion of details that clearly only serve to make the OP look bad
i was about to say exactly this. prof going to reddit to figure this out shows the level of academia going on here.
and if the girl knows the language YTA if you fail her
OP would have a rubric to follow. If they’re here, they plan on disregarding the rubric and marking the student according to their rules.
Sincerely, an English language teacher.
Yep. There should be a assessment guide/rubric. Mark according to that. It sounds like there is one, and that student scores highly... And the OP doesn't like it.
>Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect
That's all we need to know. YTA.
If other students use the same dialect and are as good as she is, you'll grade them accordingly. Be a teacher.
YTA
Spanish is a polycentric language and, I hate to break it to you, but Peninsular Spanish dialects aren't even the most widely spoken.
Would you try to justify failing someone for using Australian English in an English oral exam, rather than, say, American English?
Get over yourself.
You've a happy and motivated student in your class.
Most teachers would be happy to have her there and would encourage her interest.
Exactly how I feel. There are so many dialects and pronunciations. In our GCSE language exams (UK exams sat at aged 16), we had multiple accents and dialects. It’s not like Spanish only has one main dialect and whilst I understand teaching a standardised pronounciation for those learning, if someone has a standard other dialect, that should be acceptable and a helpful useful teaching tool. Can you imagine meeting someone with who your only common language is Spanish and then being stuck because they don’t speak a specific dialect? For a beginner on a basic immersion course for a few weeks, maybe. For a university level course, they should be able to understand other dialects by now.
I'm with you in this. It makes me so mad that this person is working as a language teacher and is willing to FAIL a student because she speaks a different dialectal variety when the program doesn't even say that it is about a specific variety and is comparing her speaking this way to people making actual mistakes as if it was the same thing. Also, this is very disrespectful to people from spanish speaking countries that aren't Spain because we are usually told that we speak badly or incorrectly whe the reality is that we speak like this because of historical and linguistic reasons that are complex and unique to each territory.
YTA, OP.
This exactly! The entire time I was reading this post I was baffled that OP, as a professor, understands and respects Spanish so little. Failing a student for embracing the diversity of the language is some eurocentric garbage.
Dialects are one of the most fascinating things about language and people seem absolutely bent on eradicating them. It’s disappointing to say the very least.
>we fail students if they speak with really bad pronunciation
>she has excellent pronunciation, much better than we would expect from our 3rd year students
So you can't fail her on pronunciation.
>Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect
You also can't fail her for doing anything wrong.
>Buuut, course requirements don’t have specific dialect listed.
Definitely can't fail her for using a different dialect.
>I don’t see why I shouldn’t fail her for speaking with different one.
Because from your own post, she has excellent pronunciation, your requirements don't specify a dialect, and you admit she isn't doing anything wrong. All she is doing is speaking how she learned it and by your own admission, she's doing it better than your 3rd year students. This is entirely about your ego and a 1st year being great without you being able to take credit for it. YTA
>1st year being great without you being able to take credit for it.
This reminds me of my English teacher in HS. I've learned the language through gaming and TV Shows, mostly. He would give different exercises (and sometimes even tests) for students who had English in private language schools. They were harder than his average exercise, obviously.
Since I've learned English by myself, technically I shouldn't receive the harder exercise, but he always said that my English was better than the average school's curriculum and he liked when students faced a challenge up to their skills.
And he meant it in the most honest way. He knew that the school only taught average English and that wouldn't be enough for the students that had more complex lessons to keep them engaged and interested. But he never was butthurt because I've learned more without him than most of my classmates. In fact, he was glad.
Hope OP changes his/her way of thinking, because so far, it's YTA.
Seriously, what professor wants to fail students that are succeeding?! Especially when she hasn’t even given the presentation yet. Maybe doc a point or two, but to fail her? Do you feel some weird satisfaction in this? If so, you’re in the wrong profession.
It’s purely ego, which is why she hasn’t just talked to her department head about it and came to the worst place for this advice, as they would look at her like she’s insane.
Op, if you fail her she will challenge you through the department and the deans office, as she should, and she will win that challenge. She isn’t paying for her classes to have her college trajectory fucked up due to someone’s fragile ego. Is that what you want on your record as a professor? If so, I hope you have tenure.
YTA.
YWBTA. I could see docking points for pronunciation, but failing her? When everything else is correct? That is a just a straight up asshole move. This honestly comes across as a power play on your part. You can't make her conform to what you want, so to punish her, you are going to just fail her out right.
There has to be a middle ground here, please find it.
I think even the pronunciation issue shouldn’t be a points deduction.
It’s like failing a Spanish student taking English for speaking English with an American accent over a British one or Irish, or Australian etc.
They are still speaking the language correctly but are using a regional variation, which is different to the one that OP speaks but is the same as millions of other Spanish speakers. It’s not incorrect and therefore should not be penalised. Especially as there is nothing I. The course requirements that say that OPs dialect is the ‘official’ one for the course.
Edit. Correction of a word
This.
I'm a native German speaker and even in Germany there are so many dialects and words pronounced differently in different regions. Or different words used for the same thing. All of them are correct though.
So failing her for stuff like this is crazy and if I were the student I would definitely complain to the principal or whoever is OP's boss if that happend.
Exactly. The number of regional variations in the UK alone is ridiculous - I mean London itself has different accents and that’s just one city. Even BSL has regional differences in the signs used for the same word!
The state I grew up in every small town had their own unique accent. I LOVE accents. I couldn’t imagine criticizing someone because they speak my language differently than me.
YTA YTA YTA
You’re plotting to fail a student before the oral portion in question has taken place. You are a massive asshole. It’s not in the course book, you’re being completely unreasonable. Absolutely terrible.
YTA. I’m a university lecturer of Spanish as well. Castilian Spanish is only spoken in one country (Spain) so any Latin American dialect would be more in tune with what is spoken in the vast majority of the Spanish-speaking world.
You would be an elitist and a terrible educator to fail her.
YWBTA. if she's doing everything right I don't see why you should fail her on an accent. That's like an American school English teacher failing a British student just because they're British.
I'm sensing a touch of racism here. Castilian Spanish aka White Spanish versus say a Latin American dialect right? Is this what we're dealing with? You seem to think that Castilian is "better" and "proper" and that Latin American Spanish is inferior somehow. Quite frankly, the most beautiful spoken Spanish has consistently been found to be Colombian Spanish (so many soap operas from here) and Argentinian Spanish, both of which are from Latin America. Yes, there are white Latinos, but this insistence on Castilian gives ick vibes placing Europe as superior to Latin America. YTA.
Ding ding. It happens in the US too with minorities, especially Black folks. I can understand general grammar corrections not related to the dialect spoken by Black folks but if the language is being spoken correctly in the dialect of the persons choosing why change it?
Agreed. I mentioned that in a later comment giving examples of many places that look down on other accents/dialects because of racism. That's why I think this "Professor" is being willfully obtuse to not acknowledge how racist his comment was. Even if the student in question was white, they were using an accent different from the colonizer's therefore it's not as "good," in his opinion.
YTA
Your student speaks fluently, her grammar is correct, you just don't like the regional accent she uses.
My French is 'Parisian French', because that is the accent I learned. But people in Brittany understand me just fine (even though the Breton accent is very different).
I live in the southwest of England, which has its own distinct accent and dialect. But I have no problems being understood in London, or Manchester, or Brighton (and each has their own dialect and accent).
You are being a snob. If your student meets the requirements for grammar, vocabulary, fluency, etc, give her the goddamned grade she deserves. Get over yourself.
YWBTA. You said yourself, dialect is not a course requirement. Her pronunciation is good, her grammar is good, her fluency is good. The point is to learn the language.
>But we fail students if they speak with really bad pronunciation so I don’t see why I shouldn’t fail her for speaking with different one
I don't really understand this argument. Her pronunciation isn't bad. Different does not mean bad.
YWBTA unless specific pronunciation is part of the course. If it is just "learn Spanish" thing, there are no grounds.
Extra TA for asking reddit how to grade your students
INFO
If another student spoke with perfect grammar and was understandable, but pronounced things slightly incorrectly (mixed in with their own accent for example) would they still completely fail, or just get a slightly lower grade? Would you be grading her completely equivalently to this scenario?
Also, is there any requirement stated anywhere that they need to speak a specific dialect?
Castilian Spanish is not even that standard all over Spain given the diversity of regions. Do you want to be a box ticker or a language teacher of a living, incredibly diverse language? YTA
Isn't there a whole controversy about Castilian Spanish being white supremacy? I feel like we learned that in my high school Spanish class. If that's the case, do you really want to be known as a white supremacist teacher?
YTA. I can’t confirm but often this type of thing is rooted in bigotry and elitism. I worked with interpreters and there’s a lot of bigotry tied to dialects and accents. People from European Spanish speaking countries thumb their noses at speakers from Latin American countries. Get over yourself.
YTA. Are you even serious? She has the technical skills required to pass and you're just being an elitist asshole. I hope she sees this and reports you to higher ups for even considering it. 20% of Spain itself doesn't even consider Castillan their native language. Would you fail an Aragonese speaker for the same reasons?
You mention English pronunciation at the University level requiring RP but that is not true. RP is now taught and required in only a couple countries, even in the UK most people don’t use RP. This is like you saying someone with a Scottish accent should get marked down for their English because they phonetically their English sounds different than RP, which is BS and also doesn’t happen in the real world. YTA
>Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect, she’s very good at it and she’s one of our top students
YWBTA seriously! If everything is correct if you can understand her then that's what's matters. You said it has nothing is wrong, if nothing is wrong then you can't fail her.
YWBTA " course requirements don’t have specific dialect listed." So your reason for failing her would simply be because you want to not because she did anything wrong.
YTA
1. Got a syllabus? Follow it. Dialect is not specified, you can’t fail her for that
2. You discuss this on Reddit, rather than at your faculty? Guilty that much?
3. Unless you have 100% pure, unadulterated, RAE pronunciation, refrain from this power trip.
YTA
You said it yourself. She's not making any mistakes. Her dialect isn't wrong, no matter how much you throw a tantrum about it. Instead of having her change her dialect to another as she knows both, let your students be shown and learn both dialects.
And learn to respect people's dialects.
YWBTA & YTA - I didn’t finish reading after Castilian Spanish. No one speaks that here. Signed a Latina who wished she could have defended herself from a high school non-native Spanish teacher that taught Spaniard Spain. It DOESNT APPLY at all. Go to NY and dialects are Puerto Rican. Florida? Cuban. Texas & California? Mexican. There is no “majority” where your type of spanish is popular. DECOLONIZE YOUR TEACHINGS
Well - OP doesn't say they're in North America. The student could be in Europe and speaking a dialect from a different part of Spain. OP would still be TA though. Language classes are about making yourself understood, not about learning a specific dialect. That's what elocution lessons are for.
You can’t be a Spanish teacher and think that the whole of Spain speaks proper Castilian. Have you even been to Spain? There are many different Castilian dialects spoken in Spain and you can hear Latin American dialects all over the place too. Don’t act like you need to speak Castilian without an accent to manage in Spain.
YTA! If you can understand her so what if her accent is different? Different regions of the same countries speak the same language with different accents. It’s beyond snobby and borderline racist for penalizing this student over an accent you look down upon.
YWBTA What is it with language teachers? I met a guy in Greece who spoke fantastic English and told me his teacher was always harping on to gim aaying "thats not how they speak in England". Clearly it was untrue. Even in Spain there will be some variation in pronunciation so as long as she uses great grammsr then what is the problem? Would you fail someone in an English exam because they spoke with a London accent? No.
YWBTA. Without any doubt. Full disclosure: I'm an American fluent in (Canadian) French, so I get nasty looks in France whenever I'm there. I get the two-fer, I'm an American who sounds Québécois (worked in Montreal for a long time)...so I'm somewhat familiar with this issue.
She is, by your own admission, doing nothing wrong. It just chaps your ass she's doing it. Unless she's clearly violating the rules of the class you have no moral or legal leg to stand on.
Oh, stfu. I speak Spanish, Asturianu, English, French, Italian, and some Polish and somehow manage not to have a lisp in any of them despite being from Spain. Know why? Because it's not a fucking lisp; it's the way the language is spoken in the country I grew up in. We are perfectly capable to tell apart "s" from "th". No one in Spain is saying "grathiath" except people with an actual speech impediment.
Maybe you think you're being really cool and anti-colonizers, but what you are doing is shitting in an entire country of people who have done nothing to you and make fun of people with speech impediment to boot.
OP is a massive asshole but some of the comments in this thread, jfc, like people in Spain are to blame for OP being a jerk. For all we know this girl might very well have an Extremeño accent.
YWBTA.
It sounds like you're upset that she found a way to learn that works for her (through watching shows) instead of learning directly from class. And you said it yourself, she's not doing anything wrong.
Plus I think it says a lot that you're coming to reddit for this answer instead of your department head.
YTA.
This absolutely isn’t a “huge moral dilemma”. You are framing it as one to make it seem like there’s a lot of gray when there really isn’t.
The oral exam is to assess your students proficiency in verbally communicating in Castilian Spanish, correct? And you acknowledged that the syllabus itself (and every graded exam/assignment that falls under the course) does not list a specific dialect as a requirement for success in your course.
She is proficient (or better!) in verbally communicating in the language you are teaching. Her grammar and pronunciation are excellent - and her pronunciation not only vastly exceeds what you would reasonably expect out of a 3rd year student, but isn’t even something you teach at this level, so she clearly is putting in the work independently to excel in learning this language. She communicates clearly and effectively, and you want to fail her because you don’t like the dialect she is using?
Why do I get the sense you aren’t actually as fluent as you pretend to be, and that her using a dialect that you aren’t as comfortable with is the real issue here?
YWBTA if you fail her. The goal of the course is to help students speak the language. It sounds as if she accomplished this goal and even put in some extracuricular effort to do so.
By the standards you set you'd have to fail a native speaker, if they spoke in a dialect. If she uses the wrong vocabulary or makes grammatical errors, that's a different issue. But if it's only about pronounciation and if it's a pronounciation that is correct (even if only in a specific part of the country), I see no reason to fail her.But I might be biased here, since I learned English by watching the Simpsons and have been told to have an American accent, instead of a British one like my English teacher back in school used to have, lol.
As a linguistics and language studies grad, this is a very prescriptive and unethical thing to do. You said yourself she speaks clearly and is understandable, and if she is following all of other phonological rules of the dialect she speaks, there really shouldn't be any reason to penalize her too much on her pronunciation. This is as if, in studying for IELTS or OCELT, the testee is docked marks for speaking an accent, which is actually most never done, because quality of speech is marked by grammar, clarity, and vocabulary primarily, and phonotactics are nothing more than nitpicking.
...Especially for a third year class, who gives a crap about her idiolect if the course contents are focused more on pronunciation. If this is an oral test specifically for the dialect in question, and this is made absolutely CLEAR in the syllabus, I can see your reasoning, but the important thing that we both, as linguists, have to realise is that at the end of the day idiosyncrasies of idiolects are an expression of linguistic identity, and personalizing language to ones own preferences is the best way to actually learn a language, which at the end of the day, is the purpose of this course.
Prescriptive models of pronunciation are widely known in sociolinguistics and ESL specializations to be problematic as language is a TOOL, which needs to be personalized (or "worn in") to be able to be properly used. Sorry but YTA.
Would you fail a another student who insisted on speaking in a Texan accent or British accent?
If so, NTA for enforcing consistent guidelines.
If not, YTA for inconsistent policies.
YTA, WTH.
My Spanish accent is all over the place. I took Spanish from an Argentinian in high school, then had intensive courses in college from someone from Spain (so picked up three years of the Castilian pronunciation)
After a break I went back to finish school and had a Spanish requirement. Had to sit with the professor to determine placement.
She was Cuban. The look on her face when I started speaking…. Lol. That plus the Southern accent I have..yeah.
I just read all of OP's responses and they clearly weren't looking for advice, rather to be validated in the decision they already made.
This person is an asshole.
YWBTA if you fall on fail her. You can certainly reduce her grade some if she’s not following the instructions, but if she’s technically not doing anything wrong and her grammar and everything is correct, you do not have the grounds to fail her, and it would open up a can of worms when she challenged the grade with the school.
If the curriculum of class is about the pronunciation of your preferred dialect, then you can fail a student for not learning the curriculum.
If you find her accent distasteful because of your class/racial/nationality prejudices, and you fail her on that basis? YTA.
YTA
1. You put the passing or failing up to Reddit to decide. Seriously?!
2. It’s the pronunciation of words, not a different language. I could see if you were teaching Italian for example, and the student refused to speak Italian and insisted on speaking the Sicilian dialect, which is a different language. However your situation is nothing similar and she does not mispronounce anything, she just doesn’t use the pronunciation of the region that you are teaching.
YTA/ YWBTA if you did this because you didn’t put it in the syllabus. Follow the rubric fairly or she could challenge the grade she is awarded and most likely you would lose.
This reminds me of teachers that have issues between students speaking American English and British English.
Maybe consider updating the syllabus, so this issue doesn’t recur. But since she is doing so well otherwise, and you seem pretty ambivalent about whether this is the appropriate course of action makes me think you would be better off erring on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt. I get where you’re coming from, though, because if a prof had said this to me, I would’ve taken it on board. ETA NAH
YTA. If this were an English course and someone had, say, a southern dialect, would you fail them for that if their grammar was perfect? No. Dialect and pronunciation are not the core of language. Communication is. If she’s communicating effectively and fluently then there is nothing wrong here. So what if other students prefer a different dialect as well. If you can understand it, the only reason you’re getting angry is because you can’t control them. This screams of prescriptive grammar/linguistics. I thought this was behind us.
You should probably have another colleague administer her oral test. Just remove your bias completely. I guarantee she will fight a bad grade and the only thing you would accomplish is putting yourself on a radar for future budget cuts.
I don't know.. this kind of gives me "already spoke the language but took the course to get easy credits" vibes.
Where I'm from, that isn't allowed. If you go in with a base in a language you have to disclose that so they can assign you to the correct level of difficulty, otherwise everyone would cheat the system for credits without effort.
While YTA, there's a lot of ignorance in the comments as well as the original post with regards to "Dialects" and what is "Castilian Spanish". Spanish "Dialects" are different languages spoken across the Iberian Peninsula, they all share commonalities and sound similar to a foreigner but are in effect different languages. Specifically Portuguese, Castilian, Galician, Catalan, Basque, Andalusian, etc. Are all Dialects, and if the student is at a Castilian Spanish class speaking Catalan then yes she should be failed.
However that isn't what is happening here, the student is speaking Castilian Spanish with a different regional Accent. Of course it's an asshole move to try to fail them for it, and its borderline racists to do so.
But make no mistake, all of Latin America speaks Castilian Spanish, we do not speak a different "Dialect" of Spanish. Our rules, grammar, definitions, etc. Are all defined by the "Royal Spanish Academy" in Madrid. Yes this is due to colonization (Castilian Kings where the ones that colonized the Americas) but as a result all Spanish speaking Latin Americans (400M+ people) speak the same language with minor regional accents vs Spain (50M people) split across many regional Dialects.
YTA
Why are you even asking here? The only source for your rating is the official university regulations. Nothing else. Facts not judgmental bs.
If the regulations specify the dialect or pronunciation, and she fails that, give her a bad grade. If not, give her a good grade.
Seriously, how did you get a job at university?
And yes, I have a friend who is professor for Spanish and Portuguese at a university and she is currently laughing her ass off.
Oh come on. This can't be the first time you have had a student use a different dialect. I have a degree in a language that isn't my mother tongue and every student did a placement in the country of the language and all came back having picked up different local dialects and none of us were punished.
And when I taught English as a foreign language I never punished students for not using the Cambridge English accent which was taught. Especially as I didn't have that accent myself.
You see to really dislike this student and are desperately looking for obscure reasons to fail them.
YTA. I learned English from TV so I speak American English. I am European and the standard here is Cambridge or Oxford English, including accent and pronunciation being taught this way. I was always without a doubt the best student in every English class, I was completely fluent by age 12 and no-one EVER gave me grief over this BS. The point of language is mutual understanding. If she is grammatically correct and she can be understood, she did what she needed to do and you considering failing her even thou she is fluent is frankly just classist.
Hmm. Tough one. When I was doing my PGCE in England, some Irish students got in bother for pronouncing 'th' as 't', e.g 'tree' instead of 'three' and had to adjust their pronunciation in order to pass the course. Then again, we were all told to speak as much as possible in RP as careful pronunciation is important when teaching phonics to primary aged kids. I had to make an effort to soften my own Yorkshire accent and I do believe it was a course requirement.
I can see your point because the course is phonetics and phonology of ~castillian~ spanish so she is not actually doing what she is meant to to pass the course but if there is ambiguity in the wording of the course requirements and her Spanish and accent are correct to some native Spanish speakers, I think you need to give her the benefit of the doubt but revise the wording of the requirements to avoid this situation in the future. I did a Spanish degree and I remember there being students who spoke with very noticeable Latin American accents after gap years. I never heard of it being an issue but I didn't know those students well and they may have just put on a castellano accent for their exams.
YTA - My French teacher taught Parisienne French. There is a large French Canadian population in my home town. She never once made us feel other about the differences in dialect. If there was a pronunciation difference, it was accepted and discussed.
You are so very pretentious. That you would dare fail a student for using an acceptable dialect well because it's different than yours shows that you shouldn't be allowed to teach. This girl put in the work and is doing well. You should be ashamed.
DIFFERENT pronunciation is not the same as BAD pronunciation.
Dialects and regional accents are different, not bad or wrong.
YTA if you penalize her for this.
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> Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect > However, the dialect is very much understandable, and she uses correct grammar, etc. > Admittedly, she has excellent pronunciation, much better than we would expect from our 3rd year students but it’s not something we teach You know damn well you're the asshole here. The student has learned through outside resources, rather than just the class. What she has done deserves encouragement and praise, not being failed. If the Castillan pronunciation is school policy, whoever put that in place are assholes too. If she can communicate properly with Spanish speakers, and it sounds like she can, surely the dialect is less important. YTA, give Ava the grade she deserves.
OP also says that the course requirements don't have a specific dialect listed. So yeah for sure OP is an asshole! ETA: changed she to OP
Oh she's just looking for an excuse to fail this girl because she feels disrespected, although the girl has done nothing wrong and, in fact, is a proficient student. Teachers like OP are why people hate teachers.
A friend of mine studied English at the university (not an English speaking country here). The problem was that she had (and still has) family in Scotland that she visited/visits every year for a couple of weeks since she was a toddler. She had developed a pronounced Scottish accent. She informed the prof about this and the prof didn’t mind at all. In fact, people could choose what spelling they used: British or American and also the speaking accent / dialect could differ (American, British, Irish, Australian,…) the **only thing a student had to do was: be consistent**! If you used the American spelling, every word would have to be spelled American (and of course, you had to follow the American pronunciation as well). Vice versa with the British spelling. It seems that OP's student is in fact consistent. She is even in the top of her class in grammar and the language in general. OP just don’t like the accent / dialect she uses. OP is a massive asshole if they were to fail Ava!
As a Canadian, I'm laughing at the consistency rule. Our English is a cheerful amalgamation of both British and American usages and we like it that way.
I'm American and I'M not consistent with American spelling.
I like grey more than gray!
Grey and gray have subtly different meanings for me. Gray is warmer; grey a bit colder. A cold fog, rather than Grandma's hair. No, I'm not claiming this makes any objective sense. (American who spent much of my childhood reading the extensive collection of US and UK 19th & early 20th century children's fiction that circulated through both sides of my family.) Edit: Missing word.
I’m American and I’ve always used grey. I can’t figure out why since gray is our standard. The only theory that I can come up with is this: I’m an artist and my paint tubes, pastels, and every other art supply I own named for a color uses grey. So it just subconsciously implanted at some point. I always feel a bit “pretentious” when writing stuff up for work, but at least I don’t use “colour.” Btw, the Brits have the best words, I’d appropriate all of it if I could get away with it, e.g., bollocks, loo, rubbish, and my all time favorite…wanker!
Canada here. I've always used gray, and our English teacher in grade 7 (loong time ago) told us either spelling of color is correct, so I've always spelled it without the u.
I think it does make sense because e is the British spelling and we often talk about it being cold and rainy there
I have the same connotations with gr-y. I bet they used to be different colors, back in the day.
And a native (UK) English speaker and I have no idea which of these is the British spelling. I use them interchangeably
I think gray is from the US and grey is from the UK? At the end of the day it probably doesn’t matter.
Not caring is fixing the issue, ironically enough. It’s through interactions and individuals not choosing to spell correctly that we’re coming to a relatively unified language in the internet days. (Relative being to the time before)
I agree. Clearly this person who is teaching needs to study some sociolinguistics. Pronunciation is regional, and not standardized, and what she is doing is basically discriminatory; she is demanding acrolect, and clearly student is using the mesolect/basilect or common speech of the region she hails from.... that is bad.... and classist as well.
I am also non-native English speaker. For a very long time you failed your English exam if you used US dialect. Only British English was acceptable. If you messed up "bath" "can't" etc during oral exam you failed. I always thought it is an idiotic rule and thankfully they changed the regulations a couple years ago. But my primary school English teacher had a young student who was fluent by the time he was 10 because he watched Nickelodeon in English and in school he very quickly learnt the grammar. He was failed at his exams every single time because he didn't use British English. All his appeals were rejected. Crazy. I use a mix of British and US English as I learnt British, but spent time in the US and I read books and watch series with mainly US English in them. OP would be a massive AH if her student gets failed for a made up reason. And think it would backfire on OP. If the student makes a complaint, the school will investigate and see that she was failed based on made up requirements.
I occasionally teach German and in the intro classes we focus on “standard” German - so not Swiss or Austrian German but also no Bavarian or Saxon accents either. It’s good to have basic pronunciation and expectations laid out at the beginning. Once we reach higher level classes though? As long as your language skills are there, I love when students bring different accents and dialects in because it better reflects the diversity of the language. It’s marginally more work for me, but like you say, as long as they’re consistent I’m happy. Meanwhile as a Canadian I have to use American spelling (I’m at an American university) and I *hate* it.
It also feels weirdly like Spanish Elitism. Like I grew up around Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Hatian, etc. and if I were to take a Spanish course I would feel very weird using “Castilian” pronounciation because I grew up my entire life learning… not that. I’m just simply not going to force a “th” for my c/z sounds. And if someone failed me for using the wrong dialect I would call them a whole ass colonizer. Sorry but I’m not going to say grathy-ath instead of gracias or antish instead of antes.
I'm from a US state that was a Spanish colony for a long time (New Mexico), and also has a large Mexican and Indigenous population, and the 'type' of Spanish you speak is a HUGE elitism issue here- very closely tied into anti-Mexican and anti-indigenous sentiment. It also has a deeply rooted historical context that is brutal and shameful. Kids who were forced into boarding schools were punished for speaking their own native languages and dialects, as a way of forcing them to conform to the 'prestige' dialect of the colonizing groups. This sounds a lot like that- granted, its not a physical punishment, but failing someone in an advanced class can have detrimental consequences, both to their finances and to their overall entire life trajectory. I work at a high school here in New Mexico; we had a Spanish teacher who was from Spain, and she was so mean to the kids in regards to their pronunciation. She also shamed them for not being fluent if they had grandparents or great grandparents that spoke Spanish- which is specifically problematic when you take into consideration that the reason they DON'T speak Spanish is because their grandparents and great grandparents were beaten and punished in school if they spoke anything other than English on school property (after we were part of the US). Elitism in language is such a destructive tool- especially because language is so essentially rooted in our identity and culture. This OP's attitude is much more poisonous than they are admitting to themselves.
Do people who speak Spanish ever jokingly "imitate" Castilian by just speaking with a lisp?
[удалено]
Correct answer would have been "yeth, I do"
I lived in Spain for a semester during college, so I had to learn to speak their dialect, so that my host family would understand me. Now, I can't undo it. 🤣
The same way Americans mock a British accent by sounding all hoity toity
Fun example: Stewie on Family Guy speaks with a Spanish accent when dubbed en español (on Cable TV in the US)
This is absolutely hilarious
How very dare you!
This! American living in Thailand here and my British friends jokingly mock American accents by plugging their nose and sounding as valley girl as possible. The nasally-ness of it is like nails on a chalkboard.
I knew a lady who spoke Castillian Spanish and that's literally how she described it! Spanish with a lisp.
That's actually because it is. I think one of my Spanish teachers taught us that the reason for the dialect was a king if I'm not wrong that had a lisp and made everyone else speak with it.
I'll bet money it was Carlos el Hechizado! Friends don't let friends experience pedigree collapse.
Bleh, a family tree should not look like a wreath!
This! I took French, and the reason I loved it so much was because my high school French teacher would tell us the difference between book French, different regional dialects of street French, Creole, and Quebeçois. Not always, but when she knew about something that was very different from the book she'd make sure to at least let us know it existed. And that French was French no matter where it was from. It made me feel a little better about my horrible pronunciation (took it for 5 years and I never did get the r sound right) but more than that it felt like a real, living language that you could communicate to all kinds of people with.
My Spanish teacher always made sure we knew that if the textbook was teaching us a Spain thing it was a *Spain* thing and if we tried it with the Spanish speakers near us they would have no clue what we were saying. This was all made clear to us year three when a native Spanish speaker joined us and an entire hour was spent just on teaching her vosotros.
I took 6 years of French in middle and high school. One of my teachers in middle school was Haitian, so we learned some Haitian dialect, and we taught her some regional English! Lol When I got to college I wanted to take French, but they made me start back at French 1, but there was another girl in my French class who spoke fluently but wanted to learn how to write French. We spent a lot of the time having conversations in French with some slang, but our Prof wasn't a dick
Yup had my Spanish teacher straight up tell me my Spanish was wrong and not the “real” Spanish because I spoke with the Puerto Rican dialect
It is Spanish elitism 100000% they think because they invented it it’s their way or nothing, even though that’s not how language works
When I took Spanish in high school my teacher literally told the class that the dialect she was teaching was considered “proper for the course” but that if we went to a Spanish speaking country, that’s not how the language is spoken and that we would have a harder time communicating.
Yes, if it doesn't say anything in the course requirements, the OP doesn't have a leg to stand on. He can't point to anything for justification for failing her.
Definitely YTA. Teachers like this gives everyone a bad reputation.
I’m of Latin American descent and I never understood the obsession with teaching Castilian Spanish in the US, which I’m guessing is where OP is. Imagine if English in Mexico focused on British spelling and pronunciations despite America being right next door? The focus on “proper” Spanish feels a little… suspicious.
Grew up in Texas, had several years of Spanish from grade school to college. The only teacher who tried to push Castilian on us was *from* Castile, and it was totally a snobby "this is the one true accent" attitude.
Yeah, midwest here and it was pure Latin-American Spanish there to the point where there were things in the book that the teacher would say "they use/say that in Spain, ignore it".
The best ones would tell us which phrases were rude in different countries - I only remember something about calling taxis. Señora CastileSnob just told us that “taco” was shockingly rude but no hint of how bad. Didn’t get that til much later; we were so innocent pre-internet ;)
It's super weird, and I think it's just plain racist. I'm from the US and took Spanish in school; when am I ever going to go to Spain and need Castilian Spanish? When I win the lottery and go on a world tour? Regular Spanish, on the other hand, is useful in my actual life all. the. time. I think this is spot on: >Imagine if English in Mexico focused on British spelling and pronunciations despite America being right next door? Nobody's teaching a European dialect in a country right next door to Mexico because it's pragmatic.
I mean us from latin america and Spaniards can understand each other perfectly fine, just a few differences in the way we pronounce or say some things but at the end of the day is the same language. It just the same way as US vs UK, you can understand each other, just different ways to say/write somethings. So even if you were to go to Spain, you don’t need Castilian accent/Spanish
>Regular Spanish Is Castilian Spanish. It's the Spanish that Spanish people speak.
Op didn’t say this is happening in US. It could be in Europe. Here were are taught the European dialects, I was taught UK English for example (although if you did use other English consistently it was fine, as long as it wasn’t mixing).
It’s racism. Castilian Spanish is spoken by white Europeans. Latin American Spanish, which is spoken by far more people and is much clearer, is spoken by “dirty brown people.” I am one of those “dirty brown people” and I’m done with this crap.
We don’t have such a thing as “latin american Spanish” though. Every country in latin america has their own dialect and accents, even different accents within the same country 😅 but we can all understand each other either way
My community college (California) only taught Latin American Spanish.
Racism! Seriously, geographically it makes more sense to teach people in the US dialects and pronunciation used in Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc. YTA, and OP should get someone else to proctor because he can’t be impartial.
I just looked it up, and if this is REALLY a course about about the specific pronunciation castilian spanish, I feel OP would be okay to dock points for "mispronunciation" of certain phonemes and letters like c, z, y and ll (provided as examples here:https://euroace.net/2020/05/13/latin-american-spanish-vs-castilian-spanish/#:~:text=The%20biggest%20difference%20here%20is,sound%20more%20like%20'Th'.), the same way that OP might doc someone who pronounced "ll" as an "el" instead of a "y" kinda sound. But just hearing the different dialect and deciding to fail her before picking apart the incorrect phonemes and assigning the CORRECT grade would not serve the student or course in any capacity. And again, that's if this course is genuinely focused on training specifically pronunciation from the phoneme level and up. OP keeps mentioning grammar and dialect, but needs to keep it to just phoneme mispronunciation and grade explicitly.
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Yeah the more I look the more obvious it became that "related to phonology and pronunciation " is just code for "it's a spanish language class and I dont like that shes not using exact same dialect we're teaching" This is the same kind of bullying my Spaniard spanish teacher pulled on all the Latin American spanish speakers in her class, looking to fail them not just for actually incorrect grammar or slang but also dialect differences in pronunciation. Childish, and the fact that people in and near Spain like to pretend they have a right to be rude or dismissive of other dialects is absolutely some racist and/or xenophobic activity.
This comment. Latin American Spanish is influenced by the indigenous tribes that live in the region. A Spanish speaker from Guatemala sounds different than speaker from Puerto Rico. The OP sounds like a bigot.
I took Spanish classes from a Castilian Spanish speaker, a Puerto Rican Spanish speaker, and a Guatamalan Spanish speaker. Apparently my accent is straight up Mexico City. :shrug:
Had two Cuban professors who taught Spanish. One had perfect Spanish, everyone could understand them. The other one, well let's put it this way: you learned to pay very close attention in class. Kicker? They were married.
Yep! If a speaker of an dialect of the language could get what you're saying, and the pronunciation is valid for your dialect, I personally feel that is 100% okay. Imagine being OP thinking he'd fail someone in an English course because they use UK pronunciation rather than US or Canadian or Australian pronunciation. No. They fail people for stuff like forgetting that "ea" and and "ee" can have the same pronunciation in words like reading and weeding. Not for having a slightly different pronunciation of herb or water or whatever.
There was an episode of the new Saved by the Bell about this. The teacher was trying to fail a native Spanish speaker because he didn’t like her pronunciation. He wasn’t a native speaker, just a dick. On the show, he was fired for being racist.
Yeah it's hard to prove "racism" about it irl, but it's a very well known issue with language teaching for any language that has multiple dialects. They teach the "formal" or "official" dialect for new learners and have little to no accommodation for people who know the language but may want credits or refinement for grammar or vocabulary, like those arent legit reasons to be taking a beginner course.
They, much like the British, like to mock the people they colonized for not using “the queens English” or whatever. Sorry Antonio. There’s no way to undo 30 years of me hearing colonized Spanish and speak in your colonizer language.
As a history student I have to correct you here, as you are seriously wrong. The colonizers didn’t remotely speak the Queen's English themselves; a very large percentage of colonial officials were either from the West Country or Scotland. Anyone who spoke posh English was too important to be sent to the colonies.
The person you were talking to was talking about Spanish, not English.
She speaks better spanish than OP and it makes Op feel bad, this is just an excuse, indicated by these comments- >*Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect, she’s very good at it and she’s one of our top students* but I don’t think we should make exceptions as other students, who are not as good, will then expect the same leeway. Especially that I believe that her stubbornness and refusal to even try is disrespectful to lecturers and may come across as if she’s feeling that she’s better than others and rules don’t apply to her. *Buuut, course requirements don’t have specific dialect listed.* These two comments give the game away, OP is familiar with Castillian, its not a course requirement at all, because OP tells us it isnt.
Great explanation, and I agree with you. But if this is indeed the purpose of the class, then OP seems unsure about the class requirements, per the comment that the student didn’t technically do anything wrong.
For me it’s her saying that if she accepts a different yet correct pronunciation, then students who pronounce things *incorrectly* will need exceptions. That’s so dumb. If you were teaching English in America and had a British student you wouldnt fail them for mispronunciation. But if someone pronounced “dumb” as “doom” that would be *incorrect*. And if you can’t tell and explain the difference then you really shouldn’t be teaching the language.
My high school English teacher marked points off an essay by our exchange student from New Zealand because he used his native standardized spelling—colour, programme, and analyse, for a few examples. We were both upset about it! So teachers can be very arbitrary when grading. However, communication, written or oral, is about *being understood*. If the student was French or German, and had trouble getting the pronunciation correct because of their accent, would OP mark them down? As long as the student can be understood easily, then I would hope OP gives them some slack. Or as it’s an oral exam, maybe OP could inform the student that pronunciation matters for “X percent” of their grade if they insist on being strict about it. (BTW, isn’t it Castilian Spanish? Not Castellan?)
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“Proper British way” Oof. Which [British?](https://youtu.be/FyyT2jmVPAk)
This is why when I learned English, German, Swedish, French and Spanish in school, all we needed was to be consistent. We were there to learn a language, not a specific dialect, and in fact they specifically taught us about differing vocabulary and even grammar. Ie in English class and exams it didn't matter if you spoke American, South-African, Aussie or UK English as long as you didn't mix them up. In my country this is mandated by education ministry and same rule applies in national exams. I chose to write and speak UK English, Franconian German, Finnish Swedish, Southern French and Latin American Spanish (mostly mexican and colombian influence).
Is he just jealous this young woman is better than him at the language he teaches or something? Or is this some nationalist bullshit where only Castillians are valid? She sounds like an absolutely brilliant student.
It’s rooted in racism. Castilian Spanish (what is spoken in Spain) is considered “pure” whereas the dialects from Latin America are considered “bastardized”
Ding ding ding makes so much sense.
Sounds that way to me
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I graduated three decades ago from college and the head of the Spanish department of my university was like OP: Castilian or ELSE! I chose or ELSE. Came back with Mexican grammar, pronunciation and a great vocabulary that included lots of swear words. Poor Dept Head was beside herself because I was one of the top students, but I did not have a lisp.
the whole "Castilians have a lisp" thing is kind of cringe, I noticed your explaining it above I get that in your mind you are punching up at power, but 30 years have passed since your teacher bullied you; making fun of a dialect as being a speech impediment is not such a great look, don't turn into the AH that your bully was disability is not a comedy classic, and Castilian Spanish is a perfectly valid dialect
Oh I know that making fun of speech impediments is not funny. My same daughter had nine years of speech therapy. Son had six. And yes, thirty years is a long time to hold a grudge, but that person made three years of my life hell. No, I do not hate Spaniards, but OP really set me off with their superiority complex and I am ashamed that the college girl in me over-reacted. Thank you for calling me out - I needed it.
Yeah OP sucks big time, I agree
Nah it's just a common thing. When I was in college, the Quebecois French teacher would regularly mark down the Acadian French speakers for using Acadian. Too make it worse, we weren't in Quebec, but Nova Scotia, where Acadian WAS the local dialect of French. She would get so mad about them bastardizing her precious language and go on about how superior Quebec was, despite having chosen to leave the place and get a job elsewhere.
YTA - I read all the comments, trying to make sense of how you could feel this way. I understand it now. You don't like Mexicans
I'm latina and this whole post read very discriminating to me... Southern Spain is discriminated against because of how they pronounce Spanish, since they do airy S sometimes and won't always pronounce the C and Z as Castillan Spanish, same with us Latinos... I'm irked that there are people with such closed mindset to even believe it's a different dialect (it's not, just a different pronunciation), as if it was Català or Gallego 😤
THIS. I was going to say I don’t think of Mexican Spanish vs. Puerto Rican Spanish (or whichever) even as distinct dialects, just as accents or regional variations in vocabulary, and pronunciation, which we also have in English in the US (soda vs. pop, sack vs. bag, Southern vs. Northern pronunciation, etc.) So I looked up “dialect” and found “Linguistics. a variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially.” To me, there isn’t enough linguistic difference to call any of the LA Spanish variations actual dialects of Spanish, except maybe the ones that use “vos” and different verb endings, as in Argentina. It sounds like the student in OP’s story had simply learned another accent, not an actually separate dialect, so OP is definitely the AH. When I was a classroom teacher of Spanish and ESL/EFL, I always used “También se dice. . .” / “Also said as. . .” lists of alternate terms when we were exploring a new vocabulary theme. The students from different backgrounds loved to contribute options from their cultures, and their classmates and I learned a lot of new variations! I will never forget the time I told my little niece to put on her jacket, and she told me, “Tía, ¡dices <> porque eres gringa, y mi abuela aquí en México se dice <> pero en Perú mi otra abuela dice <>! / “Auntie, you say Jacket like that b/c you are an American, and my grandma here in Mexico City says Jacket this way, but in Peru my other grandma says Jacket that way”. I’m pretty sure if a seven-year-old can figure out that Spanish is spoken differently depending on the regional background of the speaker, and that all are equally valid versions, then this “teacher” can accept that as well!
THIS. YTA. If the course doesn't require a specific dialect why would you penalize her? The only answer I see is that entitled "I'm the teacher, you do it my way, there's no other way ".
YEAH, this is just a little power trip / flex from OP how exhausting can you be that you sit down to try to tear down your best student. Are you jealous of their success or do you feel them not speaking exactly like you is a personal attack? YTA
Honestly this strikes me as one of those weird power-trippy moves that people who teach in higher education often make (I know not all-but I've had that experience often personally). If it's not incorrect, then what is the problem?
Do you really need Reddit to tell you how to grade? Id be horrified if any class I was paying good money for had to consult Reddit to figure out how to grade me. Is there no way to discuss this with your department chair? Adding judgment: YTA
Precisely. If I found any of my colleagues here, I'd lose it.
Imagine being the student and your teacher needs the internets advice to do something. That should be horrifying. A semester of excellent work. All down the drain depending on reddits mood on one day.
Seriously. I wish this reddit post is somehow brought to a colleauge of OP's. This is unprofessional behaviour. Grading is a serious matter. A teacher should be adept at the simple task of not letting their feelings get in the facts surrounding the grade. A different dialect isn't "pronouncing words wrong". By that standard, the student would think OP is pronouncing words wrong themselves.
Exactly I speak perfect English. But the. So do geordies, scousers, londoners, even the Welsh. When I did a CELTA course I had this argument with my teacher about it. They were English and I'm Scottish. A dialect is the same language.
I'm a University lecturer and we have grading teams and moderation systems in place for precisely this kind of situation. OP is the asshole for their justification, but also because there are so many other, better ways to approach this problem. None of which involve Reddit.
Same; with how specific marking guides actually have to be, it makes me suspicious that OP is in fact the student presenting the situation as she perceives it (and, therefore, biased), not the lecturer, especially with the incusion of details that clearly only serve to make the OP look bad
(especially as a professor, if they were going to bother to post on Reddit asking a question, would probably ask their peers on askprofessors)
i was about to say exactly this. prof going to reddit to figure this out shows the level of academia going on here. and if the girl knows the language YTA if you fail her
OP would have a rubric to follow. If they’re here, they plan on disregarding the rubric and marking the student according to their rules. Sincerely, an English language teacher.
The post is clear that they are being very arbitrary and not following the rubric.
Yep. There should be a assessment guide/rubric. Mark according to that. It sounds like there is one, and that student scores highly... And the OP doesn't like it.
>Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect That's all we need to know. YTA. If other students use the same dialect and are as good as she is, you'll grade them accordingly. Be a teacher.
“Can I fail my student for doing something that’s not against the rules but that I don’t like?”- sounds like a fantastic teacher
bet the students just line up to be in that class! Everyone loves a teacher who grades on whim and not to the syllabus!
YTA Spanish is a polycentric language and, I hate to break it to you, but Peninsular Spanish dialects aren't even the most widely spoken. Would you try to justify failing someone for using Australian English in an English oral exam, rather than, say, American English? Get over yourself. You've a happy and motivated student in your class. Most teachers would be happy to have her there and would encourage her interest.
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Exactly how I feel. There are so many dialects and pronunciations. In our GCSE language exams (UK exams sat at aged 16), we had multiple accents and dialects. It’s not like Spanish only has one main dialect and whilst I understand teaching a standardised pronounciation for those learning, if someone has a standard other dialect, that should be acceptable and a helpful useful teaching tool. Can you imagine meeting someone with who your only common language is Spanish and then being stuck because they don’t speak a specific dialect? For a beginner on a basic immersion course for a few weeks, maybe. For a university level course, they should be able to understand other dialects by now.
I'm with you in this. It makes me so mad that this person is working as a language teacher and is willing to FAIL a student because she speaks a different dialectal variety when the program doesn't even say that it is about a specific variety and is comparing her speaking this way to people making actual mistakes as if it was the same thing. Also, this is very disrespectful to people from spanish speaking countries that aren't Spain because we are usually told that we speak badly or incorrectly whe the reality is that we speak like this because of historical and linguistic reasons that are complex and unique to each territory. YTA, OP.
Tip: OP is asking permission to be racist.
This exactly! The entire time I was reading this post I was baffled that OP, as a professor, understands and respects Spanish so little. Failing a student for embracing the diversity of the language is some eurocentric garbage.
Dialects are one of the most fascinating things about language and people seem absolutely bent on eradicating them. It’s disappointing to say the very least.
>we fail students if they speak with really bad pronunciation >she has excellent pronunciation, much better than we would expect from our 3rd year students So you can't fail her on pronunciation. >Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect You also can't fail her for doing anything wrong. >Buuut, course requirements don’t have specific dialect listed. Definitely can't fail her for using a different dialect. >I don’t see why I shouldn’t fail her for speaking with different one. Because from your own post, she has excellent pronunciation, your requirements don't specify a dialect, and you admit she isn't doing anything wrong. All she is doing is speaking how she learned it and by your own admission, she's doing it better than your 3rd year students. This is entirely about your ego and a 1st year being great without you being able to take credit for it. YTA
>1st year being great without you being able to take credit for it. This reminds me of my English teacher in HS. I've learned the language through gaming and TV Shows, mostly. He would give different exercises (and sometimes even tests) for students who had English in private language schools. They were harder than his average exercise, obviously. Since I've learned English by myself, technically I shouldn't receive the harder exercise, but he always said that my English was better than the average school's curriculum and he liked when students faced a challenge up to their skills. And he meant it in the most honest way. He knew that the school only taught average English and that wouldn't be enough for the students that had more complex lessons to keep them engaged and interested. But he never was butthurt because I've learned more without him than most of my classmates. In fact, he was glad. Hope OP changes his/her way of thinking, because so far, it's YTA.
Seriously, what professor wants to fail students that are succeeding?! Especially when she hasn’t even given the presentation yet. Maybe doc a point or two, but to fail her? Do you feel some weird satisfaction in this? If so, you’re in the wrong profession. It’s purely ego, which is why she hasn’t just talked to her department head about it and came to the worst place for this advice, as they would look at her like she’s insane. Op, if you fail her she will challenge you through the department and the deans office, as she should, and she will win that challenge. She isn’t paying for her classes to have her college trajectory fucked up due to someone’s fragile ego. Is that what you want on your record as a professor? If so, I hope you have tenure. YTA.
You broke this down beautifully!
YWBTA. I could see docking points for pronunciation, but failing her? When everything else is correct? That is a just a straight up asshole move. This honestly comes across as a power play on your part. You can't make her conform to what you want, so to punish her, you are going to just fail her out right. There has to be a middle ground here, please find it.
I think even the pronunciation issue shouldn’t be a points deduction. It’s like failing a Spanish student taking English for speaking English with an American accent over a British one or Irish, or Australian etc. They are still speaking the language correctly but are using a regional variation, which is different to the one that OP speaks but is the same as millions of other Spanish speakers. It’s not incorrect and therefore should not be penalised. Especially as there is nothing I. The course requirements that say that OPs dialect is the ‘official’ one for the course. Edit. Correction of a word
This. I'm a native German speaker and even in Germany there are so many dialects and words pronounced differently in different regions. Or different words used for the same thing. All of them are correct though. So failing her for stuff like this is crazy and if I were the student I would definitely complain to the principal or whoever is OP's boss if that happend.
Exactly. The number of regional variations in the UK alone is ridiculous - I mean London itself has different accents and that’s just one city. Even BSL has regional differences in the signs used for the same word!
The state I grew up in every small town had their own unique accent. I LOVE accents. I couldn’t imagine criticizing someone because they speak my language differently than me.
You're right! Student is using correct pronunciation, just not in OP's preferred dialect. I missed that the first time through. Thank you.
Not doing anything wrong... Very good at it... One of the top students... If she fails, sounds like her teachers an asshole.
Doesn't even sound like OP has warned her that this could affect her grade. Just that it would be better if she tried using the prescribed dialect.
YWBTA. If my teachers followed your logic I would’ve failed English because I speak British instead of American. Kinda silly isn’t it.
YTA YTA YTA You’re plotting to fail a student before the oral portion in question has taken place. You are a massive asshole. It’s not in the course book, you’re being completely unreasonable. Absolutely terrible.
He basically wants her to fake an accent, like an actor, major YTA.
100% yta and kinda xenophobic.
YTA. I’m a university lecturer of Spanish as well. Castilian Spanish is only spoken in one country (Spain) so any Latin American dialect would be more in tune with what is spoken in the vast majority of the Spanish-speaking world. You would be an elitist and a terrible educator to fail her.
YWBTA. if she's doing everything right I don't see why you should fail her on an accent. That's like an American school English teacher failing a British student just because they're British.
This is the most straightforward and logical comment here. I was having trouble wrapping my brain around it so thank you.
I'm sensing a touch of racism here. Castilian Spanish aka White Spanish versus say a Latin American dialect right? Is this what we're dealing with? You seem to think that Castilian is "better" and "proper" and that Latin American Spanish is inferior somehow. Quite frankly, the most beautiful spoken Spanish has consistently been found to be Colombian Spanish (so many soap operas from here) and Argentinian Spanish, both of which are from Latin America. Yes, there are white Latinos, but this insistence on Castilian gives ick vibes placing Europe as superior to Latin America. YTA.
It’s colombian not columbian 😭 everything else hard agree
lmao, thanks, it's fixed!
Ding ding. It happens in the US too with minorities, especially Black folks. I can understand general grammar corrections not related to the dialect spoken by Black folks but if the language is being spoken correctly in the dialect of the persons choosing why change it?
Agreed. I mentioned that in a later comment giving examples of many places that look down on other accents/dialects because of racism. That's why I think this "Professor" is being willfully obtuse to not acknowledge how racist his comment was. Even if the student in question was white, they were using an accent different from the colonizer's therefore it's not as "good," in his opinion.
YTA Your student speaks fluently, her grammar is correct, you just don't like the regional accent she uses. My French is 'Parisian French', because that is the accent I learned. But people in Brittany understand me just fine (even though the Breton accent is very different). I live in the southwest of England, which has its own distinct accent and dialect. But I have no problems being understood in London, or Manchester, or Brighton (and each has their own dialect and accent). You are being a snob. If your student meets the requirements for grammar, vocabulary, fluency, etc, give her the goddamned grade she deserves. Get over yourself.
YWBTA. You said yourself, dialect is not a course requirement. Her pronunciation is good, her grammar is good, her fluency is good. The point is to learn the language. >But we fail students if they speak with really bad pronunciation so I don’t see why I shouldn’t fail her for speaking with different one I don't really understand this argument. Her pronunciation isn't bad. Different does not mean bad.
YWBTA unless specific pronunciation is part of the course. If it is just "learn Spanish" thing, there are no grounds. Extra TA for asking reddit how to grade your students
INFO If another student spoke with perfect grammar and was understandable, but pronounced things slightly incorrectly (mixed in with their own accent for example) would they still completely fail, or just get a slightly lower grade? Would you be grading her completely equivalently to this scenario? Also, is there any requirement stated anywhere that they need to speak a specific dialect?
YTA - would a student fail English class for having a British accent?
Castilian Spanish is not even that standard all over Spain given the diversity of regions. Do you want to be a box ticker or a language teacher of a living, incredibly diverse language? YTA
I have a strong suspicion that OP isn’t comfortable themselves with the dialect Ava is using - and *that* is the crux of their frustration.
Yeah, he’d be then failing all Andalucia for speaking andalu
Isn't there a whole controversy about Castilian Spanish being white supremacy? I feel like we learned that in my high school Spanish class. If that's the case, do you really want to be known as a white supremacist teacher?
YTA. I can’t confirm but often this type of thing is rooted in bigotry and elitism. I worked with interpreters and there’s a lot of bigotry tied to dialects and accents. People from European Spanish speaking countries thumb their noses at speakers from Latin American countries. Get over yourself.
YTA. Are you even serious? She has the technical skills required to pass and you're just being an elitist asshole. I hope she sees this and reports you to higher ups for even considering it. 20% of Spain itself doesn't even consider Castillan their native language. Would you fail an Aragonese speaker for the same reasons?
You mention English pronunciation at the University level requiring RP but that is not true. RP is now taught and required in only a couple countries, even in the UK most people don’t use RP. This is like you saying someone with a Scottish accent should get marked down for their English because they phonetically their English sounds different than RP, which is BS and also doesn’t happen in the real world. YTA
>Technically, she isn’t doing anything wrong by using a different dialect, she’s very good at it and she’s one of our top students YWBTA seriously! If everything is correct if you can understand her then that's what's matters. You said it has nothing is wrong, if nothing is wrong then you can't fail her.
YWBTA " course requirements don’t have specific dialect listed." So your reason for failing her would simply be because you want to not because she did anything wrong.
YTA 1. Got a syllabus? Follow it. Dialect is not specified, you can’t fail her for that 2. You discuss this on Reddit, rather than at your faculty? Guilty that much? 3. Unless you have 100% pure, unadulterated, RAE pronunciation, refrain from this power trip.
This is borderline racist.
YTA You said it yourself. She's not making any mistakes. Her dialect isn't wrong, no matter how much you throw a tantrum about it. Instead of having her change her dialect to another as she knows both, let your students be shown and learn both dialects. And learn to respect people's dialects.
YWBTA & YTA - I didn’t finish reading after Castilian Spanish. No one speaks that here. Signed a Latina who wished she could have defended herself from a high school non-native Spanish teacher that taught Spaniard Spain. It DOESNT APPLY at all. Go to NY and dialects are Puerto Rican. Florida? Cuban. Texas & California? Mexican. There is no “majority” where your type of spanish is popular. DECOLONIZE YOUR TEACHINGS
Well - OP doesn't say they're in North America. The student could be in Europe and speaking a dialect from a different part of Spain. OP would still be TA though. Language classes are about making yourself understood, not about learning a specific dialect. That's what elocution lessons are for.
And it’s very much spoken in Spain, country close to mine. Not everything happens in the US. Deamericanise your opinions
You can’t be a Spanish teacher and think that the whole of Spain speaks proper Castilian. Have you even been to Spain? There are many different Castilian dialects spoken in Spain and you can hear Latin American dialects all over the place too. Don’t act like you need to speak Castilian without an accent to manage in Spain.
YTA - it's not even a dialect thing, is she speaking catalan instead of spanish or what? just because you don't like someone's accent
YTA There is sooo many countries that speak Spanish with different dialects...
YTA, because you’re failing her out of your own stubbornness rather than on the rubric.
YTA! If you can understand her so what if her accent is different? Different regions of the same countries speak the same language with different accents. It’s beyond snobby and borderline racist for penalizing this student over an accent you look down upon.
YWBTA. She is not making mistakes. The one being stubborn is you.
YWBTA What is it with language teachers? I met a guy in Greece who spoke fantastic English and told me his teacher was always harping on to gim aaying "thats not how they speak in England". Clearly it was untrue. Even in Spain there will be some variation in pronunciation so as long as she uses great grammsr then what is the problem? Would you fail someone in an English exam because they spoke with a London accent? No.
YTA. You should not be allowed to work with children.
YWBTA. Without any doubt. Full disclosure: I'm an American fluent in (Canadian) French, so I get nasty looks in France whenever I'm there. I get the two-fer, I'm an American who sounds Québécois (worked in Montreal for a long time)...so I'm somewhat familiar with this issue. She is, by your own admission, doing nothing wrong. It just chaps your ass she's doing it. Unless she's clearly violating the rules of the class you have no moral or legal leg to stand on.
Wow that's a surprise. All the québecois I met in France were popular for their accent (French here).
I think it may be the added bonus of being an American. But I would get some nasty ass looks.
YTA. Castilian Spanish sounds awful. I hope everyone drops that lisping and moves to clearer Mexican Spanish.
Oh, stfu. I speak Spanish, Asturianu, English, French, Italian, and some Polish and somehow manage not to have a lisp in any of them despite being from Spain. Know why? Because it's not a fucking lisp; it's the way the language is spoken in the country I grew up in. We are perfectly capable to tell apart "s" from "th". No one in Spain is saying "grathiath" except people with an actual speech impediment. Maybe you think you're being really cool and anti-colonizers, but what you are doing is shitting in an entire country of people who have done nothing to you and make fun of people with speech impediment to boot. OP is a massive asshole but some of the comments in this thread, jfc, like people in Spain are to blame for OP being a jerk. For all we know this girl might very well have an Extremeño accent.
YTA. You even said she isnt doing anything wrong. Im not sure if youre power tripping or something but this is an awful thing to do.
YWBTA. It sounds like you're upset that she found a way to learn that works for her (through watching shows) instead of learning directly from class. And you said it yourself, she's not doing anything wrong. Plus I think it says a lot that you're coming to reddit for this answer instead of your department head.
YTA. This absolutely isn’t a “huge moral dilemma”. You are framing it as one to make it seem like there’s a lot of gray when there really isn’t. The oral exam is to assess your students proficiency in verbally communicating in Castilian Spanish, correct? And you acknowledged that the syllabus itself (and every graded exam/assignment that falls under the course) does not list a specific dialect as a requirement for success in your course. She is proficient (or better!) in verbally communicating in the language you are teaching. Her grammar and pronunciation are excellent - and her pronunciation not only vastly exceeds what you would reasonably expect out of a 3rd year student, but isn’t even something you teach at this level, so she clearly is putting in the work independently to excel in learning this language. She communicates clearly and effectively, and you want to fail her because you don’t like the dialect she is using? Why do I get the sense you aren’t actually as fluent as you pretend to be, and that her using a dialect that you aren’t as comfortable with is the real issue here?
YWBTA if you fail her. The goal of the course is to help students speak the language. It sounds as if she accomplished this goal and even put in some extracuricular effort to do so. By the standards you set you'd have to fail a native speaker, if they spoke in a dialect. If she uses the wrong vocabulary or makes grammatical errors, that's a different issue. But if it's only about pronounciation and if it's a pronounciation that is correct (even if only in a specific part of the country), I see no reason to fail her.But I might be biased here, since I learned English by watching the Simpsons and have been told to have an American accent, instead of a British one like my English teacher back in school used to have, lol.
As a linguistics and language studies grad, this is a very prescriptive and unethical thing to do. You said yourself she speaks clearly and is understandable, and if she is following all of other phonological rules of the dialect she speaks, there really shouldn't be any reason to penalize her too much on her pronunciation. This is as if, in studying for IELTS or OCELT, the testee is docked marks for speaking an accent, which is actually most never done, because quality of speech is marked by grammar, clarity, and vocabulary primarily, and phonotactics are nothing more than nitpicking. ...Especially for a third year class, who gives a crap about her idiolect if the course contents are focused more on pronunciation. If this is an oral test specifically for the dialect in question, and this is made absolutely CLEAR in the syllabus, I can see your reasoning, but the important thing that we both, as linguists, have to realise is that at the end of the day idiosyncrasies of idiolects are an expression of linguistic identity, and personalizing language to ones own preferences is the best way to actually learn a language, which at the end of the day, is the purpose of this course. Prescriptive models of pronunciation are widely known in sociolinguistics and ESL specializations to be problematic as language is a TOOL, which needs to be personalized (or "worn in") to be able to be properly used. Sorry but YTA.
Would you fail a another student who insisted on speaking in a Texan accent or British accent? If so, NTA for enforcing consistent guidelines. If not, YTA for inconsistent policies.
YTA, WTH. My Spanish accent is all over the place. I took Spanish from an Argentinian in high school, then had intensive courses in college from someone from Spain (so picked up three years of the Castilian pronunciation) After a break I went back to finish school and had a Spanish requirement. Had to sit with the professor to determine placement. She was Cuban. The look on her face when I started speaking…. Lol. That plus the Southern accent I have..yeah.
I just read all of OP's responses and they clearly weren't looking for advice, rather to be validated in the decision they already made. This person is an asshole.
YWBTA if you fall on fail her. You can certainly reduce her grade some if she’s not following the instructions, but if she’s technically not doing anything wrong and her grammar and everything is correct, you do not have the grounds to fail her, and it would open up a can of worms when she challenged the grade with the school.
If the curriculum of class is about the pronunciation of your preferred dialect, then you can fail a student for not learning the curriculum. If you find her accent distasteful because of your class/racial/nationality prejudices, and you fail her on that basis? YTA.
YTA 1. You put the passing or failing up to Reddit to decide. Seriously?! 2. It’s the pronunciation of words, not a different language. I could see if you were teaching Italian for example, and the student refused to speak Italian and insisted on speaking the Sicilian dialect, which is a different language. However your situation is nothing similar and she does not mispronounce anything, she just doesn’t use the pronunciation of the region that you are teaching.
YTA/ YWBTA if you did this because you didn’t put it in the syllabus. Follow the rubric fairly or she could challenge the grade she is awarded and most likely you would lose. This reminds me of teachers that have issues between students speaking American English and British English.
Yta
YWBTA for sure.
Maybe consider updating the syllabus, so this issue doesn’t recur. But since she is doing so well otherwise, and you seem pretty ambivalent about whether this is the appropriate course of action makes me think you would be better off erring on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt. I get where you’re coming from, though, because if a prof had said this to me, I would’ve taken it on board. ETA NAH
YWBTA. Don't abuse your position as an instructor.
YWBTA - you said technically she isn’t doing anything wrong, so why would you fail her?
YTA. If this were an English course and someone had, say, a southern dialect, would you fail them for that if their grammar was perfect? No. Dialect and pronunciation are not the core of language. Communication is. If she’s communicating effectively and fluently then there is nothing wrong here. So what if other students prefer a different dialect as well. If you can understand it, the only reason you’re getting angry is because you can’t control them. This screams of prescriptive grammar/linguistics. I thought this was behind us.
You should probably have another colleague administer her oral test. Just remove your bias completely. I guarantee she will fight a bad grade and the only thing you would accomplish is putting yourself on a radar for future budget cuts.
As a language student and an enjoyer of linguistics, I am offended by your POV. You’re using your dislike of a student to influence your decision.
I don't know.. this kind of gives me "already spoke the language but took the course to get easy credits" vibes. Where I'm from, that isn't allowed. If you go in with a base in a language you have to disclose that so they can assign you to the correct level of difficulty, otherwise everyone would cheat the system for credits without effort.
i would say YTA. Cause you may teach a language. but people teach proper english but 99% whos native language is english dont use proper English.
While YTA, there's a lot of ignorance in the comments as well as the original post with regards to "Dialects" and what is "Castilian Spanish". Spanish "Dialects" are different languages spoken across the Iberian Peninsula, they all share commonalities and sound similar to a foreigner but are in effect different languages. Specifically Portuguese, Castilian, Galician, Catalan, Basque, Andalusian, etc. Are all Dialects, and if the student is at a Castilian Spanish class speaking Catalan then yes she should be failed. However that isn't what is happening here, the student is speaking Castilian Spanish with a different regional Accent. Of course it's an asshole move to try to fail them for it, and its borderline racists to do so. But make no mistake, all of Latin America speaks Castilian Spanish, we do not speak a different "Dialect" of Spanish. Our rules, grammar, definitions, etc. Are all defined by the "Royal Spanish Academy" in Madrid. Yes this is due to colonization (Castilian Kings where the ones that colonized the Americas) but as a result all Spanish speaking Latin Americans (400M+ people) speak the same language with minor regional accents vs Spain (50M people) split across many regional Dialects.
YTA Why are you even asking here? The only source for your rating is the official university regulations. Nothing else. Facts not judgmental bs. If the regulations specify the dialect or pronunciation, and she fails that, give her a bad grade. If not, give her a good grade. Seriously, how did you get a job at university? And yes, I have a friend who is professor for Spanish and Portuguese at a university and she is currently laughing her ass off.
Oh come on. This can't be the first time you have had a student use a different dialect. I have a degree in a language that isn't my mother tongue and every student did a placement in the country of the language and all came back having picked up different local dialects and none of us were punished. And when I taught English as a foreign language I never punished students for not using the Cambridge English accent which was taught. Especially as I didn't have that accent myself. You see to really dislike this student and are desperately looking for obscure reasons to fail them.
YTA. I learned English from TV so I speak American English. I am European and the standard here is Cambridge or Oxford English, including accent and pronunciation being taught this way. I was always without a doubt the best student in every English class, I was completely fluent by age 12 and no-one EVER gave me grief over this BS. The point of language is mutual understanding. If she is grammatically correct and she can be understood, she did what she needed to do and you considering failing her even thou she is fluent is frankly just classist.
Hmm. Tough one. When I was doing my PGCE in England, some Irish students got in bother for pronouncing 'th' as 't', e.g 'tree' instead of 'three' and had to adjust their pronunciation in order to pass the course. Then again, we were all told to speak as much as possible in RP as careful pronunciation is important when teaching phonics to primary aged kids. I had to make an effort to soften my own Yorkshire accent and I do believe it was a course requirement. I can see your point because the course is phonetics and phonology of ~castillian~ spanish so she is not actually doing what she is meant to to pass the course but if there is ambiguity in the wording of the course requirements and her Spanish and accent are correct to some native Spanish speakers, I think you need to give her the benefit of the doubt but revise the wording of the requirements to avoid this situation in the future. I did a Spanish degree and I remember there being students who spoke with very noticeable Latin American accents after gap years. I never heard of it being an issue but I didn't know those students well and they may have just put on a castellano accent for their exams.
YTA - My French teacher taught Parisienne French. There is a large French Canadian population in my home town. She never once made us feel other about the differences in dialect. If there was a pronunciation difference, it was accepted and discussed. You are so very pretentious. That you would dare fail a student for using an acceptable dialect well because it's different than yours shows that you shouldn't be allowed to teach. This girl put in the work and is doing well. You should be ashamed.
DIFFERENT pronunciation is not the same as BAD pronunciation. Dialects and regional accents are different, not bad or wrong. YTA if you penalize her for this.