SLOVENLY SPEECH

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1939, Page 14

SLOVENLY SPEECH

RADIO SERIALS BLAMED. New South Wales school inspectors attribute the deliberate dropping of “h’s” and “g’s” by many school children to the influence of radio serialsIn the current issue of the “Education Gazette,” Avhich is published with the authority of the Minister of Education (Mr Drummond), Avide reading is advocated as a corrective. Inspectors believe that the school children’s reading should be Avide not only for enjoyment but also to enlarge vocabulary, develop power of expression, and acquire information. One inspector protested that children were being taught to place a too rigid reliance on the phonetic method. “Surely an education crime has been committed.” he says, “when the energies of infants, are so exhausted by drill in signs, that they find no enjoyment in easy, interesting reading Avhich makes a spontaneous appeal to the average child.” “An insidious enemy of correct speech” the inspectors say, “is the alleged Australian speech of some of the radio serials. It is not uncommon to hear children in the playground purposely dropping the aspirates and carefully dropping the final ‘g’ in such Avords as ‘coming’ and ‘going.’ The effect of this potential educational agency—wireless—is directly responsible for more bad speech than even the pictures.”